This is a monthly update containing the high-level items that 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/ contributors are focusing on for July. Please join us in our efforts and let us know in the comments if anything is blocking you from doing so. As a reminder, here’s an overview of different ways to keep up with Gutenberg and the Full Site Editing project.
Preparing for WordPress 5.5
On July 6th, Gutenberg 8.5 RC 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). is planned to be released! This is the last Gutenberg release going into WordPress 5.5 and is the major focus for this month so 5.5 can be set up for success. Keep in mind that this means that all features and enhancements that need to go into WordPress 5.5 must be ready for this upcoming release. After the 8.5 release, ideally only fixes for regressions or fixes for bugs in new features will be added in. You can read the latest news about what editor features are planned for inclusion in 5.5 here.
Follow along:
You can follow the progress for this effort on this project board.
Full Site Editing
Work on this major focus for phase 2 is ongoing and is expected to continue iterating over the next months. We’ve wrapped up the major work needed to build the technical foundation of this project and are now moving towards expanding the UX & UI:
- Refining and pruning block patterns.
- Refining the navigation block Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. and navigation screen.
- Building out flows for new template creation.
- Improving the flow for inserting new or selecting existing template parts, currently being explored as “sections” in the block editor. The exact naming is being discussed further here.
We’re watching the Theme Experiments repo as well to see how themers are attempting to build block-based themes. Thank you to everyone participating there as it’s a super useful way for us to determine prioritization.
Follow along:
The high level, important tasks have been split into sections and highlighted on this overview issue. If you’re interested in being a part of testing Full Site Editing, check out the experimental outreach program to learn more.
Navigation Screen
As @andraganescu mentioned here, those who have been working on a new, block-based, menus page (nav-menus.php) in wp-admin (and super admin) are starting a new weekly chat in #core to begin better syncing up efforts. The meeting will happen in #core every Wednesday, July 8, 2020, 01:00 AM MDT, starting next week, on July 8th. These meetings will be focused on triaging issues in GitHub 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/ with the [Feature] Navigation screen or [Block] Navigation labels but are also open for discussing improving the navigation creation process in WordPress, increasing compatibility with Full Site Editing, and maintaining backward compatibility.
To help get everyone thinking more about navigation, check out the following related issues that are currently being explored:
Follow along:
You can follow the progress of this project on this project board, review the overview issues (Block Navigation, Navigation Screen), and join the weekly core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. chat.
Miscellaneous Focuses
Because preparing for 5.5 is such an important piece of this month to get right, the items below are still focuses but are more minor than they have been these last few months. Once work for 5.5 is in a solid place, it’s expected that greater attention will return to these areas:
Global Styles
As a reminder, Global Styles refers to the system that defines and manages global aesthetics allowing overall site styles, theme styles, and blocks to work well together. You can follow the progress for this overall system in this overview issue. For more recent and immediate next steps, you can follow this issue describing the current state of work.
Widget 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. Screen
As part of expanding the block editor to other screens in the admin, work slowly but surely continues to improve the widget screen. You can follow the progress of this focus by reviewing issues with the [Feature] Widgets label.
Areas to be aware of:
Block & Plugin 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 Developers
There is a new block creation tutorial done by @mkaz in light of the block directory’s experimental status being removed. Expect new block guidelines, more documentation, and a block validator tool coming your way this month. For now, anything that can be done to test the block directory and give feedback would be greatly appreciated to make this a success.
Theme Developers
Last week, an awesome Q&A from the Gutenberg Times (hat tip @bph) was done on block-based themes featuring @itsjusteileen @kjellr. You can see some pretty neat demos in there including the theme export button. If you’re curious about or working on block based themes, check out the recorded discussion.
Ways to Help:
While the above items are our focuses, don’t forget that you can always help with triage, needs testing issues, good first issues and reviewing PRs. If there’s anything we can do to make contributing easier, let us know in the comments or in #core-editor chats. While we can’t promise to fix everything, we’d appreciate being aware of any blockers.
#core-editor #gutenberg-next
