Core-Editor Chat Summary 20 July, 2020

This post summarizes the latest weekly Editor meeting (agendaslack transcript). This meeting was held in the #core-editor 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 on Wednesday, June 22, 2020, 10:00 AM EDT and was facilitated by @annezazu.

WordPress 5.5 Upcoming Release 

WordPress 5.5 Beta 2  and WordPress 5.5 Beta 3 are now available with WordPress 5.5 slated for release on August 11th. This software is still in development,so it’s not recommended to run on a production siteProduction Site A production site is a live site online meant to be viewed by your visitors, as opposed to a site that is staged for development or testing.. Consider setting up a test site to help translate, test, and report bugs — all great ways to contribute.

WordPress 5.5 “Must Haves” for 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/ are found on this project board

IMPORTANT: We are reaching the deadlines for the August release, there is still one potential package update 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. next week and a last update to blockBlock 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. patterns on CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. before the RC1 next Tuesday. @youknowriad is working on the dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase..

Gutenberg Version 8.6

Gutenberg 8.6 RC 1 was released on Monday, July 20th (two days ago) and Gutenberg 8.6 RC 2 was released today. Some of the highlights:

  • video position controls for the Cover block.
  • updated block patterns.
  • and tons of fixes (mostly backported in 5.5).

Upcoming backported PRs

@mkaz  PR23966 that allows 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 to disable the new image editing features, just wanted to make sure it gets back ported 5.5 from.

@Zeb PR21427 reusable block bugfix PR I’d like to see backported to core for WP 5.5 or 5.5.1 release in need of a final review.

Monthly Plan

July monthly priorities are posted with the priority being preparation for 5.5 which will continue to be through the end of the month.

Navigation is another priority. If you’d like to stay up to date, take a look at the discussion for Issue 23915 around the Navigation block and how child blocks and markup should work.

Task Coordination

Note: Anyone reading this summary outside of the meeting, please drop a comment in the post summary, if you can/want to help with something.

@Zeb

  • PR 21427 refactor the Reusable Block edit component to use ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org/. hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. is no longer stuck. Since it fixes some really annoying bugs in master, I’m hoping it can be merged and backported to WP core for 5.5 (or at least a 5.5.1 release).
  • PR 21387 Due to recent changes in master, my PR to add color controls to the List block is no longer blocked. It now simply awaits feedback/reviews.
  • PR 24011 During the development of that PR, I discovered a 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. which I have now opened an issue for.
  • Issue 470 I have started working on a PR to address the current a11yAccessibility 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) issues with the “Status & visibility” panel in the document settings, as detailed in this issue:
  • PR 24079 As a first step, I now have a related code quality PR ready for review.
  • PR 24024 Once that PR is merged, I’ll be able to complete this draft PR, which should improve the a11y situation:
  • PR 23971 Last week I created a PR to simplify the block toolbar styles and split the movers from the switcher. It is intended to prevent possible 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) regressions compared to WP 5.4 caused by the current design in master. It needs design feedback and reviews.
  • PR 24066 A few days ago, I created a PR to move the “Convert to regular blocks” button to the Reusable Block’s block toolbar to improve the options discoverability. It awaits reviews.

Two weeks ago, I opened an issue to discuss how to make the parent selector button in the toolbar more usable/discoverable/accessible. Shortly afterwards, I opened a PR to implement a solution. However, I’m a bit stuck now due to my attempted solution having its own design flaws. Any design efforts/feedback to provide a better solution would be very welcome.

Other PRs awaiting feedback/reviews:

  • PR 23836Give the More block an actual placeholder instead of a buggy pseudo-one.
  • PR 22650 Add a heading level validator to the Heading block; needs final code sanity check.
  • PR 21711Polish Custom HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. block.
  • PR 23599 Minor bugfix for usage of transform-styles wrap function.
  • PR 23632 Use optional chaining and nullish coalescing instead of Lodash.get in block-editor package.
  • PR23222 Reminder that my PR to lighten the editor DOM of the Buttons block is still completely blocked by the current limitations of AlignmentHookSettingsProvider. Technical help is needed to proceed. My plans to fix the current confusing/half-broken state of the Buttons alignment controls rely on this PR being completed first.

