What’s next in Gutenberg? (November)

This is a monthly update containing the high-level items that 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/ contributors are focusing on for November. Please join us in our efforts and let us know in the comments if anything is blocking you from contributing. 

Ways to follow along with Gutenberg development: 

Here’s an overview of ways to keep up with Gutenberg and the Full Site Editing project. There is also an index page of Gutenberg development related posts and a Site Editing Milestone overview issue that breaks down the upcoming work into focus areas. 

Preparations for WordPress 5.6

The WordPress 5.6 Must Haves project board includes issues that need attention in preparation for the WordPress 5.6 release. Many contributors will be spending the month of November working on bugs and regressions to be fixed for inclusion in WordPress 5.6.

A number of issues have been labeled for Dev Notes. A dev note is a blogblog (versus network, site) post, published when a technical change that developers may need to know about will be included in the next WordPress release. 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. are typically published along with the first Release Candidaterelease candidate 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). which is currently scheduled for November 17, 2020.

Full Site Editing

Work on this major focus for phase 2 is an ongoing effort and is expected to continue iterating over the coming months. For November, priorities are being evaluated in order to identify next focus areas for Full Site Editing.

Overview

  • The Full Site Editing overview issue #20791 can help to identify the major components that will be included in this effort.
  • The Full Site Editing project board is another good place to watch for more detail about the current status of this overall effort.
  • Site editing Infrastructure and UIUI User interface continues to be addressed in overview issue #24818.
  • An effort the ensure that Template tags are accounted for in Full Site Editing is underway in issue #22724.

Query 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.

The Query Block is an important focus area. This feature is being explored in the following issues:

  • An Overview issue aiming to identify and resolve any Missing Query block functionality can be followed in issue #24934.
  • Design work for the controls for the Query block is being explored in issue #25198.
  • The Pagination Block is a part of the overall Query Block effort with design being explored in issue #26557.

Global Styles

Global Styles refers to the system that defines and manages global aesthetics allowing overall site styles, theme styles, and blocks to work well together.

  • An overview issue #20331 contains detailed information about Global Styles.
  • The Global Styles effort is being actively evaluated to identify next areas to focus on as well as areas to de-prioritize.
  • An effort will be made adjust for some things identified during testing with the blocks based version of the Twenty Twenty-One theme.

Ways to Get Involved

While the above items are our focuses, 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.

Meetings to Join

While you can view all meetings here, here are specific meetings to join depending on your interest. Remember that you need a WordPress.org slack account to participate: 

  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Editor weekly meeting on Wednesdays @ 14:00 UTC in #core-editor focused on all things Gutenberg. 
  • 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) weekly meeting on Fridays @ 16:00 UTC in #accessibility focused on wrangling accessibility related work across Core and the block based editor.
  • Block Based Themes meeting twice monthly on Wednesday @ 16:00 UTC in #themereview focused on preparing for Full Site Editing. 

Note: with daylight savings time related changes happening for many countries on different dates it may be helpful to double check on the times as some meetings may shift times to accommodate attendees preferences.

#gutenberg-next