Dev Chat Summary, April 6, 2022

1. Welcome

The agenda followed in this week’s WordPress developer chat meeting.

Link to the start of the meeting on the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. channel on the Make 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/..

Meeting facilitated by @marybaum and @webcommsat.

2. Announcements

WordPress 5.9.3 release is out! (April 5, 2022)

If you missed the WordPress 6.0 walkthrough, you can watch the video, read the transcript and the chat discussion all on the recap. This was a casual, guided walkthrough of many new features that are planned for WordPress 6.0,, and things that are likely to be released thereafter. Props to all involved.

3. Blogblog (versus network, site) posts for dev chat awareness

• A Week in Core (April 4, 2022)
• Month in WordPress – March 2022 – a recap of some of the things which happened across the project last month (April 5, 2022). People of WordPress feature for March
• What’s new in Learn WordPress – find out all the resources that were published in March 2022, available freely to use
• 6.0 Project Board for 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/
• More answers to round four of questions on the Full Site Editing (FSE) program. You can find answers from all the question rounds at fse-answers
• Give feedback on the latest call for testing on authoring an author template – call 13 (March 31, 2022). There’s also lots of useful information in this post on setting up a testing environment.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed and given their time to these posts and events.

4. Updates on the Releases

a) Next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope.: 6.0

Bug Scrub schedule for 6.0 list, which is regularly updated. Help the components maintainers and all those involved in progressing tickets by joining them on a 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. You can also volunteer to run a bug scrub on the specific tickets you care about!

Update from @annezazu for the release co-ordinators:

• currently no known blocking issues for the release. Things are proceeding as expected.
• all issues related to the walkthrough have been opened or confirmed already filed. There is work underway around how best to integrate it into the current process.
• Gutenberg 13.0 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 last Gutenberg release for inclusion in 6.0) was pushed by a few days to Friday, April 8 to allow for more time for PRs ahead of feature freeze/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
• the Core Editor Tech leads are feeling solid about coordinating backporting PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher changes and on the 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. front
• two new release squad members to help make this release a success: @ndiego stepped into the Core Editor Triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. lead role and @ironprogrammer stepped into co-lead the Test role for the squad
• a post is in progress/underway around specific features to help test in the lead up to 6.0. This will include items like comments loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop., cover 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. as featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. PR, webfonts 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., and more
  
  Confirmed, post dev chat:
  – 6.0 Beta 1 Release Party at April 12, 2022, at 18:00 UTC

5. Open Floor

• @afragen: needs feedback for the Plugin Dependencies feature project, aiming for 6.1. More design feedback requested, thanks to @paaljoachim for review so far.
  
• Trac Ticket 55344 raised by @josklever. @adamsilverstein confirmed the issue, it needs a patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. to lazy load hidden widgets, and tests, in order to move forward.

• @gziolo has a pull request (PR) on #2263 Update webpack to v5.x ready for testing. This relates to Trac ticket 51750.

• @tylerwe: asked about potential options to integrate a text-to-speech into WordPress core for better #accessibility

Potential next steps in the discussion: (1) starting place with 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 submission and check the Plugin Developer Handbook, (2) to aim for a WordPress core integration, it has to be entirely open-source and GPLGPL GNU General Public License. Also see copyright license. compatible, (3) bring discussion to an #accessibility meeting, (4) licensing questions, (5) provide more details on a Make post for feedback. Post dev chat: Tyler thanked @jeffpaul for further offline discussions about a potential plugin.

• The Learn WordPress Social Learning MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. has block theme discussions around different parts of 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.. @daisyo welcomed anyone interested to join.
  • April 8, 2022, 15:00 UTC
  • April 15, 2022, 15:00 UTC

• @webcommsat: WordCamp Europe 2022 Contributor Day, June 2, 2022 – if anyone would be interesting in volunteering to help at the core tables, please contact the Core Team Reps @marybaum and @audrasjb. Is anyone already preparing items which could be used from any of the core areas? If so, please can you let them know. Previously core has had a significant presence at WCEU contributor days, broken up into its different areas.
  
• Event confirmed post dev chat from @marybaum and @nalininonstopnewsuk:
  Bug scrubs for the Quick/ Bulk Edit component and the About / Help Page component will be on April 11 2022, at 20:00 UTC The scrub will include discussion on the messaging strategy for the 6.0 About Page. All welcome to join.
  

Next Dev Chat meeting: April 13, 2022, 20:00 UTC in the Core Slack channel.

Props to: @marybaum and @webcommsat for facilitating the meeting, @tylerwe and @webcommsat for the dev chat summary, and @marybaum, @costdev, and @annezazu for the review.

Could you volunteer next week for the summary?

#5-9-3, #6-0, #dev-chat, #summary