This post is a summary of the latest weekly dev chat meeting which took place on April 4th (Slack archive).
4.9.5 Feedback
4.9.5 was released on April 3rd, 2018. Everything went smoothly and no major issues with the release have been discovered so far.
@danieltj and @audrasjb both reported positive feelings towards their release co-lead experience. Both plan on collecting their thoughts and writing blog (versus network, site) posts about leading a release as a newer contributor with the hopes of encouraging more new contributors.
4.9.6 Planning
4.9.6 will likely be a quicker release cycle. Some initial targets were discussed for this release.
- The “Try Gutenberg 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/” prompt
- GDPR related items
- Any changes resulting from several discussions currently happening about needed API 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. changes to prepare for Gutenberg.
All of these items need clearer requirements of what is needed for them to be committed.
Call For 4.9.6 Release Leads
If you have any interest in leading the 4.9.6 release cycle, please comment below. Release leads do not need to be developers, but having experience contributing to WordPress is recommended. During the meeting, @desrosj volunteered as interested.
Designers As Component Maintainers
@karmatosed has spoken to some designers who are interested in helping maintain components. They will be paired off with developers as an experiment. A lot of tickets seem to get stuck waiting for design feedback. The hope is that this will help prevent that bottleneck and bring a new perspective to these components.
- About/Help: Cathi Bosco (@cathibosco) has done some great work already with illustrations on the .org side and would be a good fit for working on About pages.
- Plugins: Joshua Wold (@joshuawold) has been working on Tide. This project has given him some great insights into complexities around plugins. As such, he’d be a great fit for this component.
- Toolbar: Tim Hedgefield (@hedgefield) has a real interest in notifications and recently looked at bringing in a notification system in core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. This ties into the toolbar really well.
@afercia brought up a desire to bring more focus to 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) within components as well. There was agreement that a11y 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) awareness can be improved, but more thought needs to be put into how this can be accomplished, and what that plan looks like.
