Monthly Archives: October 2015

Andrea Fercia 8:14 pm on October 28, 2015
Tags: , , , example-flow, user-anecdote, visual-comparison   

Headings hierarchy changes in the admin screens

For a number of years, the headings hierarchy in the adminadmin (and super admin) screens have been setup without careful thought. WordPress 4.4 aims to fix this. This work is mainly focused on helping those users of assistive technologies such as screen readers, and is a continuation of the work started in 4.3 on restoring the H1 (heading level 1) to the admin screens.

If you’re a 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 or theme author and you’re providing custom admin screens for settings, etc., there are a few things you should check and update.

Why it matters

Headings provide document structure, which can directly aid keyboard navigation. Users of assistive technologies use headings as the predominant mechanism for finding page information. When heading levels are skipped, it’s more likely for these users to be confused or experience difficulty navigating pages.

Putting it simply, one of the first things screen reader users do in a web page to find relevant content is to press the 1 key on their keyboard to jump to the first <h1> heading and then they will try the key 2 to find the <h2> headings and so on. Thus, it’s extremely important for WordPress to provide a correct headings hierarchy, ensuring no headings levels are skipped.

How to fix your Plugin or Theme

Restructure the document headings hierarchy to ensure that heading levels are not skipped. The main heading should be a <h1> and any subsequent headings should (likely) be bumped one level up. There should be no skipped levels. Check your headings in the Admin, for example in settings pages, list tables, screen options, (dashboard) widgets, and 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. boxes.

See for example the screenshot below, the first heading (Sharing Settings) should be a <h1> followed by a <h2> for Sharing Buttons.

main h1 heading example

Your plugin screens should start with a H1!

List Table headings

List tables (such as on wp-admin/edit.php ) have now additional headings added, though you won’t see them. These headings are hidden with the .screen-reader-text CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. class and are intended to allow users to jump to the relevant sections in these screens.

For more in-depth information on using the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. .screen-reader-text class, the 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)Accessibility 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) team has a great write-up on it.

The screenshot below illustrates the new headings in the Posts and Categories screens.

In the screen wp-admin/edit.php the heading structure is now:

  • H1: Posts
  • H2: Filter posts list (visually hidden)
  • H2: Posts list navigation (visually hidden)
  • H2: Posts list (visually hidden)

In the screen wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=category the heading structure is now:

  • H1: Categories
  • H2: Categories list navigation (visually hidden)
  • H2: Categories list (visually hidden)
  • H2: Add new category
hidden headings for default posts and taxonomies lists

The hidden headings in the default posts and taxonomies lists.

If your plugin or theme provides custom post types or custom taxonomies, these new headings will use their default values “Post” and Category”:

hidden headings for custom posts and taxonomies lists

The hidden headings in the custom posts and taxonomies lists.

New post type and taxonomy labels in 4.4

In order to provide for better heading text, some new labels have been added for use with register_post_type() and register_taxonomy().

For register_post_type():

'filter_items_list'     => __( 'Filter your-cpt-name list', 'your-plugin-text-domain' ),
'items_list_navigation' => __( 'Your-cpt-name list navigation', 'your-plugin-text-domain' ),
'items_list'            => __( 'Your-cpt-name list', 'your-plugin-text-domain' ),

For register_taxonomy():

'items_list_navigation' => __( 'Your-tax-name list navigation', 'your-plugin-text-domain' ),
'items_list'            => __( 'Your-tax-name list', 'your-plugin-text-domain' ),

Here’s an example for a custom post type:

custom posts list with proper headings

Using the new labels to provide proper headings for a custom post.

Screen Options tab changes

Some plugins add custom options in the Screen Options tab. Previously, a h5 heading was used for the options “title”. In WordPress 4.4, the Screen Options tab has been revamped and together with other changes, it has been decided to remove the h5 heading which didn’t allow for a good headings hierarchy.

Each group of options is now within its own form fieldset and uses a legend element as “title”. You’re strongly encouraged to change the HTML you use for your plugin options and use the new markup.

the new Screen Options tab

The new Screen Options tab: each option is in a separate fieldset.

Dashboard widgets and meta boxes changes

All Dashboard widgets and meta boxes headings changed from an H3 to an H2.

