Scott Kingsley Clark 10:06 pm on August 24, 2023
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Fields API Progress Summary: WCUS Contributor Day 2023

We had a solid day of progress today at the WCUS Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/.. I sat down at an empty table and before long it was full of people who were eager to help bring the vision of the Fields 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. to fruition.

If you aren’t familiar yet with what we’ve been planning, check out the post below about the kick-off we had at the start of this year. Otherwise, continue on below to see what we’ve accomplished and what’s left in the Research phase.

Fields API Kick-off Chat Summary: January 5th, 2023

Progress at Contributor Day

Research has continued and we now have docs for many of the areas we had planned plus new areas we discovered together.

Research docs

  • ✅ Settings API – @joedolson (ahead of Contributor Day)
  • ✅ Meta Box API – @sc0ttkclark
  • ✅ List Tables – @codearachnid
    • ✅ Quick Edit
    • ✅ Custom Columns
  • ✅ Taxonomies – @wvega
    • ✅ Add term form
    • ✅ Edit term form (separate from the Add term form in how you work with it)
  • Users
    • ✅ User profile – @ohryan
    • Add new user form
    • Add new user form (/networknetwork (versus site, blog)/ variation)
    • Add existing user to site form (Multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site)
  • Media – Media modal
  • Comments – Add new comment (front of site) – @cr0ybot
  • ✅ 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. Editor
  • 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. API
  • Nav Menus (classic)
    • Name Menu form
    • Nav Menu Item form
  • ✅ Widgets (classic) – @cr0ybot

Proposal draft work

We also had help from @lauriewood who spent time writing a proposal draft for us that we can use to build from with more technical details.

Comparison sheet

I put together a comparison sheet that goes over coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. APIs vs a few popular plugins. It may help you visualize what we are doing here.

What’s next?

Our next meeting

We’re going to set up another meeting in #core-fields on 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/. in September to get everyone together again. I’ll post here again as soon as we have a time set so others who are interested can join.

Research will continue

We have a few more docs to continue working on. We will coordinate who does what in the #core-fields Slack channel. If you’re interested in helping, feel free to mention me (@sc0ttkclark) there!

Proposing the Fields API

We will then be able to officially propose the Fields API based on our research and gather feedback on what we’ve put together. The proposed code will likely remain similar to what was proposed in 2017 but with more modern PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher 7+ code and potentially support for 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. schema files if there’s appetite in core to expand beyond the Blocks JSON schema implementation and into other config areas.

#feature-plugins, #fields-api, #options-meta, #summary