Dev Chat summary: January 15, 2020 (5.4 week 1)

The chat was facilitated by @francina on this agenda.

Full meeting transcript on Slack

Announcements / WordPress 5.4

At the moment there are 288 tickets milestoned for 5.4.

@francina is working on putting together a release squad. Some roles are already confirmed:

  • @matt is the release leadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release.
  • @francina and @davidbaumwald will continue as release co-leads
  • @karmatosed will coordinate the design effort
  • @sergeybiryukov will be the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. tech focus lead

The whole team should be assembled by the end of the week. There is a fewer roles than in 5.3, because it’s a shorter release. The first 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. release is in 3 weeks from now.

@davidbaumwald expects to release the 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 schedule by the end of the week.

@karmatosed added that Core design triages (on Mondays) for a few weeks can also focus on 5.4 to boost things.

@audrasjb noted that depending on the number of 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) related tickets, the Accessibility Team can organize some extra accessibility focused bug scrubs. He will check the milestone to see if there is a need for more accessibility bug scrubs.

As @azaozz stated, hopefully component maintainers will take bigger and bigger part in “driving” 5.4, and releases in general.

@pbiron asked if there is a specific focus for 5.4. @francina answered that in general, 2020 is going to focus on one big goal: full site editing with 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/. @dingo_d noted that it would need some coordination with the Theme Review Team.

@paragoninitiativeenterprises noted that #49200 needs feedback from anyone interested in WordPress security, or who develops plugins/themes.

@audrasjb is working on two tickets related to Themes and Plugins auto-updates: #49199 and #48850. This is one of the 9 projects for 2019-2020. The design team already provided some helpful feedback. These tickets are now waiting for technical review so they could hopefully land in the next couple of releases.

@marybaum noted her availability for copy review on 5.4 features.

@azaozz reported the Media team will release a feature plugin for lazy loading, so it can be tested well before adding to core. The 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 should be available in a couple of days.

@francina mentioned that development on 5.4 should have started the day 5.4 was branched, back in October. In fact, many people wait for the kickoff to start working. With Beta release scheduled in 3 weeks, it’s not really the time to add not fully ready features to the scope. However, WordPress 5.5 agenda is already known, so there is no need to rush things.

@azaozz and @francina pointed out that as soon as a release’s code is moved to a branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"., trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. is back in business for the next release.

@xkon noticed that the “Current Release” 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. on Make/Core might be confusing for newcomers as it’s still indicating 5.3 as the current release in progress.

Calls from component maintainers

Media: @azaozz is looking at couple of small enhancements for the uploader changes from 5.3, specifically adding a link in the UIUI User interface to the original image (if it was scaled), and looking at some of the edge cases when creating image sub-sizes, file size for large PNGs, etc.

Widgets & Menus: @audrasjb will coordinate with @welcher to identify priorities for an eventual specific bug scrub.

Build tools: @johnbillion is going to look at getting several of the Composer related tickets into 5.4 (like using Composer for external libraries and phpunit). @desrosj and @johnbillion to synchronize their work at some point as @desrosj is working on backporting the local Docker environment.

Comments: @imath committed to look at each ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. involving comments in 5.4.

Open Floor

Some new contributors asked about how to start with core contribution. Worth noting the next New Contributor Meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday at 20:00 UTC in #core 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/. channel. This is a great opportunity to ask for help or to learn how to contribute to WordPress Core.

@francina noted that @chanthaboune and @andreamiddleton are both nominated for CMX Awards. Everybody can vote for them on the dedicated website.

#5-4, #dev-chat, #summary