Customize Update 2016-10-23

This is the weekly update post for the customize component. It includes a summary of this week’s meeting, recent commits, and next week’s meeting agenda.

4.7 Feature Proposals & Merges

Three proposal posts have been published and approved since our last update:

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/12/customize-changesets-formerly-transactions-merge-proposal/

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/12/customize-changesets-technical-design-decisions/

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/10/11/feature-proposal-better-theme-customizations-via-custom-css-with-live-previews/

All five of the major customize feature projects proposed for WordPress 4.7 have been successfully merged (in order):

• Create pages within live preview during site setup – #34923, #38013, #38164
  • Add new pages while building menus and setting a static front pageStatic Front Page A WordPress website can have a dynamic blog-like front page, or a “static front page” which is used to show customized content. Typically this is the first page you see when you visit a site url, like wordpress.org for example.; outline your site directly 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..
• Improving sliding panels UI – #34391, #34343, #29158
  • Customizer navigation is now faster, smoother, and more accessible.
• Customize changesets (transactions) – #30937
  • Browse your site and switch themes more seamlessly within the customizer, as your changes automatically persist in the background.
• A new experience for themes in the customizer – #37661
  • Browse, install, and preview themes with a unified interface in the customizer.
• Code-editing gateways, via CSS – #35395
  • Fine-tune your site and take your theme customizations to the next level with custom css in the customizer.

Work continues on follow up tickets for many of these projects. Please test everything in the customizer and report any bugs to trac. We still have a few pending enhancements that need to be completed by this Wednesday, 10/26, 4.7 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. 1, sorted by priority:

1. #27403 Improve UIUI User interface for linking areas of Customizer preview to corresponding controls (desktop and mobile) – has-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., needs testing and adjustments
2. #38263 Color picker: add a hue-only mode – has-patch, needed for Twenty Seventeen
3. #28536 Add browser history and deep linking for navigation in Customizer preview – needs-patch punted
4. #38164 Customize: assign static front page and posts page to new pages – has-patch
5. #37964 Allow customizer controls to be encapsulated by accepting pre-instantiated settings – has-patch, needs adjustments
6. #22058 Improve custom background properties UI – has-patch
7. #29158 Customizer UI Design lacks contrast for visual hierarchy and does not match wp-adminadmin (and super admin) – has-commit, has-patch for 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.

Weekly Customize Meetings

Our past two weekly meetings have focused on preparing our projects for commit. We’ll continue our weekly 4.7 meetings into beta and RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). pending the volume of customize tickets remaining in the milestone. For this week’s meeting, our priority will be ensuring that the 7 remaining customize enhancements for 4.7, listed above, are committed before beta 1.

Our weekly update posts will continue on a reduced schedule now that the bulk of 4.7 development is complete, and we’ll also continue posting 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 changes in 4.7.

Recent Customize Commits

Here are the customize-related commits for the past two weeks:

• [38765]: Customize: Ensure `customize_validate_{$setting->id}` filters apply on input post_values for WP_Customize_Setting subclasses that neglect to apply the 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. themselves.
• [38766]: Customize: Improve message displayed in widgets panel when there are no 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 currently displayed in the preview.
• [38767]: Customize: Show Pages section first and pre-expanded in list of available menu items.
• [38794]: Customize: Move Pages below Custom Links in available nav menu items panel.
• [38807]: Customize: Skip triggering initial click on pages section for available nav menu items if already open.
• [38810]: Customize: Implement customized state persistence with changesets. 
• [38811]: Customize: Split out link `click.preview` and form `submit.preview` event handlers…
• [38813]: Customize: Introduce a new experience for discovering, installing, and previewing themes in the customizer.
• [38829]: Customize: Introduce custom CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. for extending theme styles.
• [38830]: Customize: Fix unit tests when `twentyfifteeen` is `WP_DEFAULT_THEME` instead of twentyfifteen.
• [38831]: Customize: Improve the labeling of 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. images in the list mode of the media library.
• [38837]: Twenty Seventeen: Fix a PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher warning on fresh installs.
• [38850]: Tests: Prevent Twenty Seventeen from interfering with Customizer tests.
• [38851]: Tests: Prevent Twenty Seventeen from interfering with Customizer ajax tests.
• [38853]: Customize: Add sticky headers for panels and sections.
• [38862]: Customize: Revert part of [38859] which caused sections to get deactivated in the customizer.
• [38867]: Twenty Seventeen: Add theme support for customize selective refresh.
• [38881]: Customize: Keep previously uploaded header images in place.

Big thanks to those who contributed to patches committed this week: @johnregan3, @celloexpressions, @folletto, @westonruter, @deltafactory, @coreymcollins, @desrosj, @pento, @delawski, @davidakennedy, @afercia, @karmatosed, @ryankienstra, @valendesigns, @utkarshpatel, @stubgo, @lgedeon, @ocean90, @mihai2u, @dlh, @aaroncampbell, @jonathanbardo, @jorbin.

We’re always looking for more contributors; check out the open customize tickets and swing by #core-customize in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. to get involved. Tickets in the Future Release milestone will be considered first for 4.8 if they have a patch.

#4-7, #customize