MP6 2.0

Heya! It’s been again over a month since the last MP6 release and this version comes with some new goodness.

General

As usual, we made some UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. improvements and fixed a few bugs. Shadows are now fewer and consistent, buttons are flatter, font sizes are more consistent, metaboxes are simpler and lighter and a couple of other improvements. You can see the full changelog here →

Icons

We decided on recommendations for custom icons in plugins/themes, you can read more about this and have a look at some examples are in this GitHub repository. Be default MP6 does now hide all images in admin menu item and replaces them with a generic default icon.

Method C, using a SVG as CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. background image, works thanks to the new JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. SVG painter, which re-colors base64 encoded SVGs on the fly. It might not catch all SVG color markup right away, if that’s the case, please post a link your SVG file in the comments.

Color Schemes

We bundled this release with 4 additional admin color schemes. You can choose them under “Your Profile”. There are probably more color schemes to come.

MP6 color schemes as made with SASS, because LESS didn’t handle default variable values. A color scheme can be as simple as this, or it could define a few extra colors for better readability. If you’re making your own color scheme, make sure you include MP6’s core color scheme file.

Another Note

If you want to check if MP6 is activated, use the MP6 PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. constant. In CSS use mp6 body class, not admin-color-mp6, I’m looking at you Jetpack.

MP6 2.0 includes contributions from Joen Asmussen, Mel Choyce, Ben Dunkle, Kelly Dwan and myself.

And as always, thanks to those of you who tested, reported bugs and contributed ideas and suggestions! Keep them coming!

The next weekly open meeting in #wordpress-ui will be Monday, September 2 at 18:00 UTC.

#icons, #mp6, #svn

Discussing Genericons and Dashicons with Ipstenu and George…

Discussing Genericons and Dashicons with Ipstenu and George Stephanis at WCSF 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/., and wanted to bring this up for more discussion.

See also #24864.

Proposal: could we merge the two icon sets and have it be included in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.?

A few things to consider:

  • We’d have only one icon source to update.
  • There’s already enough overlap. (But, would Genericons users want the extra icons?)
  • Bundling in core will mean fewer themes and plugins needing to maintaining their own version.
  • Would this bottleneck maintaining the icon source over time? If it’s tied to core development cycle it’d be slower to iterate.

#dashicons, #genericons, #icons

Hello all We’re here with the final regularly…

Hello all! We’re here with the final regularly scheduled weekly installment of MP6, version 1.5. As we’re beginning to wrap up our visual redesign, we’ll continue to release updates to MP6 when necessary, but will no longer be announcing them every Friday. We’ll miss you guys. 🙂

New this week:

  • We’ve begun merging colors-mp6.css and wp-admin.css. This is just about done, but we need to do a bit more testing before we flip the switch and use the new CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. files for everyone. When we’re done, this will allow for much cleaner future potential patches/merges into CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
  • Load Open Sans on the login screen.
  • RTL: Fix comment bubble tail and positions, view switch margins.

This week includes contributions from Michael Erlewine (mitcho), Till Krüss, and myself.

You can continue leaving comments here with feedback for us. And we’ll issue new posts when there’s something big new for you guys to take a look at (we’re already noodling on some larger core design issues we’re looking forward to sharing with you). As always, thanks for all your helpful feedback in advance.

#icons, #mp6, #plugins, #svg

Happy Friday everybody Here’s what’s new in MP6…

Happy Friday, everybody. Here’s what’s new in MP6 this week. It was a short week for most of us, so we’ll keep the post similarly short.

  • Mobile: You can swipe right and left to open and close the menubar now, in addition to tapping the “hamburger” button in the top left.
  • Mobile: Implemented a fix for dropdowns not displaying full width; props to deanjrobinson for his advice here.
  • Mobile: Better treatment for post revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision..
  • Mobile: Fixed multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. theme list.
  • Mobile: Align theme/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 list checkboxes.
  • Mobile: Align theme/plugin list titles.
  • Mobile: Fixed frontend admin-bar.
  • Renamed toolbar.css to admin-bar.css for uniformity with coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
  • Added a changelog link to readme.txt.
  • Changed the minimum required WP version to 3.5, so 3.5 users will get update notifications for MP6.

This week’s iteration includes work by Joen Asmussen, Till Krüss, and myself.

If you missed it yesterday, be sure to check out our roundup of potential implementation recommendations for plugin authors who need to add a custom icon to the top-level menu. We appreciate any feedback you’ve got for us, so we can codify our recommendations for developers who’d like to add MP6-style icons to their plugins.

