Editor chat summary: 7 July, 2021

This post summarizes the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda here) held on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, 04:00 PM GMT+1 in Slack. Moderated by @paaljoachim.

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/ 11.0

Gutenberg 11.0.0 release notes. Thanks to @get_dave for writing the notes!

New feature highlights:

• Editing overlay for Template Parts and Reusable blocks.
• Support for CSS shorthand properties in theme.json and block attributes.
• “Shout out to the Widgets team who’ve shipped more 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 than I’ve ever seen.”

WordPress 5.8

WordPress 5.8 project board.

Monthly Priorities

June monthly priorities. (A special update for July and August will be coming.)
Along with Key Project updates.

Global Styles

Update from @nosolosw

• The focus continues to look out for fixing bugs that are backported to the Betas/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).. The only major thing left at this point is being able to translate strings coming from theme.json at translate.wordpress.org. TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.: theme.json strings not extracted for translation.

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. 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

Update from @andraganescu

• The widgets editor is looking stable. This 5.8 RC2 release included several fixes and we’re hoping for a stable period with no new major issues. Currently, there are some problems in testing with WP 5.7.2 so please test using the 5.8 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"..

Update from @noisysocks

• I put together a little overview of post-5.8 widgets work: Widgets editor refinement.

Navigation Block and Navigation Editor

Update from @andraganescu

• For the navigation block I want to highlight the merge of @tellthemachines’s PR that decouples the markup if the block between the front end and the editor.

Update from @joen

• Work on the navigation block proceeds with the tracking issue as the guiding star. The already mentioned markup fix is a big one.
• Next on deck is landing the separate color option for submenus, and we’d much appreciate your reviews of the PR.

Update from @get_dave

• Navigation Editor is still looking at the best route to decouple itself from the Nav Block. Lots of work in progress including this merged PR from @danr Refactor of navigation block rendering using location attribute.

Mobile Team

Update from @chipsnyder

• Gallery Block Refactor (PR) – Just needs the experimental feature flag work to wrap. NEEDS a code review:
• In Progress:
• Editor Onboarding.
• Adding search to the block inserter.
• Embed block.
• iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. share extension.
• Wrapping up support items for GSS Colors getting ready to look into GSS Font Sizes.

Full Site Editing Outreach program update

@annezazu

• There’s a hallway hangout today with @DaisyO at 5PM UTC focused on the current call for testing with theme.json. Join #fse-outreach-experiment for more information.
• There’s 1 week left to help with the theme.json call for testing.
• The current schedule for the program can be found here for all interested.
• High level feedback from the FSE Program (July 2021) summarizing top feedback items about the current experience that’s been tested.

Task Coordination

@mamaduka

• Replaced withState with the useState in the component docs: part 1, part 2, and part 3.
• Created PR to disable remote patterns in tests.
• Worked on enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature. for the Cover block to add alt text support.
• Create a minor fix to avoid rendering duplicated stylesheet and SVG for Duotone.

@joen

I have some PRs that need reviews to land, but are otherwise solid. If you have green checks, I’d appreciate it:

• Menu item placeholder inheritance (Merged)
• Reduce specificity of reset & classic styles (On pause)
• Navigation margin collapsing

@get_dave

• I’ve been working mainly on contributing bug fixes to the Widgets screens.
• Also focused on facilitating the release of 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 11.0.0, including spending time tweaking documentation and hacking on potential improvements to release tooling.

@annezazu

• Main focuses: end user docs for the upcoming release and the FSE outreach program (current call for testing + high level feedback items post). Want to try to test 5.8RCs every day until the release.

@aristath

• Main focus this past week for me was bugfixes for 5.8, lots of testing, and PR reviews.

@jorgefilipecosta

• My main focus was to help the new global styles design UIUI User interface by reviewing the Global Styles V2 prototype.
• Global Styles: Try a simple navigation.
• Dimensions Panel: Add new progressive disclosure panel and update spacing supports.
• Navigation Block: Add Color Options for Submenus.
• Fix: Preset variables not being user on the site editor.
• Besides that I reviewing multiple small PR’s and submitted some small bug fixes.

Open Floor

Not getting pinged directly in the issue
when an associated PR is created.

@paaljoachim

Regarding creating a PR. The PR author should also add a comment to the associated issue mentioning that a Pull Request has been made, so that commenters in the issue will get a pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” about the newly created PR. Could some information be added to the PR template to tell PR authors that they need to add a comment to the issue about the PR?

@aristath

Comment: Not all PRs are tied to a ticket… There are a lot of PRs that are the place where the actual conversation takes place, and that is fine.
So if such a comment gets added to the PR template, the wording should be such that makes it clear that if there is a ticket related to the PR, a comment would be welcomed.

Next steps and key projects

@nosolosw

I have seen that we are scoping the next steps and key projects and I think it would be good to re-align the editor agenda topics (key project updates), the monthly priorities post, and this work in the coming weeks.

@annezazu

Comment: I agree with that comment from André! I think first things first — the monthly priorities post needs to be adjusted so the key project updates can fall in line @priethor is on it as far as I know.

E2e tests

@annezazu

Topic: I’d like to talk about e2e testing and what can be done collectively to improve the reliability of these tests. I’ve repeatedly seen e2e tests brought up as a major pain point over time. I’d love to hear what ideas folks have but, for now, I think it might be neat to try having dedicated time to discuss e2e tests during meetings.

Comments:

• Some of the main points that came up:
• e2e tests are important to catch regressions, the more we work on them and feel responsible about their stability (and not just relaunch until it pass), the better.
• Look to improve overall stability.
• CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. is starting to build e2e tests following models/patterns from Gutenberg.
• What about forming a project to focus on improving the stability and robustness of the Gutenberg e2e tests? It might provide focused attention and effort as well as a board to collect and promote shared collective insights and discussion.
• Several tests that can become unstable from time to time, and often times, the reason they break is legitimate just hard to reproduce.

A followup conversation between @hellofromtonya and @youknowriad

• Current state: e2e test suite is robust and stable.
• Failed e2e tests are real failures.
• Problem: difficult to debug and identify why and where new code is legitimately making existing tests fail.
• This changes the discussion and focus: shift towards => how to surface the why and where to help contributors make their tests more robust as well as fix problems in their source code that are making existing tests fail.

Check out the longer discussion about this topic that happened during the meeting.

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