Recap of October 6, 2015 Meeting

Slack Log  (Requires SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

  1. Welcome
  2. Time Zones – Our team meetings will continue to be 17:00UTC when daylight savings time happens in the US and Europe and anywhere else. Our team site now displays the next meeting time in the sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. in a way that is now localized to the time zone you are in. YAY!
  3. Recap of last meeting
  4. Slides – We are still working toward what needs to be done before WCUS to submit our official request for slides, and what/how they are created, etc. Please comment on our P2 post! We had a little impromptu discussion on slides and what kinds of comments we’re looking for to propel our conversation forward at WCUS. We talked a little about the PDF option specifically and had the following questions/thoughts:
    1. Is there a workflow that we could use that would result in PDF only slides that would be able to be created by and edited by anyone, regardless of whether or not they have licenses for proprietary software?
    2. One of the concerns with PDF is that it can’t be edited. Perhaps if we go with a slide pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (that makes the slides HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. of some sort) is that it has an “export as PDF” option. That way if something is updated in the lesson plan, then the PDF will be updated when the presenter exports one as needed.
    3. A possible existing plugin to explore in terms of capabilities: https://wordpress.org/plugins/html5-slideshow-presentations/
  5. Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. calendar
    1. We now have a calendar of upcoming contributor days. Thanks to @judylwh for getting this populated!
  6. Lesson plan updates
    1. The customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. user plan is up for grabs if anyone would like to work on it.
    2. @meaganhanes will take on the What Can You Do with WordPress plan.
  7. Testing updates
    1. The Pittsburgh meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. is testing the Anatomy of a Theme plan tomorrow
    2. We received feedback from the Intro to CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. plan that was also tested at the Pittsburgh meetup
    3. @bethsoderberg will make a list of plans that have been tested and will post something to the P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. requesting all existing slide decks from people who have tested plans. We’ll use what we gather to inform our slides conversation.
  8. Location of Documentation
    1. What are the pain points with the current structure of where data is located on make.wordpress.org/training?
      1. We are not easily able to find our stuff or know what stuff there is to find. – @juliekuehl
      2. Our main navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. contains some of this stuff… but doesn’t include what we’ve started to come up with for other things… like our new procedure for audits and contributor days. – @courtneyengle
    2. What needs do we have in terms of organizing documents and collateral for the training team?
      1. We need to be able to find our stuff efficiently. – @juliekuehl
      2. If EVERYONE else is using the [handbook to store documentation], we should too. – @mikemueller
      3. WordPress TV’s is an example of a handbook that we all love: it is accessible, organized, etc. – @courtneyengle, @mikemueller, @meaganhanes
      4. We need to dig back into the archives and also consider what belongs in the handbook, and then think about where to store the pages that contain lesson plans. – @courtneyengle
  9. We started talking about how to move forward with reviewing plans to make everything up to date per our larger conversation on ensuring accurate lesson plans. We ran out of time and will loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. back to this next week.

#contributor-days, #procedures, #slides, #testing