<h2 class="hndle ui-sortable-handle">
	<span>your-widget-title</span>
</h2>

If you are a theme or plugin developer: please check the heading structure in the content of your widgets and meta boxes, use an H3 and lower in the right order and context.

Get ahead of 4.4 and update now!

Now is a great time to update your plugins and themes! The power of the Web is in its universality. Help us to make the Web a place designed to work for all people. Any feedback and thoughts are more than welcome, please let us know in the comments below.

#4-4, #accessibility, #dev-notes, #example-flow, #user-anecdote, #visual-comparison

Jeremy Felt 7:18 pm on October 28, 2015
Tags: , ,   

Multisite Focused Changes in 4.4

WordPress 4.4 has been a very productive release for multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site. In addition to some exciting new enhancements, we were able to resolve some long standing bugs. Check out the full list of multisite focused changes on TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. if you want even more wonderful reading material. 💖

Introduce WP_Network

The $current_site global has been maintaining a stdClass object representing an assumed description of a networknetwork (versus site, blog) since the original merge of WordPress MU with WordPress. With the introduction of WP_Network, we give a network a bit more definition and open up possibilities for working with a network (or networks) in a more sane way. Take a look at ms-settings.php if you are using a custom sunrise.php to populate the $current_blog or $current_site globals. We now create a WP_Network object from the existing $current_site if it has been populated elsewhere. This is a backward compatible change, though should be tested wherever your code interacts with $current_site, especially if anything has been done to extend its structure. See #31985 for more discussion while this was built.

Introduce *_network_option functions

During the introduction of WP_Network, we needed a way to populate network options (stored in wp_sitemeta) for a network other than the current. add_network_option(), update_network_option(), get_network_option(), and delete_network_option() are all new functions in 4.4. Each takes the network ID as its first argument, matching the structure of the *_blog_option() functions. *_site_option() functions remain as the proper way for working with a current network’s options. These now wrap the new *_network_option() functions and pass the current network’s $wpdb->site_id. In a future release, likely 4.5, we can look at the introduction of network 0 as a way to store global options. See #28290 for more discussion.

New actions and filters

  • before_signup_header fires before the signup headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. in wp-signup.php. #17630
  • ms_network_not_found fires when the $current_site global has not been filled and ms_not_installed() is about to fire. #31702
  • invite_user fires immediately after a user is invited to join a site, but before the notification is sent. #33008

Other enhancements of note:

  • WordPress has always enforced a /blog prefix for the main site’s permalink structure to avoid collisions with other sites in a subdirectory configuration. This was always changeable in the network adminadmin (and super admin), though the permalinks UIUI User interface in the site admin never reflected the change and could cause confusion. Now, thanks to #12002, WordPress forgets that /blog was ever assigned if it is changed in the network admin to anything else. When changing this value, choose something that won’t conflictconflict A conflict occurs when a patch changes code that was modified after the patch was created. These patches are considered stale, and will require a refresh of the changes before it can be applied, or the conflicts will need to be resolved..
  • manage_network_users is now used to determine edit_users caps rather than is_super_admin. In preparation for 4.4, take a look at how you’re using the manage_network_users capability in your code to be sure access is set as intended. #16860
  • Network activated plugins are now visible as “network activated” in an individual site admin if the user can manage network plugins. These are not shown to site administrators. #20104
  • Recently active plugins are now displayed as such in the network admin. #20468
  • Language selection is now available when adding a new site through the network admin. 🌍 #33528
  • Language selection is also now available when signing up for a new site through wp-signup.php. 🌏 #33844
  • Network user searching has been improved by wrapping search terms in asterisk for looser matching. #32913

Bugs of note fixed:

  • It was previously impossible to set the upload limit for an individual site to 0 as it would then fallback to the default of 100MB. In 4.4, 0 is a respected number. #34037
  • When a site’s home, siteurl, or page_on_front option was updated in the network admin, rewrite rules were previously flushed incorrectly, causing rewrite rules for the main site on the network to take the place of the rewrite rules for the site being changed. #33816
  • Subdirectory sites created on an HTTPSHTTPS HTTPS is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data like banking information. network are now set to HTTPS rather than the incorrect HTTPHTTP HTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands.. 🔒 #33620
  • A site’s title can now be longer than 50 characters! #33973

Deprecated functions:

Both get_admin_users_for_domain() #34122 and create_empty_blog() #34120 have never been used by WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and are now deprecated. 🍻

#4-4, #dev-notes, #multisite

Scott Taylor 4:24 pm on October 28, 2015
Tags: ,   

Today’s 4.4 Dev Chat: Oct 28

Dev chat is still at 20:00 UTC this week, even though Europe lost an hour, but it will change next week to 21:00 UTC after the US changes.

