Call for Testing: Customizer Menus

First, thank you so much if you help out by taking the time to test new features!

Customize > Menus will be one of the new features in WordPress 4.3. It is being added in addition to the Appearance > Menus page and the Appearance > Menus page will not be changed as part of the new feature.

How to Setup for Testing

  1. Always backup first or test on a site that was made for testing (see warnings below).
  2. Go to Plugins > Add New and search for “WordPress 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. Tester”
  3. Click the “Install Now” button for the WordPress Beta Tester 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
  4. Go to Tools > Beta Testing
  5. Select the “Bleeding edgebleeding edge The latest revision of the software, generally in development and often unstable. Also known as trunk. nightlies” option
  6. Click the “Save Changes” button
  7. Go to Dashboard > Updates
  8. Click the “Update Now” button

You should see the a message similar to this in the footer in wp-adminadmin (and super admin) pages:
“You are using a development version (4.3-alpha-123456).”

Warning!

  • Do not use the WordPress Beta Tester plugin with a production siteProduction Site A production site is a live site online meant to be viewed by your visitors, as opposed to a site that is staged for development or testing..
  • To test locally on your computer, install a local server, and then install WordPress.

How to Test 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. Menus

Test creating menus including adding, removing, and editing menus. You may just poke around and test on your own to see if you can find any bugs, or you can use the following checklist as a guide:

Before you begin:

Sample testing checklist (time estimate: ~20 minutes for new users):

  1. Make sure you have installed the latest nightly WordPress release (see setup steps above).
  2. Go to Appearance > Customize and then click on Menus.
  3. Add a new menu named “Main Menu.”
  4. Add all of the pages already saved on the site to the menu.
  5. Save the changes you’ve made so far, exit the Customizer, then navigate back to the menu you just created in the previous step.
  6. Set the “Main Menu” as the primary menu so it shows in the live preview.
  7. Reverse the order of the menu items.
  8. Add the “Travel” categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. to the menu.
  9. Move “Travel” so it is a child of the first item in the list.
  10. Add a link to Twitter and make it a submenu item next to Travel.
  11. Move Travel and Twitter from the first item so they are submenu items under the About page. Save changes.
  12. Create a new menu for social media with at least one social media link in it and find a way to make it show up in the live preview on the right.
  13. There is a way to use advanced menu settings to enable descriptions for menu items. Try to find it and add a description for the “About” page.

Other testing ideas:

  1. Test using a very large menu with a lot of items. (Also see #32769.)
  2. Test using a menu that is 10 levels deep.
  3. Test with various themes and other types of menus.
  4. Comment on this post with any other testing ideas!

If you want to dig in deeper and get involved with usability testing with others, that would be so cool! Please comment on this post or in the #core-customize Slack channel if you’re interested in doing more.

What to Look For

Look for blockers! A blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. is a very bad bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. that blocks people from using the feature. At this stage, the biggest problems are the top priority and you should look for those first and foremost. Be aware of the known issues (see below).

If you do find a bug, report it in Trac or ask about it in the #core-customize Slack channel.

Known Issues

Here are a few key issues still being worked on:

/cc @jimmysmutek @lisaleague @kevinwhoffman @dinamiko
(because you expressed interest in helping with testing somewhere along the way) 🙂

#call-for-testing, #customize, #menus, #needs-testing