Editor chat summary: 20th January 2021

This post summarises the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda here) held on 2021-01-20 14:00 UTC in Slack. Moderated by @get_dave.

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/ 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 Release

• At the time of the meeting the latest release was 9.7.4.
• The release was underway for 9.8.0 during the meeting.
• @bernie provided us with an update:
  • Not a lot of “big” new features.
  • …but some nice enhancements.
  • Semi-transparent Spacer 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..
  • Block Switcher now shows variation icon.
  • Major changes to the Full-Site Editing framework (see full updates below).

Preparation for WordPress 5.7 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. 1

• WordPress 5.7 Beta 1 is due for release on the 2nd February 2021.
• Beta 1 will represent the cut-off point for new commits/features for the Block Editor.
• The deadline for changes is Gutenberg 9.9 RCrelease 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). on the 27th January.
• There is a WordPress 5.7 project board where you can follow along and keep up to date with progress.

Monthly Plan & Key Project updates

• We reviewed the overarching plan for January (courtesy of @daisyo).
• We then requested updates on the key projects.

Full Site Editing

• @youknowriad indicated that there’s so many work-related to FSE that’s hard to summarise.
• Some important work/changes:
  • Removal of auto-drafts.
  • iFramed site editor.
  • Flows for template editing in the post editor.
  • Better context switching,
  • Better template switching UIUI User interface,
  • Less confusing multi-entity saving flows.
• There has been some awesome feedback from the call for testing summarized by @annezazu.

Global Styles

@nosolosw provided an update via the agenda post:

• Working towards adding parts of global styles to WordPress 5.7 (the settings mechanism to control the editor).
• Planning some changes to the shape of theme.json – initially we’re working to make settings & styles top-level keys.

@itsjonq also provided an updated on Global Styles UI:

• Working through the integrations and improvements to the Component System for Gutenberg.
• Came up with some design/interaction ideas for 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. experience. I’ve documented them as a comment in this Github issue.

Block based 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. / Navigation Editor

@andraganescu provided the update:

• The Widgets editor advanced and now has:
  • improvements to how it handles data batching,
  • a brand new set of tests to prevent future regressions from foundational updates.
• Similarly the Navigation editor is fixed, and there is progress on adding a better empty state handling (no existing menus).
• For discussions about these incoming editors join the following 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/. channels:
  • #feature-widgets-block-editor
  • #feature-navigation-block-editor.

Task Coordination

• @mkaz – working on:
  • improving the Navigation block. including overflow for horizontal menus.
  • bringing justify work to social icons for nav.
• @paaljoachim – working on:
  • the Block Editor intro page with @justinahinon
  • gathering responses and people to help create consolidated documentation for local dev environment setup + testing environment.
  • various triages with focus on design as well as older issues without comments.
• @ntsekouras:
  • started working on changing `Preferences` modal.
  • new block Query Title explorations.
• @aristath:
  • focus is on FSE,
  • been reviewing and debugging lots of PRs while submitting fixes for any issues I come across.
  • working on optimizing how block styles get loaded for FSE themes and there’s a draft PR. 
• @youknowriad
  • reviewed a number of things: Preferences redesign, batch 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., …
  • discussed a number of other things: Dimensions panel, inserter interacions
  • Landed the horizontal in between inserter.
  • Iterating on the new flow for the global inserter.
• @bernhard-reiter:
  • releasing Gutenberg 9.8.0.
  • working on release automation (making a Gutenberg release basically a matter of up to 3 clicks in the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can 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/ UI).
• @andraganescu – started looking into adding a background to the group block and ended up in a rabbit hole but I am slowly coming out of it.
• @itsjonq:
  • focused on the integration with the new Component System. Worked with a bunch of folks. We’re getting really close!
  • exploring Design Tool UI/UXUX User experience designs.
• @get_dave – still working on an experimental API endpoint for querying details about a remote URL. We’re currently slowed up a little on a discussion regarding a filter. I aim to get that resolved this week with help from @timothybjacobs.

Open Floor

New Slack channel for block based Navigation screen

• @danr mentioned in the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. Dev chat that work on the block-based Navigation screen has picked up again.
• There’s a new channel for anyone interested in following/contributing – #feature-navigation-block-editor.
• There’s a Github project for it too.

More native mobile integration/e2e tests on Gutenberg’s PR CI

• @hypest asked about adding more more native mobile integration/e2e tests on Gutenberg’s PR CI.
• Some regressions recently that would have been caught with some simple automated tests before their PRs got merged.
• Adding tests will increase the run time of the CI jobs, not much but, you know, it adds up.
• @youknowriad recommended defaulting to adding the tests and figuring out speed improvements if needed.
• @gziolo suggested a more detailed mobile test suite executed after every commit to the main branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"..

Stale Issues/PR bot in Github repo

• @mkaz followed up on last week’s stale issue topic.
• Posted on Make and already received great feedback and comments there.
• We plan to leave open until end of month and then will create a PR with next steps.
• So if you have any thoughts not already captured, please comment on the post.

Custom Post types and Full Site Editing

• @ndiego noted how he started diving into custom post types in the FSE and custom templates, but hit a lot of deadends.
• Is this something else one is actively working on, or still well down the road in terms of FSE development?
• @youknowriad said he did work a bit on custom templates recently (page templates) but not much custom post types. I’m sure there’s a few things we need to figure out there though.
• Agreed to open Issues or PRs as required.

Thanks to everyone who attended!

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