Editor chat summary: 26th August 2020

This post summarizes the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda here) held on 2020-08-26 14:00 UTC in Slack. Moderated by @andraganescu .

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/ 8.8 has been released

Gutenberg 8.8.0 is now available. Release leadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release. @itsjonq joined us and provided his highlights:

• forward movement + momentum on some of the bigger projects of Gutenberg, like Widgets, Full site editing, and the Post 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. suite
• Improved UIUI User interface for 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) and mobile, especially surrounding Toolbar and pop-up like components (like menus and Popovers)
• there also appears to be a tiny performance improvement compared to 8.7.

@itsjonq ended the overview of this new release by giving huge personal thanks to everyone who helped me before/during the release process to help get 8.8 out.

Monthly Plan & Key Projects

• We reviewed the overarching plan for August (courtesy of @annezazu).
  • Nothing new, the September plan is brewing.
• This issue is a good starting point to see how one can help with some of the big milestones there. Issue: 24551

Task Coordination

• @annezazu
  • I’ve been focused on triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors., light testing, and working on this Guide for Devs Working in the WordPress.org Community. Slower moving than I want to be on the guide a bit right now but feedback welcome.
• @youknowriad
  • I’ve landed some PRs to use allow the usage of _fields  in  core-data improving some of the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. calls performance in the editor.
  • Next couple weeks, I want to make a push on the Block Editor Controlling 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. (part of theme.jsonJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML.)
• @jorgefilipecosta
  •  I reviewed global styles related PR’s. I am working on implementing font family controls on the global styles context.
• @michael-arestad
  •  I’ve started in on Block Directory work. I’m starting in on updating the current install flow (via block inserter search). I’ve already got some good feedback that I am using to make a new iteration that should be posted in an hour or two. I will also be exploring block management in and out of the editor.
• @nosolosw
  • I’ve been focused on other tasks the past week. For the next week, I’m continuing work on the global styles 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. at site edit & controlling the block editor.
• @zieladam
  • Last two weeks I was focused on addressing security issues in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and in the Gutenberg 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, unfortunately I don’t have any links to share.
  • Starting this week I’m back on the widgets editor. After merging the initial version, @noisysocks composed a list of all the reported issues that I’m going through and publishing multiple PRs  Also, @mapk is exploring the design of the widget editor. While these explorations are still in progress, I already started prototyping a few suggesstions.
• @ari
  • I’ve been focusing on exploring FSE and ways to improve it…
    • performance (switch from post-metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. to a taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. for the theme)
    • allowing the use of arbitrary units in columns
    • More styles cleanups for front-facing styles
    • Other minor bugfixes wherever I encounter them
    • Triage
  • Next week I’ll keep working on front-facing styles and start diving deep in global-styles as much as I can
• @mapk
  • Iterated on 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. Editor designs and Legacy Widget block.
  • Provided some feedback and design work on a text-only toolbar.
  • Trying to triage our 2400+ issues.
• @itsjonq
  • I’ve continued focusing on the “G2 Components” project.Enough of the foundations have been designed/built, so I’m starting to explore large things like:
    • Prototyping/Building large/complex UI
    • Documentation (to support prototyping/building)
    • Tooling to improve design/dev experience
  • I’ve continued to host Zoom sessions where I collab design/dev things in G2.  I plan on continuing! They’re wonderful .I’m blogging all notable updates here.

Thank you for the work that is happening and does not make it into this list!

Open Floor

• @desrosj
  • I’m here to flag that 5.5.1 will be released a bit more quickly than usual because of some pesky bugs that were discovered. It would be great if some block editor 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. fixes were included! Happy to help if needed. The proposed schedule was just published.
• @annezazu
  • Woohoo! I’m starting the “What’s Next” post for September and wanted to check in with this crew collectively to see what will be the focus for the month including any specific PRs, discussion issues, etc you’d like to flag. Don’t need to cover it all in this meeting but high level items would be lovely
    • @andraganescu the work on the new editors (Navigation and Widgets) will continue in September
    • @youknowriad I see a continuous effort on “Controlling Block Editor APIs” as well, I’m hoping to “finish it” on September if things go well.
• @andraganescu
  • I want to raise that we want to move those editors out of experimental. There is a great deal of work still happening and still needed, but it’s important that  they become visible sooner rather than later.
    • @mapk With Matias’ recent feedback on the Widget Editor, I think this can happen. It appears we’re keeping a closer tie-in with my initial designs which are pretty much implemented.
• @paaljoachim I was thinking about the general importance of drag & drop. How we can improve it in Gutenberg?
  • A discussion followed suggesting we add drag and drop in select mode and debating how it should work when writing
• @itsjusteileen
  • Wondering if, in conjunction with any documentation being done for getting setup to do testing, if there wouldn’t be someone willing to do a zoom for folks interested in getting all the tooling needed to get started. It’s a bit of a barrier of entry for some folks.
• @mkaz announced in a follow-up that he’ll be hosting a “hallway hangout” session on contributing documentation to Gutenberg repository. It will be an introduction covering 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/ PR workflow and environment setup.  The session will be on Tuesday, Sept 1st @ 1600 UTC / 9:00am PDT. It will be recorded and posted for those who can not make it.

Thanks to everyone who attended.

#core-editor, #core-editor-summary, #meeting-notes