TODAY’S DEV CHAT: Wednesday, October 28, 2015 16:00 UTC-4:

Agenda:

  • 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. 2
  • Open floor for components
  • Dev post roundup

Fin.

#4-4, #agenda

Pascal Birchler 10:37 am on October 28, 2015
Tags: , , ,   

New Embeds Feature in WordPress 4.4

WordPress has been operating as an oEmbed consumer for quite some time now, allowing users to easily embed content from other sites. Starting with version 4.4, WordPress becomes an oEmbed provider as well, allowing any oEmbed consumer to embed posts from WordPress sites.

Here’s how that looks:

Feature Plugin Merge Proposal: oEmbed

In order to achieve this, WordPress’ oEmbed consumer code has been enhanced to work with any site that provides oEmbed data (as long as it matches some strict security rules). For security, embeds appear within a sandboxed iframeiframe iFrame is an acronym for an inline frame. An iFrame is used inside a webpage to load another HTML document and render it. This HTML document may also contain JavaScript and/or CSS which is loaded at the time when iframe tag is parsed by the user’s browser. – the iframe content is a template that can be styled or replaced entirely by the theme on the provider site.

Related ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.: #32522

What That Means for Developers

First of all, this new feature means that any post (or basically any public post type) will now be embeddable. If you’re using pretty permalinks, the embeddable content will be available at example.com/your-post/embed/.

If you’re a developer, make sure you do not add an embed rewrite endpoint yourself!

Functions and HooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same.

Here are the four most useful functions related to embeds:

  • get_post_embed_url() — Retrieves the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org to embed a specific post in an iframe, e.g. https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/10/28/new-embeds-feature-in-wordpress-4-4/embed/
  • get_post_embed_html() — Retrieves the full embed code for a specific post.
  • get_oembed_endpoint_url() — Retrieves the oEmbed endpoint URL for a given permalink, e.g. https://make.wordpress.org/core/?oembed=true&url=<url>. This is used to add the oEmbed discovery links to the HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. <head> for single posts.
  • get_oembed_response_data() — Retrieves the oEmbed response data for a given post, according to the oEmbed specification.

Of course the return values of these functions are all filterable, making it easy for you to customize this new feature.

Customizing The Output

The embed template mentioned earlier can be customized similarly to any theme template file. Use embed_head and embed_footer to add custom code in the beginning and the end of the template.

Note that an X-WP-embed:true headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. will be sent when that template is used, so you can easily target embedded posts in your application.

Further Improvements

We’re currently tweaking the embeds functionality to sort out the last few bugs. Here’s a short list of tickets that are being worked on and their purposes:

  • #34204 — Improved support for IE7+. This will also introduce a enqueue_embed_scripts hook that can be used to enqueue 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/. and CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets..
  • #34451 — Improved support for embedding posts on non-WordPress sites
  • #34278 — Add support for embeds in the theme template hierarchy, allowing you to override the template easily in your theme.
  • #34207 — Leverage the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. structure for the oEmbed endpoint.
  • #34462 — Add a <blockquote> fallback for the iframe.

Disabling The Feature

Don’t like these enhanced embeds in WordPress 4.4? You can easily disable the feature using the Disable Embeds 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 if you really want to.

#4-4, #dev-notes, #embeds, #feature-oembed

Ryan McCue 6:30 am on October 28, 2015
Tags: , , ,   

REST API: Welcome the Infrastructure to Core

Hi from the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. team! We’re extremely excited to announce the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. infrastructure has now been merged into coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as of r34928 (plus a couple of fix up commits we won’t mention). Huzzah!

Sincere thanks to every single one of the contributors, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you. It takes time and effort to produce great things, and it’s impossible to make things great without everyone helping. This has been a truly collaborative effort, and I wish I could do more than just give you props.