@annezazu

  • Various testing between FSE, block directory, and the navigation block.
  • Triaging
  • Working on updating the Gutenberg FAQ. Hoping to finish this week.

@youknowriad

  • focusing on WordPress 5.5
  • wrote a dev notedev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. about block patterns
  • working on more dev notes
  • I have a super-secret exciting project I’m excited to share later outside Core channels for the moment
  • Trying to find the next big thing to work on. Maybe I’ll focus on Global styles and help @nosolosw

@ntsekouras

  • Add support for finding block variations using their keywords (merged).
  • Hide inserter’s block preview when searching and on unmount (merged).

@mkaz

I’m working on updating tutorials section, the Create a Block tutorial is in a good spot for beginner’s. This makes space for the older block tutorials to be intermediate features, for example InnerBlocks. So if anyone has a tutorial they’ve been itching to write and looking for a spot to publish docs\designers-developers\developers\tutorials\block-tutorial is a good spot. Feel free to pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me for any help or questions on where/how to publish.

@nosolosw 

My focus for next week will be resuming work on integrating global styles within edit-site.

@Andrei 

  • code review
  • triaging
  • moving the navigation block and screen forward
  • looking into migrating the latest posts block to the query block

@mapk 

  • Triaging “Needs Design” labeled issues.
  • Mockups for the Accordion block.
  • Feedback on FSE work.

@zieladam 

  • Working on in-toolbar link editing as described in the Issue 23375
  • Draft PR 24021 should go live later today.
  • A result of that work is a discussion about the future of Link Control PR 24099

@shaunandrews  

  • Issue 24029 I’ve made some suggestions for improving List View (a.k.a. Block Navigator)
  • Issue 23939 Iteration on a new sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. for the editor
  • PR 24029 List View Design Updates
  • PR 23939 Full Site Editing Add new sidebar for navigating between templates, posts, and pages without leaving the editor

@michaelarestad

Proposed an iteration on the new template flow. Lining up some iterations to a few aspects of it to align to other design proposals. After this, I’ll likely start in on exploring starter page templates.

Open Floor

Setting Categories

@enricosorcinelli — I’d like to put your attention to the Issue 23970 I recently opened. Core editor allows to set an empty categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. for a post. Quick/classic editors don’t allow it so first I think we should have to standardize auto-adding of a category when none set across the different editors. Moreover, updating a post with core editor will add again the default category (when none set) even if the user previously removed it and this IMHO  looks like a  bug. This happens with custom taxonomies as well PR23970 Different behavior for default category term with editors.

I haven’t found similar issue on archive so sorry in advance if it’s a duplicate and you have already experienced a similar thing. The team will take a closer look and continue conversation in 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/.

Adding Duplicate Template Parts Bug

@Zeb — I’d like to draw some attention to this Issue 22639 Adding duplicate Template Part removes both from page, can trigger clearing inner blocks in dirty state. I’m hoping someone here has the expertise (and the spare time, of course) to take a shot at fixing.

It’s a pretty big issue with the controlled InnerBlocks system that could be considered a blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. for FSE. Specifically, it needs to be fixed to allow reusable blocks to be converted to that 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., which is being worked on in this PR 23601 where there was a suggestion for a solution made 3 weeks ago. The reusable blocks refactor PR 22832 would fix the longstanding toolbar-weirdness bugs that happen with reusable blocks, so fixing the controlled InnerBlocks API issue would indirectly help fix that bug as well. @annezazu noted PR 24000 in the works by @epiqueras. @annezazu will comment as a triager to help move things along and check in with him on PR 23661. @youknowriad notes there was a recent fix in useSyncBlock that could potentially be related.