Dev Chat Summary: September 21 (4.7 week 5)

This post summarizes the dev chat meeting from September 21st (agenda, Slack archive).

Reminders

  • Schedule: As of this meeting, we are 4 weeks from the final chance to merge in major features. This includes Twenty Seventeen.

Bug Scrubs

  • 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 scrub this week. 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) standing scrub on Mondays at 17:00 UTC in the #accessibility channel. Other teams tend to devote time in their weekly meetings.
  • General purpose 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. scrubs to move tickets along in the milestone to be hosted by @morganestes, @stevenkword, @aaroncampbell, & @desrosj
  • @swissspidy to run Cron 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. bug scrub as time allows
  • If you can you run a scrub to help ensure tickets move forward, then please pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” @jorbin for guidance. Here’s a writeup on how to run a bug scrub

Components & Features

  • Twenty Seventeen (@davidakennedy, @melchoyce)
  • 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/. (@krogsgard, @kadamwhite )
    • Latest update
    • API discussion is at 7 am Pacific on Mondays
    • Settings endpoints and meta support both have first-passes on them, which need internal review and some more testing before we ship
    • We have a path forward for passworded posts (password in the query string, eww, but only viable option), there really isn’t a way we can see to avoid sending them as a query param
    • Meeting tomorrow in #core-restapi at 21:00 UTC to go through open issues around non-trivial, conceptual issues in WordPress. REST API team will prepare summary of issues for component maintainers and/or lead devs to review, question, and help guide discussion towards consensus.
  • Media (@mikeschroder, @joemcgill)
    • Latest update
    • Moving our weekly meetings up to Fridays at 17:00 UTC starting this week
    • Unexpected change to media title behavior in WP 4.6.1 (#37989) – The main issue here was resolved, but there seems to still be some odd behavior affecting words being chopped off filenames with international characters. Could use extra eyes from anyone (along with @sergey) more versed in i18ni18n Internationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill.. Regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. on the attachment titles that we generate on upload all became URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org encoded instead of reading like a normal title.
    • Media search doesn’t include file name (#22744) – Committed earlier this week. Please report any issues that come as a result.
    • Next step in improving the organization of the media library is to assess both the infrastructure and UIUI User interface improvements that need to be made here. Prefer to include #design early in this process, rather than asking for UI feedback on development driven decisions, hope to be part of the #design chat agenda tomorrow
  • Customize (@westonruter, @celloexpressions)
    • Latest update
    • In this week’s meeting we developed a schedule for publishing make/coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. feature proposals/dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. for the remaining primary 4.7 customize projects, working backward from anticipated time to commit after the proposal and current readiness:
      • Week of 9/19: Improving sliding panels UI (34391, @delawski)
      • Week of 9/26: A new experience for themes in 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. (37661, @celloexpressions). Please review soon for any requested changes in direction or design.
        • Summary: The existing themes section in the customizer is replaced with a full-screen theme browser and installer… The UI is nearly identical to wp-adminadmin (and super admin)/theme-install.php… The .org-based theme-install previewer is not accessible here because it is likely to cause confusion with its customizer-like interface and the resulting need to switch contexts back and forth… An overarching goal is to avoid switching in and out of the admin/frontend/customize contexts during theme installation and previewing, instead staying in the hybrid customizer context that provides a combination of frontend plus controls… On the technical side, this heavily leverages JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors.-templated customizer controls and scales nicely to hundreds of themes.
        • Visual:
        • Please comment on the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. with your feedback as soon as possible, preferably with specific concerns/ideas and reasons.
        • @celloexpressions to check in with @karmatosed on user testing ahead of posting final feature proposal
      • Week of 9/26: Customize transactions (30937, @westonruter evaluating this week and might puntpunt Contributors sometimes use the verb "punt" when talking about a ticket. This means it is being pushed out to a future release. This typically occurs for lower priority tickets near the end of the release cycle that don't "make the cut." In this is colloquial usage of the word, it means to delay or equivocate. (It also describes a play in American football where a team essentially passes up on an opportunity, hoping to put themselves in a better position later to try again.) again)
      • Week of 10/3: Code-editing gateways, via CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. (35395, @johnregan3/@celloexpressions). Awaiting approval/feedback on the acceptability/ability to bundle the two proposed libraries in core, with feedback particularly needed from committers and anyone familiar with the Jetpack fork of CSSTidy.
      • Week of 10/10: Customizer browser history (28536, @westonruter)
  • I18n (@swissspidy)
    • User Admin Language (#29783) – almost ready, another review this week and will commit if no blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. pops up
    • Introduce a localeLocale A locale is a combination of language and regional dialect. Usually locales correspond to countries, as is the case with Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil). Other examples of locales include Canadian English and U.S. English.-switching function (#26511) – @ocean90 to do some benchmarking
    • Introduce some 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/. i18n functions (#20491) – GlotPress side has a solid 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 for exporting translations as 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. files (assistance on testing would be helpful). Still tinkering with the WordPress side and would love to get some additional feedback there.
  • Editor (@azaozz, @iseulde)
    • No updates, but would love to figure out a way to get more user feedback that helps us set direction for the editor. Will look to add some Core questions to annual survey on 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/. Otherwise will start with something in 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. tester plugin, biased audience but it’s one that exists, is more likely to opt-in, and will be more flexible.
  • 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. (@johnbillion)

Open Floor

  • @pbearne on Add filters to wp_new_user_notification and wp_password_change_notification (#38068) – added a set of filters to allow us to override email messages send by the wp_new_user_notification and wp_password_change_notification functions. @johnbillion to review as it relates to work on notifications.
  • @danieliser checking for interest for core in a set of reusable templates, models & functionality for forms, tabs & modals
  • @ericlewis on Bulk actions: Reactivate bulk actions hook + add hander hook for all admin screens (#16031) – could use a review of the latest patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing., looking to commit sometime in the next week
  • @dshanske still working through the Pings and Trackbacks component

#4-7, #core, #dev-chat, #summary