(Important note: if you have a 2.0 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. already installed, you must upgrade to beta 5.)

What’s included in 4.4?

As mentioned in the merge proposal, the API comes in two parts: infrastructure and endpoints. In 4.4, the infrastructure is now available as part of core, while the endpoints continue to only be available in the plugin.

You can think of the infrastructure as an “API construction kit”. WordPress 4.4 will make it possible for everyone to build RESTful APIs in a much easier fashion, which will benefit people building custom APIs for their site. The infrastructure handles the routing, argument handling, JSONJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. serialisation/deserialisation, status codes, and all that other lovely REST stuff.

For client authors, this doesn’t help you much right now. Hold tight, the team is working as fast as we can on the endpoints to get them ready for a future release. In the meantime, you can make sure sites you want to work with have the plugin installed, which isn’t a change from the current state.

For 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 and theme authors, you can start building new APIs immediately using the infrastructure now in core. This can start replacing your existing custom admin-ajax endpoints or other bespoke code you already have.

To authenticate with the API, only built-in cookie authentication is available out of the box right now. The OAuth 1 plugin will continue to work with WP 4.4 and the API plugin, as will the Basic Auth plugin for local development.

It’s super easy to get started, and there’s even a guide available to kick-off. (Note: the WP_REST_Controller class is not included in WordPress 4.4.) This documentation will be migrated across to developer.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/ soon.

If you want to access any of the built-in data in WordPress without building it out yourself, you’ll need the endpoints as well. These will continue to be packaged in plugin form, and version 2.0 final will be released to accompany 4.4 before the end of this cycle.

What if I’m using the API already?

If you’re on version 2 of the API, you’ll need to update the API to beta 5 or later before updating to the latest version of core. This new version will use the new infrastructure in core if available, or fallback to a compatibility library otherwise.

Important note: Earlier 2.0 betas (1 through 4) are incompatible with WP 4.4. Your site will fatal error if you don’t upgrade to beta 5 or later. You must upgrade to the latest API to run trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. and to run WP 4.4 when it’s released.

If you’re on version 1 of the API, you won’t hit any fatal errors straight away, but endpoints will stop working with 4.4. We’re still planning on releasing a final version 1 release for compatibility, but now would be a great time to consider migrating forward to version 2. Apart from security releases, version 1 has ceased being actively maintained.

Looking forward for the API

Now that the API is past this first hurdle, it’s important to keep looking forward. Our immediate next step is to improve and polish the endpoints for phase two of our merge. There’s a lot of work still to be done here, so we’d love you to join us on GitHub.

The infrastructure of the API will now be maintained via TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress., so new issues and patches should be sent there instead under the “REST API” component. Issues with endpoints should still be filed on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/. Don’t worry if you’re not sure; you can file issues on either Trac or GitHub, and they’ll be triaged into the correct place as needed. (It’s more important to make sure the issue is filed in the first place!)

The team wants to keep pressing forward with the API and keep up our rate of progress, if not improve it even further, and we’d love your help. We still need help from content writers on our documentation, designers and developers on our authentication plugins, and developers on the endpoints. If you want to help, we can always use a hand, and we’d love to help get you started. We’re available in the #core-restapi room on Slack, and we’d love to see you at the weekly meeting at Monday 23:00 UTC 2015.

We look forward to continuing to work on the API and getting these endpoints happening. Thanks again to everyone who got us here.

(Then again, maybe a REST API is more of a Shelbyville idea…)

#4-4, #dev-notes, #json-api, #rest-api

Rachel Baker 2:45 am on October 28, 2015
Tags: , ,   

Comment Object and Query Features in 4.4

Without comments, a website is as effective at creating a community as the Chicago Cubs are at winning World Series titles. WordPress 4.4 is a rebuilding release and the comments system is much improved under the hood.

This release lays the groundwork for future features and improvements.

A New Classy and Strong Comment Object

The new WP_Comment class provides a single organized comment object that models its row in $wpdb->comments. You may be familiar with this approach from WP_Post, which inspired the caching implementation used in WP_Comment.

This was a prerequisite to many of the other comment-related 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. fixes and features added in 4.4. The WP_Comment class is marked final to retain flexibility while it is young.

