Editor chat summary: 23rd June 2021

This post summarises the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda here) held on 2021-06-23 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/ 10.9 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 10.9 RC 1.
• Following the meeting @mamaduka pushed the stable release of 10.9.
• The release notes will be published shortly.

WordPress 5.8 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. 3

• 22nd June 2021 saw the release of WordPress 5.8 Beta 3.
• It was noted that there is still time for 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 and documentation to be written.
• @desrosj explained that there is a 4th (unscheduled) Beta planned for later this week (likely Thursday or Friday) – if there are additional things you’d like to see get tested during the beta cycle (and not after 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).), there’s still time to get those in.
• The project board for Gutenberg and WordPress 5.8 still has outstanding items needing contributors.
• Due dates for dev notes – the field guideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. is published on the same day as RC 1, which is this upcoming Tuesday. Ideally, all 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. should be in by then. If there are any notes that will not be ready, they can be added to the guide after publish, but having them for that date is preferred.

Key Project updates

Updates were requested for the key projects:

Native Mobile Team

@mattchowning provided the update:

Shipped

• ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org/. Native 0.64.x upgrade, including upgrade to React v17!

Coming Soon:

• Gallery 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. refactor
• Tooltips to help with Editor Onboarding

In Progress:

• Further Editor Onboarding improvements: a help section and a “new” badge for new blocks
• Starting work on improving the integration tests for mobile so mobile breakages are caught earlier
• Block inserter search
• Embed block
• Global Style Support for colors

Global Styles

@nosolosw provided the update async:

Current focus is polishing the theme.json experience by finding and fixing bugs that are backported to the Betas weekly.The two major things left are:

• Show preset strings provided via theme.json in translate.wordpress.org so they can be translated. This depends on a new wp-cliWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ release (see) and then updating the 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. infrastructure. Trac ticket.
• Publish 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. for theme.json (I’m working on this).

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. Editor and CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings..

@andraganescu provided the update.

• The widgets editor looks unblocked on its path to 5.8.
• Thanks to everyone for the continuous testing and fixing. 
• Everyone in the #feature-widgets-block-editor channel is keeping an eye out for flagged issues or tickets. 
• @noisysocks is doing a great job maintaining the project triaged and prioritized.
• Don’t hesitate to bring up new things, test, test, test!

Navigation Block

@mkaz provided an update:

• Color overlay issues being worked and continued improvements.
• It looks like the markup has been confirmed so will need review on the open PR to move it forward

Navigation Editor screen

@get_dave provided an update:

• We’re contributing towards a discussion about the scope of Block Supports and how that interacts with Theme JSON.
• It has a lot of relevance for the Navigation Editor and Block.
• This is the main focus at the moment and we hope to make progress off the back of that soon.

Full Site Editing

• @aristath suggested that we stop using FSE as a term, and eliminate it from code whenever possible. We should use “block based” or similar instead.
• @annezazu mentioned that template editing mode is officially opt in for classic themes and opt out for block themes for 5.8. You can see the dialogue here and you can see the PR for this here.
• @annezazu flagged the FSE Outreach program is going to launch a call for testing/exploration around 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. tomorrow rather than today. You can see the full schedule here for June/July.

Task Coordination

@ntsekouras:

• Site blocks (Site Title, Site Tagline, Site Logo) handling for users without edit permissions.

@annezazu:

• I was out last week – still playing catch up.
• Hyper focused on the FSE Outreach program.
• Working on the theme.json call for testing with a few folks
• Nearly done with the seventh call for testing summary post.
• Shared a reflection previously on future programs (thoughts welcome).
• Starting July 1, I’ll be focusing in as much time as I can on user docs for 5.8.

@mkaz:

• Looking at Dev Notes for WP 5.8, the tracking issue is here.
• The three major dev notes that I see left are:
  • Widgets Editor
  • Global Styles
  • Block 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. & registration
• @gziolo already has a draft of the Block API note that I hope to review and publish this week. 
• @andragan and @nosolosw are working on the other two: Widgets & Global Styles.

@get_dave:

• Currently focused on the scope of the Block Supports API and Theme JSON and how we can utilise these to improve the resilience and features of the Nav Block and Editor.
• Also been tinkering with the rich previews in the Link UIUI User interface and trying to find a decent way to get previews for internal URLs to work. Should have something incoming soon.
• Finally, I’ve been helping out with the Widgets Editor fixing bugs and updating documentation.

@aristath:

• WP 5.8 – working on improving styles & scripts loading and there are no blockers
• We should stop using FSE as a term, and eliminate it from code whenever possible (see note above).

@zieladam:

• I am getting back into the rhythm of contributing after my 6 months break (during which I explored data science in Tumblr).
• Mostly going through the Widgets editor board and reviewing/submitting new PRs and refreshing my memory of how everything works.

Open Floor

Saving Flow Consistency (agenda comment)

• @paaljoachim asking about saving flow consistency across various screens.
• He’s made a detailed overview Issue and he feels “…it would be helpful to get this fixed for WP 5.8, so users who want to discard a save does not meet these errors.“
• Is anyone able to take a look into this? Please let us know in the comments.

“Final call” for input on the transform vs convert debate for Block Transform API

• @get_dave flags a “final call” for input on the `transform` vs `convert` debate in regarding to the block transform API.
• Please do check this out as it may result in a deprecation notice for lots of blocks across the ecosystem.

Feedback about Block based Widgets screen

Note: this has subsequently been converted into an Issue and added to the Widgets project board.

• @annezazu wanted to quickly flag this feedback about the block based widget screen from earlier in the core editor chat.
• It would be great to have someone follow up there to give context on approach and address any necessary problems.

Request for pull request approval: filters to get block templates functions

• @janwoostendorp asks if we can get a yes/no on the PR to provide filters to get block templates functions.
• Perhaps @mcsf or @youknowriad can take a look into this?

Problems testing Theme JSON for Classic Themes

• @colorful-tones is eager to test leveraging just the theme.json for classic theme (or more like hybrid) approach.
• Saw PR #32858, but not entirely certain how to test and verify. Should I be running latest Gutenberg plugin and latest WP Beta 3, or just latest Gutenberg? 
• @annezazu provided advice:

@colorful-tones I might recommend asking directly on the PR to be extra safe. From what I can see to test this, you need to use WordPress 5.7 and the specific 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". that this PR is on.

Anne McCarthy

• There is also document on Testing a Gutenberg Pull Request (PR) which @paaljoachim put together which should be helpful.

WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Japan Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. successes

• @torounit let us know that today (23rd June 2021) we had WordCamp Japan Contributor Day.
• 3 PRs were created:
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32910
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32925
  • https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/32913
• We have two first-time contributors!
• I will review and do other things soon.

No blocks in inserter on Widget screen with empty Widget area

• @desrosj advised on a Trac ticket on the 5.8 milestone which had skipped attention.
• When a widget area is empty, the block inserter is empty.
• @get_dave flagged this for @noisysocks and also reminded everyone about the #feature-widgets-block-editor channel is 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/. which is the best place to flag these items.
• This issue is now in hand and on the Widgets project board.

Wrap up

It was great to hear/see so many voices in the Open Floor section.

Thanks to everyone who attended.

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