WordPress 4.9.9 Minor Release Roadmap

Release Schedule (Tentative) :

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. : Monday October 22, 2018

Release Candidaterelease 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). : Monday October 29, 2018

Release Date : Monday November 5, 2018

Bug Scrubs:

We will be running 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 across the planet for this release. We will do our best to provide coverage for every time zone, but you can expect to see one in the #core channel weekly. We will share the schedule soon.

Summary:

For the 4.9.9, we plan on working on 4 focus areas: 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), Internationalization, Site Health Project, GutenbergGutenberg 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/ Preparation. Along with these concerted efforts, we want to over-communicate and make sure we get involved with all teams as much as possible.

Key Focuses:

Internationalization (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.):

We are going to try and bring focus around internationalization. Translations, making sure date/time values work and RTL is supported. More to come as we learn more about the current backlog.

Accessibility (a11yAccessibility 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)):

We’d also want to focus on fixing issues in accessibility. There’s lots of ways we can drastically improve the experience for a lot of people with minor effort.

Site Health Project (Servehappy) :

We will investigate the work remaining for the Servehappy project and determine how to get it in people’s hands as soon as possible. WSOD protection, update dashboard notice, 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 version requirements are the hot items pending. 

Gutenberg Preparation:

We are collecting the tickets that should be processed for laying the groundwork for the upcoming Gutenberg merge. The tickets that have been proposed by the Gutenberg team so far are:

  • user 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. support in 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/. endpoints – https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/44758
  • endpoints to lock/unlock and release posts – https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/44862

Communication :

As per usual, we will be regularly communicating details around changes made. For this release, we’d like to aim to over communicate happenings in the release. If there is a commit and you don’t mind us putting you on blast, we’re going to explore ways to publicly celebrate and tell the story of that! This goes especially if the contribution is one of your first!

We will also strive to be more present in component meetings. We will each be attending every component meeting at least once in the release cycle to check in on any things that may be needed for 4.9.9.