See #32619.

Comment Queries for the Whole Family

WP_Comment_Query has new query parameters for traversing your comments family tree.

  • parent__in takes an array of comment parent IDs to return all matching children.
  • parent__not_in takes an array of comment parent IDs and does not return any matching children.
  • hierarchical can be set to either threaded, flat, or false.
    • threaded returns a tree for matched comments, with the children for each comment included in its children property.
    • flat returns a flat array of matched comments plus their children.
    • false does not include descendants for matched comments. This is the default behavior.
  • orderby has a new option comment__in, useful when querying by comment__in the matched results will return in the same order.

See #8071 and #33882.

#4-4, #comments, #dev-notes

Tammie Lister 6:14 pm on October 23, 2015
Tags: ,   

Under the hood of Twenty Sixteen

Twenty Sixteen is the new default theme for WordPress 4.4. This year the process has been done differently, with an exciting exploration of how default themes are created. The theme has been developed on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ and you can follow along here. The theme has also been synced every night with the 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/ theme repository. This has meant more people have been able to use them theme earlier than previous default themes.

As Beta 1 is now out, it’s a great time to explore a little more about what Twenty Sixteen contains and how the contributions have shaped this default theme so far.

Features of Twenty Sixteen

This theme is designed to be a fresh take on the traditional blogging format. It includes:

  • Multiple menu positions and a social menu.
  • Optional 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..
  • Custom color options and beautiful default color schemes.
  • Harmonious fluid grid using mobile-first approach.
  • Custom background and headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes..
  • Overflow displaying large images.
  • Ability to add intro to post using custom excerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox..

Contributions to Twenty Sixteen

During development, there have been some amazing contributions along the way. These include:

  • Lots of 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. The Accessibility team have done amazing work reviewing and ensuring Twenty Sixteen is better than any other default theme for accessibility.
  • Improved js handling and tidying in files. Thanks to contributions, the theme js and that of other default themes has been reviewed and optimised.
  • Numerous design enhancements including sub menus.
  • Travis testing integrated with the repo.
  • Device and browser testing. Everyone really helped put this theme through it’s paces.
  • The addition of singular.php.
  • Responsive image support (on the way).
  • Prefixing cleaning up to focus on browsers using.
  • Sanitisation and escaping.
  • Adding of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. comments navigation.
  • Hyphenated post titles for better language support.
  • Numerous 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. fixes, code tidying and countless tiny improvements.

A big thank you to everyone that has helped make Twenty Sixteen the theme it is. It’s been incredible to see everyone so engaged and active over on GitHub.

With Twenty Sixteen on GitHub, if you have a bug you’d like to report you can do so using GitHub right here.

#4-4, #dev-notes

Rachel Baker 6:05 pm on October 23, 2015
Tags: , ,   

WP REST API: Version 2.0 Beta 5

Version 2.0 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. 5 “¡Ay, caramba!” of the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. is now available. Download it from the plugin repository or from GitHub.

This is a compatibility release with WordPress 4.4 Beta 1, and is required to use 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 alongside WordPress 4.4.

Here’s some highlights:

  • Load api-coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as a compatibility library

    • Now api-core has been merged into WordPress trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. (for 4.4) we should no longer load the infrastructure code when it’s already available. This also fixes a fatal error for users who were on trunk.

    (props @rmccue)

  • Switch to new mysql_to_rfc3339

    • (props @rmccue)

  • Double-check term taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies.

    • (props @rmccue)

  • Load adminadmin (and super admin) functions

    • This was removed from the latest beta of WordPress in the REST API infrastructure, a more long term fix is planned.

    (props @joehoyle)

  • Add compat shim for renamed rest_mysql_to_rfc3339()

    • (props @danielbachhuber)

  • Compat shim for wp_is_numeric_array()

    • (props @danielbachhuber)

  • Revert switch to register_post_type_args filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output.

    • (props @joehoyle)

We have a detailed changelog as well as the full set of changes if you’re interested.

#json-api, #releases, #rest-api

Boone Gorges 2:27 pm on October 23, 2015
Tags: , ,   

4.4 Taxonomy Roundup

We’ve made lots of improvements to the TaxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. component for WordPress 4.4. Let’s round ’em up, pardner!🐴

Term 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.

