Auto-updates feature meeting summary: March 17th, 2020

These are the weekly notes for the WP Auto-updates team meeting that happened on Tuesday March 17th, 2020. You can read the full transcript on the core-auto-updates Slack channel.

As a reminder, the Feature PluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins. is developed on GitHub and is available for testing on WordPress.org plugins repository.

Current status of the project – version 0.3 🦉

Version 0.3.0 was released on Monday 16th. This release addresses a number of issues and introduces Email Notifications.

Changelog:

  • Add functions to handle plugins updates notification emails – PR 54
  • Remove update time text after manual update – PR 43
  • Ensure “Automatic Updates” column is not added if no content would be output in the column – PR 57
  • Specific messages for delayed or disabled cron events – PR 58
  • Prevent mis-match between count in Auto-updates Enabled view and the number of plugins displayed for that view by applying ‘all_plugins’ 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. before computing that count. – PR 59

Thanks @pbiron for his invaluable help on version 0.3.

@audrasjb shared a screenshot with an example of email notification:

Please feel free to propose string changes to this first implementation of email notifications.

Version 0.4.0 will focus on backporting every auto-updates features to Themes. @audrasjb to merge this pull request as a first step for the work on themes support. Then, the idea is to open pull requests for each function/feature to be backported, so it’s easier to track progress on themes support.

@bookdude13 asked whether it’s better to open up issues to break up the work on the themes port, or to directly address them with pull requests.

@audrasjb will open an issue to list all the functions/feature that need proper backportbackport A port is when code from one branch (or trunk) is merged into another branch or trunk. Some changes in WordPress point releases are the result of backporting code from trunk to the release branch. and to track the team’s progression.

There is also a few background tasks opened by @jeffpaul concerning the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository.

Concerning Email notifications, @joostdevalk proposed to add links to the plugins changelog in those emails. @pbiron answered that it might be hard for plugins/themes not in the WordPress.orgWordPress.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/ repo. @joostdevalk proposed to make it filterable. @audrasjb proposed to make the notification entirely filterable. @joostdevalk felt concerned about plugins that would override the email even when multiple plugins are updated at once.

@afragen proposed to use a filter that could be specific for each, like for example:
apply_filters( 'wp_autoupdates_email', $text, $slug )

This item will be discussed again during the next team meeting.

@pbiron wanted to discuss a specific pull request. It proposes to add filters to control whether the Enable/Disable buttons appear in the UIUI User interface for a given 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. @pbiron and @audrasjb agreed that having a filter that is specific to the UI is not the way to go and it is to be filterable then the existing auto_update_plugin hook should be used. For now, the pull request will stay open for further discussion.

Next meeting is planned on Tuesday March 24, 2020 at 18:00 UTC and will take place on #core-auto-updates 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.

#auto-update, #feature-plugins, #feature-projects, #feature-autoupdates