XML Sitemaps Meeting: May 26th, 2020

A lot has been going on since our last blog post. Besides many improvements and fruitful discussions in the XML Sitemaps feature project, the proposed schedule for WordPress 5.5 has been published.

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. is currently slated for July 7, which still gives us a bit of time to finish work on our project. We’re getting close to a state where we feel comfortable publishing a merge proposal for inclusion in WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as part of the 5.5 release.

This post aims to give an overview of the things currently in progress, and the items that should be discussed in the upcoming meeting on 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/..

Updates

• Custom elements in sitemap (#151)
  The pull request proposing a simple APIAPI 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. still needs some documentation, but overall ready for review.
• PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher Warning on PHP < 7.3 (#186)
  A pull request has been opened to fix this edge case. Ready for review.
• Filters for individual sitemap entries (#191)
  Freshly proposed over the weekend, this PR makes it easier to modify sitemap data while having access to the necessary post/term/user objects for context. Ready for review.
• 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. to modify WP_Query arguments (#183)
  Feedback from initial code review still needs to be incorporated.
• Removing core_ prefixes from code (#182)
  Still some feedback that needs to be incorporated. Tests are currently not passing. Otherwise very close.
• Custom elements in stylesheet (#152)
  PR #163 is still work in progress. The feeling last time was that it might be too complex for core, and perhaps better off as a 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.
  If the pre-existing stylesheet is deemed to not satisfy the needs, we could also omit the stylesheet completely if wanted.
• Merge proposal post
  We started with an early draft for this, and will share the draft post with the broader group once we feel more comfortable with it.
• Core patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing.
  Not yet in progress, as there are some bigger outstanding PRs needed for this. We’ll likely start with a first proof-of-concept PR that can then serve as the basis for discussion.

Agenda: May 26th

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 26th at 16.00 CEST.

Items on the agenda so far:

• Going through items from updates above
• Open floor

Want to add anything to the above? Please leave a comment here or reach out on Slack.

This meeting is held in the #core-sitemaps channel. To join the meeting, you’ll need an account on the Making WordPress Slack.

#agenda, #feature-plugins, #feature-projects, #sitemaps, #xml-sitemaps