The most significant improvement is the introduction of term meta #10142. Use the new term meta APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. – add_term_meta(), update_term_meta(), delete_term_meta(), and get_term_meta() – to store arbitrary data about taxonomy terms, in the same way you would for posts, users, or comments. The term query functions get_terms() and wp_get_object_terms() now support a ‘meta_query’ parameter, with syntax identical to the corresponding argument for WP_Query, etc.

Term meta was built with performance in mind. When fetching terms using get_terms() or wp_get_object_terms(), metadata for located terms is loaded into the cache with a single database query; disable this by passing 'update_term_meta_cache' => false in your query parameters. When querying for posts using WP_Query, we have another trick up our sleeves: term meta for terms belonging to matched posts is lazy-loaded, so that all relevant term meta is only fetched the first time you call get_term_meta() in the 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..

Developers who have previously implemented term meta in their own plugins or client sites should prepare their customizations for WordPress 4.4, to ensure that nothing’s broken in the transition.

WP_Term and unique term IDs

For the last few releases, we’ve been working hard on the taxonomy roadmap. A major achievement was the complete splitting of shared taxonomy terms in 4.3, which ensures that terms can be uniquely identified by their term_id. In 4.4, we begin taking advantage of this uniqueness: the $taxonomy parameter is now optional in get_term() and get_term_field(), functions that previously required both $term_id and $taxonomy.

Under the hood, we’ve introduced WP_Term, a new class that properly models a term object #14162. Everywhere where terms can be retrieved – one at a time, as in get_term() or get_term_by(), or in bulk, as in get_terms() and wp_get_object_terms()– you should expect WP_Term objects to be returned, rather than stdClass. For 4.4, this change doesn’t affect much, aside from making our term-caching internals somewhat more sane. But in the future, WP_Term will allow for more extensive caching throughout the Taxonomy component, as well as the potential for method chaining and other developer conveniences.

Other goodies

We’ve made lots of smaller improvements to Taxonomy as well. Some highlights:

  • Registering a taxonomy with 'public => false' now prevents the taxonomy from being queried publicly. (Imagine that!) #21949
  • The $taxonomy parameter for get_term_by() is optional (and ignored) when fetching by term_taxonomy_id. #30620
  • Argument arrays are now filtered in get_terms(), register_taxonomy(), and in the Categories post edit metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way.. #33026 #33369
  • Accented characters in term names are no longer ignored when checking for duplicates, allowing for, eg, tags ‘foo’ and ‘fóó’ to coexist. #33864
  • Term relationships caches are properly busted during wp_remove_object_terms(). #34338

#4-4, #dev-notes, #taxonomy

Konstantin Obenland 5:49 pm on October 20, 2015
Tags: , ,   

Document title in 4.4

WordPress 4.1 introduced a way for themes to support a new way of rendering the document title, letting CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. handle its generation and output. The next step followed just recently (#31078), deprecating wp_title() and replacing it with a more comprehensive way to generate titles.

UPDATE 12 November – wp_title has been reinstated until alternative usages have been identified and a path forward for them defined.

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 authors can now check for theme support and have a few new filters available that will allow them to change or replace the title in a reliable way:

  • 'pre_get_document_title' short-circuits wp_get_document_title() if it returns anything other than an empty value.
  • 'document_title_separator' filters the separator between title parts.
  • 'document_title_parts' filters the parts that make up the document title, passed in an associative array.

This latest change makes the new APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. (almost) feature complete and theme authors are discouraged from using wp_title() in the future. If it was decided to add a UIUI User interface to let users choose the make up of their document title, or another improvement to how title generation works, we now have a forward compatible way to handle these things.

To upgrade themes from using wp_title() to declaring theme support for core’s title-tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) without breaking backwards compatibility with WordPress 4.0 and older, theme authors can check if the callback function exists and add a shiv in case it does not:

if ( ! function_exists( '_wp_render_title_tag' ) ) :
	function theme_slug_render_title() {
?>
<title><?php wp_title( '-', true, 'right' ); ?></title>
<?php
	}
	add_action( 'wp_head', 'theme_slug_render_title' );
endif;

#4-4, #dev-notes, #wp_title