Dev Chat Summary: November 3, 2021

@francina led the weekly meeting at 20:00 UTC. Here is the meeting agenda.

Link to this <dev-chat> in #core on Making WordPress 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/..

Notable news and blogblog (versus network, site) posts

• WordPress 5.8.2 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). 1 is ready for testing
• FSE Program: Answers from Round Three of Questions
• A Week in Core – November 1, 2021
• Thunks in Gutenberg
• What’s new in Gutenberg 11.8.0? (27 October)
• WordPress Performance Team kick off and Recap
• And finally, let’s discuss Nominations for Core Team Reps 2022

Component Team Updates

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

• PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher 8.1 compatibility fixes #53635
• PHP Coding Standards fixes for 5.9 #53359
• Removed role="navigation" from Core & Bundled Themes #54054
• Permalinks: sanitize non-visible characters. #47912

@francina and @audrasjb highlighted the call for new Core Team reps for the next calendar year, emphasized reps do not need to be experienced contributors or developers to fill the role and outlined some of the main tasks.

Also, contributors are still needed for the WordPress 5.9 Release Squad (details on the responsibilities).

Build/Test Tools

• Preliminary work on visual regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. tests in Core. #49606
• Continuing work on end-to-end (e2e) tests in Core. #49507
• Add missing @covers to PHPUnit tests. #39265
• Improving Slack Notifications via GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that 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/ Actions. #53363

Date/Time

• Improved inline documentation #53399

About/Help

• Next 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. scrub is Monday, November 8 at 19:00 UTC, following three prior scrubs for 5.9.

Editor

• 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/ 11.9 (the last release going into WordPress 5.9) has an RC cutoff of November 5.

Open Floor

• @hellofromtonya called out the WordPress 5.9 Feature Freeze is November 9. Work then shifts to defect tickets until the 5.9 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 target date of November 16.
• @francina brought up a Gutenberg PR (36168) to remove the 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. menu item when 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. Themes are active. @johnbillion raised #54370 in relation to this change. If you build a 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 extends the Customizer, please test with this change!

Watch For

• WordPress 5.8.2 is currently in RC’s. Minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality. expected on November 10.
• WordPress 5.9 Feature Freeze is November 9.
• Our next Weekly Developer Chat is Wednesday, November 10 at 20:00 UTC

#5-8-2, #5-9, #dev-chat, #summary