We’ll be back next Monday with office hours in #wordpress-ui on IRC, for anyone who would like to discuss their feedback with us. You’ll find us there 1800 UTC on June 3.

#icons, #mp6, #plugins, #svg

The MP6 team has been working on recommendations…

The MP6 team has been working on recommendations for plugin authors who add a top-level icon to the dashboard’s main menu. We’ve investigated a number of options, all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. In this post, I’d like to share the options we’ve considered in the hopes of generating a larger discussion about what would be the best possible solution for WordPress and for plugin authors. An example of the two SVG methods is available at http://codepen.io/joen/pen/otdkK.


Method A: CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site.-colored SVG icon

This method uses SVG (vector, infinitely scaleable) icons that are embedded inline in the 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.. Using this method, the icon is able to inherit the color of the admin and change depending on customizations chosen by the user (a high-contrast admin theme for vision-impaired users, for example).

Pros
  • Clean, retina, and infinitely zoomable.
  • Only a single icon file needs to be created, no need for 2x versions or separate hover/active states.
  • With colors being controlled by the admin CSS, they will always match the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. set of icons, as well as any further customizations made by the user.
Cons
  • SVGs won’t render in IE8 and below. A number of possible solutions are discussed below.
  • For the CSS coloring to work, the SVG markup has to be cleaned up either manually or via an optimizer, adding some overhead to the creation.
  • The actual SVG markup has to be inline in the HTML. Hard to cache, requires core changes, potential security concerns.

Method B: CSS background-image SVG icon

This method also uses SVG icons for infinite scalability, but is applied via the CSS background-image property. Using this method, colors must be selected by the 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 author, and a separate file must be created for each color.

Pros
  • Clean, retina, and infinitely zoomable.
  • No security concerns (that we are aware of) with SVGs when used as background images.
  • No WordPress core changes are necessary.
  • SVG files can be used directly from Illustrator, no editing of the SVG necessary.
Cons
  • SVGs won’t render in IE8 and below. A number of possible solutions are discussed below.
  • Multiple files must be created for normal, hover, and active states.
  • With colors being controlled by the plugin author, they won’t match any customizations the user has made (a high-contrast admin theme for vision-impaired users, for example). Plugin authors must be mindful to use the colors recommended in the MP6 style guide (and creative plugin authors could use any colors, gradients, or styles they want).

Method C: PNG icons (the “no-build option”)

Alternatively, plugin authors could specify new MP6-style icons in the PNG format, using the same technique they use currently.

Pros
  • Universal browser support.
  • No WordPress core changes are necessary.
  • No security concerns with PNG.
Cons
  • Multiple files must be created for normal, hover, and active states.
  • Two sets of icons must be created in both 1x and 2x versions for retina displays (and more, when higher-than-2x displays appear).
  • With colors being controlled by the plugin author, they won’t match any customizations the user has made (a high-contrast admin theme for vision-impaired users, for example). Plugin authors must be mindful to use the colors recommended in the MP6 style guide (and creative plugin authors could use any colors, gradients, or styles they want).

SVG Browser Support

Internet Explorer 8 and below have no native support for SVG files. Icons in the SVG format will not display in IE8 and below as a result.

  • Modernizr’s .no-svg class could be used to specify PNG fallbacks.
  • A number of polyfills attempt to add SVG support to these browsers (we haven’t tried them).
  • We could adopt a Google Apps-style browser support policy for MP6, supporting the current and previous major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality. of each browser. This would drop IE8, but make room for the many new clients we’re supporting: mobile versions of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and IE; and the Android and Blackberry browsers. We don’t know what IE8 usage is like among WP users, though.

Conclusions

Method A, inline SVG, is the best option from the designer’s viewpoint — plugin authors include a single icon and all styling is provided automatically. MP6 makes dashboard customizations like a high-contrast admin theme for visually impaired users much simpler than the current admin design — and method A makes styling plugin icons as easy as the core set of dashicons. However, the technical hurdles and possible security concerns could be significant and we need more input on whether this method is practical.

Method B would be the next-best option — it would provide the primary benefit of using SVG icons (infinite scalability) without requiring changes to core. It would be significantly more difficult (though not impossible) for plugin icons to reflect user customizations, but would still require less manual work than creating separate sets of 1x and 2x PNG (method C).

We’re interested in any thoughts that you may have, especially if you’ve worked with SVG before and can offer insight on how we could implement method A successfully. If you know of any reason why any of these absolutely won’t work, feel free to rain on our parade. 🙂

#icons, #mp6, #plugins, #svg