The WordPress Developers Chat meeting took place on April 5, 2023 at 20:00 UTC in the core channel of Make WordPress Slack.
Key Links
Announcements
- WordPress 6.2 “Dolphy” was released last week: https://wordpress.org/news/2023/03/dolphy/
- Gutenberg 15.5 was released today: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/04/05/whats-new-in-gutenberg-15-5-05-april/
Highlighted Posts
Between March 20 and April 3, 2023, work in Trac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. included:
- 38 commits
- 76 contributors
- 120 tickets created
- 19 tickets reopened
- 86 tickets closed
- and 8 new contributors! 🎉
- Preferred Languages: Help test the latest version: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/04/03/preferred-languages-help-test-the-latest-version/
- WordPress 6.2 Performance improvements for all themes: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/04/05/wordpress-6-2-performance-improvements-for-all-themes/
- Proposal: The Interactivity API – A better developer experience in building interactive blocks: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/03/30/proposal-the-interactivity-api-a-better-developer-experience-in-building-interactive-blocks/
Release Updates
- 6.3 alpha is underway, with a focus on
early tickets.
- 6.3 development cycle: https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-3/
early tickets report: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/early
- 6.2.1 minor 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. timing discussions are happening in the #6-2-release-leads channel.
- Trac tickets in this minor milestone are at https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/minor/workflow
- Also see Gutenberg’s “Punted to 6.2.1” column: https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/63
Maintainers: Component Help Requests
@afragen shared the Call for Testing for Plugin Dependencies. @pbiron mentioned that feedback about the UX User experience is mostly needed and should be added to the post, but that non-UX feedback should be added to ticket #22316.
Open Floor
6.3 early Tickets
@hellofromtonya referred to the handful of current 6.3 early tickets, and asked that anyone with time consider contributing to these.
@howdy_mcgee asked about Trac tickets #24142 and #18408, which relate to WP_Query updates, and if they should be considered early. @hellofromtonya agreed and added the early keyword to both, explaining WP_Query changes should be done early to allow sufficient time for feedback and testing. @howdy_mcgee expressed interest in writing tests for the patch 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. in #18408 and asked others to DM with suggestions on where to start.
About Page: “Get Involved” Improvements
@oglekler raised Trac ticket #23348, which could add a new menu item and/or tab that better represents each Make WordPress team and opportunities to contribute. @hellofromtonya suggested adding the needs-design keyword to start with the design phase, and after a design was established, code work could start. @oglekler added that Marketing could contribute toward the content. Both agreed that this update could be a starting point for new contributors to get involved. @hellofromtonya also suggested that due to the age of the ticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker., updating the current proposal could help move it forward.
Promoting WordPress Mobile Apps
@oglekler also brought attention to Trac ticket #56277, which would promote the WordPress Mobile app from the admin (and super admin) dashboard. @oglekler noted that the #mobile channel recently agreed to author a new post explaining the current status of WordPress’s mobile apps and how the widget 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. could help promote them. In response, @hellofromtonya suggested getting feedback on the idea first, and then design proposals would follow.
WordPress PHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher 8+ “Beta 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. Support”
@ipajen asked if there had been any discussion about removing the beta support for PHP 8.x in WordPress. @hellofromtonya noted that she and @jrf had a recent call about it, and proposed laying out what’s needed to remove the “beta” compatible label for each PHP 8.x version. @hellofromtonya mentioned that very low code coverage and a low percentage of sites running on these PHP versions makes it difficult to know whether WordPress Core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. itself is fully compatible or not.
@hellofromtonya shared that some other criteria, like having at least 10% of sites running on PHP 8.x, with all reported issues on that version fixed, could be a method to determine removal of the “beta support” label. Current stats show only PHP 8.0’s usage exceeds that threshold (PHP 8.0 reflects 12.5% usage). @hellofromtonya shared a link to open PHP 8.x tickets in Trac, as there are additional compatibilities to be discussed and solved, including named parameters, magic methods and dynamic properties, type validation, etc.
[Editor’s Note] This topic went into “overtime” following the official Dev Chat time constraints, and that dialog is provided here:
@ipajen expressed hopes that PHP 8.0 could be officially supported soon, and asked if WordPress Tide should be considered under the compatibility criteria for WordPress. @hellofromtonya pointed out that Tide is separate from WordPress Core, so is not a blocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. toward removing the “beta support” label, but agreed that it would be great for Tide to add support for PHP 8.1 and 8.2.
@hellofromtonya further shared her opinion that the beta label could be removed once there was consensus on the previously mentioned criteria and named parameters discussions, and that further dialog on these should be conducted on Trac or in a Make/Core post.
@pbiron asked @hellofromtonya if Trac tickets marked php8 applied to all PHP 8+ items, or were specific to version 8.0. Further discussion involving @sergeybiryukov and @ipajen lead to consensus that renaming php8 to php80 would disambiguate the keyword’s use, as it has until this point been used specifically for PHP 8.0. @ipajen further suggested that with this change in place, issues affecting multiple PHP 8 versions could be tagged with each version impacted, presumably for easier searching/filtering in Trac.
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on April 12, 2023 at 20:00 UTC.
Are you interested in helping draft Dev Chat summaries? Volunteer at the start of the next meeting on the #core Slack channel.
Props @davidbaumwald, @costdev, and @hellofromtonya for peer review of this summary, and to everyone who contributed in today’s Dev Chat.
#6-3, #6-2, #dev-chat, #meeting, #summary
