Author Archives: Ian Dunn

Ian Dunn 12:00 am on October 27, 2020
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WordCamp.org URL Migration Complete

Background

Earlier this year, @jonoaldersonwp and @joostdevalk highlighted some significant SEO problems with WordCamp.org, and proposed changing the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org structure to help fix them.

After discussion, the team decided to change the existing structure of year.city.wordcamp.org to city.wordcamp.org/year.

Status

All sites have now been migrated to the new structure. I’m not aware of any significant problems on past or current sites, but if you notice any please let me know.

Next Steps

We’ll need to wait a few months, in order for search engines to update their indexes. After that, we can measure the discoverability of WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. sites again, to see what problems remain, and how severe they are. Based on that, we can re-evaluate potential solutions for the remaining problems.

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please leave a comment below.

#wordcamp-org

Ian Dunn 6:53 pm on May 22, 2020
Tags: beta, , ,   

Schedule Block Available for Beta Testing

The Schedule block is now available for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. testing on WordCamp.org. It will replaces the [schedule] shortcode, as a way to automatically generate a front end schedule based on the Sessions custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept..

Kudos to @mrwweb for building an innovative prototype, @melchoyce for the design, and everyone who helped refine the ideas in previous discussions.

Screenshot of the Schedule block

Please leave comment below if you’d like to help with beta testing.

If you’re not currently planning a camp, you can use one of your older sites, or ask for access to a test site.

The new blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. doesn’t currently support the personalized schedule feature that the shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site. has, but that will be incorporated before the block is enabled for all sites.

Testing Details

  1. Leave a comment below, and include the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org of a past- or present- WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. that you helped organize. I’ll enable the block for that site.
  2. Edit the Session posts and update the duration field, if needed. If you skip this step, you’ll probably see a lot of warnings while using the block.
  3. Draft or publish a new page, and add the block to it. Please share a link to this page in the comments, so myself and everyone can see the results.
  4. Play around with the various options, and keep an eye out for bugs, missing features, pain points, etc. I’m especially interested to see if anyone runs into problems applying custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. to it, and any tweaks that would make that easier.
  5. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment below, or open an issue on GitHub.

Thanks!

+make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress.

#beta, #blocks, #schedule, #wordcamp-org

Ian Dunn 11:01 pm on April 2, 2020
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X-post: Showing Online WordCamps in the Events Widget

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/core: Showing Online WordCamps in the Events Widget

Ian Dunn 4:34 pm on October 10, 2019
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X-post: Next WordCamp.org ticket scrub on October 17th, 2019

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/meta: Next WordCamp.org ticket scrub on October 17th, 2019

Ian Dunn 12:03 am on July 16, 2019
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X-post: WordCamp.org Dev Update: June 18 – July 15, 2019

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/meta: WordCamp.org Dev Update: June 18 – July 15, 2019

Ian Dunn 2:36 pm on July 10, 2019
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X-post: Next WordCamp.org ticket scrub on July 18th, 2019

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/meta: Next WordCamp.org ticket scrub on July 18th, 2019

Ian Dunn 5:02 pm on December 27, 2018
Tags: gutenberg,   

WordCamp.org 5.0 Upgrade

WordCamp.org hasn’t been upgraded to 5.0 yet, because @coreymckrill and I were busy with WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US and the WP 5.0.1 release. Now that those are done, we’ve had time to plan and test the upgrade, and everything is working well in our development environments.

Given that, I’d like to deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. the upgrade to the production server on Tuesday, January 1st. Things will essentially remain the same as they are today, where users are able to choose between the BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. and Classic editors.

The specific changes are:

  • The Classic Editor 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 will be enabled. The Block Editor will be the default for most post types, but Classic will be available for all types. Users will be able to choose which editor they’d like to use. Site admins can override those if they’d like, though.
Settings for the Classic Editor plugin (under General > Writing)
  • The GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ plugin will be deactivated. Once the Phase 2 changes have matured to the point where they’re ready for testing on production sites, then we can discuss re-enabling it (similar to the discussion we had for Phase 1).
  • The Block Editor will be available for some of our custom post types, like Speakers, Sessions, and Organizers.

Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or concerns.

#gutenberg, #wordcamp-org

Ian Dunn 11:51 pm on October 17, 2018
Tags: ,   

X-post: WordCamp Bug Scrub – October 24th

X-post from +make.wordpress.org/meta: WordCamp Bug Scrub – October 24th

Ian Dunn 5:58 pm on December 7, 2017  

Should we change the default WordCamp theme to CampSite 2017?

TL;DR: Would CampSite 2017 be a better default theme than TwentyThirteen? It offers a more recent version of _s, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) improvements, and more customization options, but it may not be as easy to use for smaller organizing teams.

Background

Currently, when a new WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. site gets created, the TwentyThirteen theme is activated by default.

Earlier in the year, a team of contributors developed a new theme for all camps, called CampSite 2017. It’s based on the latest version of the _s theme, and includes some accessibility and customization improvements.

Feedback during the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. testing period was positive, and the theme has been available to all camps for several months now. So far, 9 camps have chosen to use it: Europe 2018, Jyväskylä 2018, London 2018, Europe 2017, Cologne 2017, Stockholm 2017, Phoenix 2017, Kuala Lumpur 2017, Zagreb 2017.

Recently, @sonjaleix suggested that it could become the new default theme, replacing TwentyThirteen, so I’d like to gather input from everyone about that. Since CampSite 2017 is a blank “starter” theme, we would also add some default styles to the Custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. section of 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., so that teams without a designer don’t need to build them from scratch if they don’t want to.

Pros and Cons

These are the benefits and drawbacks, as far as I can tell, but please leave a comment if you see anything I missed:

Pros

  • It’s based on a recent version of the _s theme, which has hundreds of enhancements compared to the version available in the `WordCamp Base` and `WordCamp Base Redux` themes.
  • Includes the accessible menu improvements from the TwentySeventeen theme
  • Adds a ton of 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. areas, to make it layout customization much more flexible
  • A “Day Of” template, so that on the day of the event, the site’s home page can easily contain the most useful information for attendees (like directions to the venue, the Code of ConductCode of Conduct “A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party.” - Wikipedia, the schedule for that day, the Tagregator stream, etc)

Cons

  • It’s a bit more geared towards the needs of a large camp with experienced designers/developers on the organizing team. In particular:
  • The number of widget areas is great for customization, but could be frustrating to manage for camps that only want a very simple layout
  • It’s a blank “starter” theme, which could confuse some organizers. This would be mitigated by having the default styles that Sonja mentioned in the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. ticket, but there may be some edge cases or particular workflows that aren’t covered.

Your thoughts

What do you think? Would CampSite 2017 be a better choice for the default theme than TwentyThirteen (or one of the other available themes)?

cc @kau-boy, @coreymckrill

Ian Dunn 5:00 pm on October 25, 2017
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X-post: Recap of WordCamp.org ticket scrub on October 24th

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/meta: Comment on Recap of WordCamp.org ticket scrub on October 24th