Developer blog meeting summary: May 4, 2023

Last month’s summary, for context.

@bph ran a lively meeting from a simple agenda (and a new continent!):
• Site updates and news
• Project Board
    ◦ In the works
    ◦ Reviews needed
    ◦ To be approved
    ◦ New discussions on topics
• Open Floor

Site updates and news

@bph has moved from Sarasota, FL, USA to her hometown—Munich, Germany—after 25 years in the States.

More exciting than her big move was her news about the blogblog (versus network, site). She’s been working with @dd32 on a few things:

Working on the blog adds goodies to your .org profile

Dion has installed WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/’s WP Activity Notifier 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, which adds a post contribution to your WordPress.org profile activity list every time you publish a post, going forward. The contribution looks like this:

If you wrote an article between November and now, he has added the activity to your profile retroactively, by hand. Thanks, @dd32!

Let’s build a Create Props 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.!

Since all the Make blogs are adding props for review, Dion has also started thinking about a Props block for posts and whatever else. If you have some time to make this real, he and Birgit have opened a 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. ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #6945 with their thoughts on how to get started.

Cross-publishing dev blog posts in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and dev-blog 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/. channels

Addressing a Dev chat conversation with @jeffpaul, Birgit and Dion have also made every new post on the dev blog auto-publish on the Core Slack as well as the #core-dev-blog Slack. So that should get even more eyes on the blog!

A 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/ organization for educational code

Birgit told the group that @psykro is working through a process that will make a GitHub organization for the faculty on the Training team and dev-blog authors to house code people can learn from. More on this when there is news to report …

New posts on the blog

From @greenshady come these:

• What’s new for developers? (April 2023)
• Using template patterns to build multiple homepage designs
• Per-block CSS with theme.json

@welcher published How webpack and WordPress packages interact.

Project status

These posts are in the works:

• What’s new for developers? (May 2023) by Justin Tadlock
• useEntityRecords tutorial by Michael Burridge
• Examples of using the new filter blockEditor.useSetting.before by Nick Diego
• How to use nonces the right way by Milana Cap

And these to-dos are approved:

• Tutorial on how to use theme.json filters by Nick Diego
• New HTML Tag Processor – An in-depth tutorial Adam Zielinski & Dennis Snell
• Using the Grid layout type for theme creators Justin Tadlock
• Deep-dive Tutorial on the New Style Book by Ganesh Dahal

@bph pointed out that some of those are delayed because of travel, or are waiting for a feature to land in a stable release of 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/, Core or a feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins.. Or, she added, because the writers don’t yet have the bandwidth.

New topics

The group approved these new topics:

1. Tutorial on building patterns and block styles with Details/Summary block
2. How to manage block governance
3. Adding custom color options for blocks
4. Tutorial on style variations in theme.json
5. How to add starter content to WordPress themes
6. Make your site’s typography make a statement.
7. Navigating the Block Editor Handbook
8. Tutorial on building block-based templates in classic themes

@greenshady noted that a lot of those ideas are his, and he’s happy to write any or all of them. The one post he is firmly committed to writing himself is the tutorial on the Details/Summary block.

The group spent a few minutes discussing what block governance really means in idea #2 and concluded that the post covers restricting access to specific block controls by user role so authors and editors on a WordPress site—maybe a publication or a corporate site, for instance—can edit content and visuals but can only use blocks that are styled to comply with their company brand standards.

@marybaum noted she can start the typography series in idea #6 this week with a plan for the posts and a draft of the first one.

Welcome Olga!

@bph welcomed @oglekler to the meeting and the editorial board. Recommended by @webcommsat (and highly seconded by your friendly neighborhood summary writer) Olga Glekler is a full-stack developer, component maintainer, and contributor to several Make teams over the years. The group gave her a rousing, emoji-filled welcome.

Open floor

@webcommsat suggested that whoever writes the agenda distribute links ahead of time so attendees can come prepared to discuss an idea at a deeper level come meeting time. Several folks thought that was a nice idea and then admitted they might not actually get around to reading the material in advance.

Birgit raised Olga’s post in the dev-blog Slack about software architecture and how to keep basic principles in mind as developers switch from language to language. The group concurred that a discussion of these concepts would be immensely valuable, as long as they stay firmly rooted in WordPress-relevant examples.

#core, #meeting, #summary, #core-dev-blog