(Updated with Calls under 6.4 relating to the About Page. 2023/10/4)
The next weekly WordPress developers chat will take place on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 at 20:00 UTC in the core channel of Make WordPress Slack. All are welcome.
Further items will continue to be added as they come up in core Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and release leads channels on Slack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. This agenda was shared in draft after the 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. 2 release to help collate information.
Welcome and housekeeping
Summary of Dev Chat, September 27, 2023 – thanks to @webcommsat @nalininonstopnewsuk @ironprogrammer
A reminder has been posted in the 6.4 release leads channel on Slack, for any discussions and/or decision making that impacts Core, to move those discussions to the #core channel. This follows a request from last week’s Dev Chat.
Announcements
WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 is available – please help test and make the release the best it can be. All details are on the post. Thanks to everyone who contributed towards Beta 2 and those who came and facilitated the release party on September 3.
Highlighted posts
Due to time constraints during a release and to prioritize 6.4 items, some of the highlighted posts may not be raised during the live Dev Chat meeting.
Hallway Hangout – working session on consolidating modes. November 15, 2023. This is part of efforts to improve accessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) of the Site Editor.
The Plugin 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 checker repo has moved to the WordPress organization on GitHub 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/. This is for a tool for plugin developers to analyze their plugin code and flag any violations or concerns around plugin development best practices, from basic requirements like correct usage of internationalization functions to accessibility, performance, and security best practices. https://github.com/WordPress/plugin-check
Benchmark results on 6.4 Beta 1 from the Performance Team can be read on its meeting summary.
Forthcoming release updates
Next major WordPress release: 6.4
WordPress 6.4 Beta 3 is scheduled for October 10, 2023.
Calls relating to 6.4 tickets:
- Docs and dev notes 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.: component maintainers and committers. @webcommsat to share.
- Call for feedback on the first draft of the About Page for 6.4. @estelaris has asked for comments to be left either on the Trac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #59289 or in Figma.
- A developer is needed to build/commit the About Page due to availability. In addition, to raising any hands in the meeting, please also volunteer in the 6.4 release leads channel on Slack.
- @spacedmonkey and @antonvlasenko asked for assistance to take forward a Pull Request on Trac Ticket #56922 to try and get it into 6.4. The ticket allows the Gutenberg 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/ team to make revisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. for template / templates parts in the editor. There is a GitHub PR 3533. More information on the call in Slack.
For information:
- Discussion in release leads/ core has been on Trac ticket #59526 issue relating to fixing image assets with the Twenty Twenty Four theme identified during 6.4 beta 2 release party. This is likely to be fixed in beta 3. Discussion in core.
- Discussion on the issue of non-block 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 access to the site editor’s pattern page, Trac ticket #58827.
- Update on the Font Library and 6.4 beta 2 from the core Slack
- Trac Ticket #59443 opened on performance regression 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. by @spacedmonkey during testing WP 6.4 beta 2. Aim is to fix is before Beta 3. The Slack message in core.
- Note in the Beta 2 release post there is a reference to testing beta releases using Local environment: Use
wp-now to set up a Node.js-based WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 install locally. Learn more in this guide. This was discussed in core to include as it is an experimental option.
- Discussion on Trac Ticket #58827 that exposes the Patterns menu to classic themes. Ticket was moved to an enhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature.. Reasoning is on the ticket comment. The ticket has been punted to 6.5.
- Discussion on a request to allow #59131 to be committed as part of 6.4 Beta 2. Discussion thread that took place in core Slack this last week and links to previous messages on the reasoning.
Existing 6.4 useful links
Release parties schedule for 6.4
Roadmap to 6.4 – this release is scheduled for November 7, 2023.
Bug Scrub Schedule 6.4
6.4 Development Cycle
Project Board for Editor Tasks for WordPress 6.4 on GitHub
Next WordPress 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.: 6.3.2
Any update on timings can be shared in Dev Chat. Please allow follow the 6.3 release channel on Slack for updates.
Gutenberg
Tickets or Components help requests
Please add any items for this part of the agenda to the comments – tickets for 6.4 will be prioritized. If you can not attend dev chat live, don’t worry, include a note and the facilitator can highlight a ticket if needed.
Open floor
If you have any additional items to add to the agenda, please respond in the comments below to help the facilitator highlight them during the meeting.
Props to @webcommsat @hellofromtonya @nalininonstopnewsuk @marybaum and @estelaris for contributions to this agenda.
#6-4, #agenda, #dev-chat
