Announcements
WordPress 5.2 was released yesterday! Thank you, everyone, who was involved in any aspect. @chanthaboune has some learnings from this release to take into handbook updates.
Global WordPress Translation Day is coming up on Saturday!
Planning next releases
@chanthaboune outlined a proposed plan of one small scale point release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. in a few weeks and then 5.3. The suggestion was mid-August. This sparked a discussion on what could be added to the next release. It was noted component maintainers and teams are over the next few weeks going to decide what they want to achieve. @jeffpaul added that it’s worth checking which of our 9 focuses could be the star of 5.3.
Some of the suggested things to include:
- Fine tuning recovering mode (@pbiron)
- Anything else which gets us closer to bumping min PHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher version (@pbiron)
- Modernizing our CSS Cascading Style Sheets. base (@marybaum)
- Revisiting responsive images (@kadamwhite)
@youknowriad mentioned there is some are still some uncertainties that need to be figured out about the widgets screen + Customizer 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., but it would like to be in 5.3.
Regarding the mid-August timeline, it was noted a lot of Europe shuts down for extended holidays and it is common vacation time.
@mapk noted if there was no later release a lot of the bigger ticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. items for 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/ wouldn’t make it in, so there would need to be a later one. December having a release would fit into the end of year version bump for PHP minimum to 7.x.
@chanthaboune noted to keep an eye out on make.wordpress.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//core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. for a post and discussion.
5.2 Retrospective post
There will be one and a call for volunteers to manage was made. This will be a post on make/core asking 3 questions. @marybaum volunteered to help with that.
Calls from component maintainers
@afragen raised that if theme compatibility testing were desirable, at some point, #meta3781 needs to progress.
Open floor
Component maintainers
@afercia would like to see an audit of component maintainers and try and get new contributors involved there. @garrett-eclipse suggested a flag that could automatically be raised once someone has consistently contributed to a component, or create a potential shortlist of candidates. @jeffpaul noted this is what should happen with component maintainers. It was also noted by several people this wouldn’t help those who don’t contribute via patches.
@jeremyfelt added some thoughts on component maintaining. He noted inactive doesn’t mean unavailable and there is something to be said for historic knowledge. That said, fresh maintainers are great. Some components are just not active enough right now, which also isn’t a bad thing.
The discussion moved to talk about establishing an emeritus role and @chanthaboune linked to her post about this. It would be good to identify right now what components are in “maintenance mode” and what are “accepting features”, to get a clear picture. @jorbin noted in core we have precedence for this emeritus status.
Other open floor
@bgermann wanted to raise #21022 as something that needs a review and decision on whether a candidate for 5.3.
@clorith mentioned 5.2 hasn’t had many reports yet in forums. Some hosts have a few more than usual. There are some reports of theme updates failing after 5.2 that need investigating.
@jorbin suggested for next week getting a report of PHP versions that people using 5.2 are running. Checking back on this every month after would be great in lead up to changes end of the year. @azaozz recommended adding to the stats page and @melchoyce linked it.
@afercia wanted to discuss the 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) audit by WPCampus / Tenon and spoke on behalf of the 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. The team is glad to see the aggressive triage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors., but the report outlined broader, fundamental, issues in the overall design of Gutenberg. Next Friday (May 10th) there will be a discussion on this and everyone is welcome at 15:00 UTC in #accessibility.
#5.3, #devchat, #summary
#5-2-1
