Full Site Editing Scope for WP5.8

The first go/no go date is next week (April 14, 2021), and I’d like to offer a roadmap and some high level clarifications for folks following along.

Full site editing is a collection of projects and together they represent a big change, arguably too much for a single release. The most important context to share is that it isn’t shipping as the full, default experience for users. One of the clearest pieces of feedback from the Phase One merge process was that there wasn’t enough time for our extenders (agencies, theme authors, 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 developers, site builders, etc.) to prepare for the upcoming changes.

With that in mind, this merge process won’t be an on/off switch. The focus now is not on a full and nuanced user experience, but more of an open public 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. within WordPress 5.8.

With that context, let’s take a look at what is coming up in the next week and beyond..

Next Steps

Go/No Go Dates

On April 14 the 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/ plugin will ship v10.4 and shortly thereafter will be the go/no go demo.

The scope is the same as the past few months and focuses on the interface that allows for template editing, a number of new theme-building-oriented blocks, and design tools. This part of the FSE merge will not change the users’ default experience, but instead will focus on bringing tools to the extenders in our community so that they can experiment with their users in mind.

  • Block theme building based on the theme.json configuration file. (https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/29891)
  • Site-editing-oriented blocks, such as the Query block, Template Part block, and Site Logo block.(https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/28744)
  • Along with the query block, a collection of patterns and contextual pattern transformations. (https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/30508)
  • 7 Gutenberg plugin iterations (10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6)

Beta Dates

On June 8 the WordPress 5.8 release will reach its beta period. 

The components below are some of the most complex, and the user experience of them will be key. They are all high priority to complete (hopefully for WP5.8), but will be punted if they aren’t ready in time for Beta.

Later Dates

On July 20 the WordPress 5.8 release will reach general availability.

The components below came up frequently in user testing as being confusing and need more attention. Polishing these components has been moved out of the focus for WP5.8 for proper prioritization.

  • Making the saving flow more intuitive when in the template editor and making changes to multiple areas of a site.
  • Phased rollout of user-interface for Global Styles and interactions with the template editor & template parts.

The Demo

This has been scheduled for April 14. 

Attending

  • Matt Mullenweg – Project Lead (advocating for the vision/mission of WordPress, and aggregate body of users)
  • Matias Ventura – Gutenberg project lead (host of the demo)
  • Helen Hou-Sandi – Lead developer (advocating for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and extender community)
  • Josepha Haden Chomphosy – Executive Director (advocating for the community of WordPress, and aggregate body of users)

Agenda

  • Matias will demo the features intended for WP5.8
  • Discussions and implementation questions

Afterward

  • Blocking items (if any) will be gathered and shared publicly
    • If yes: A plan to prioritize and address issues prior to the second go/no-go date of April 27 will be shared
    • If none: A plan to merge to Core will be shared

#5-8, #core-editor, #full-site-editing