Dev Chat Summary, January 10, 2024

The WordPress Developers Chat meeting took place on  10 January 2024 at 20:00 UTC  in core on Make WordPress Slack.

Key info

• Start of the DevChat 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/., hosted by @hellofromtonya.
• Today’s DevChat Agenda was prepared by @webcommsat.

Chat Summary

Nominations for 2024 Core Team Reps:

• Status: no accepted or new nominations.
• Nomination period will be extended.
• @webcommsat and I will continue until new reps are elected.
• @audrasjb suggested: “current team reps nominations can also be considered”.

@desrosj reminded Gutenberg and Core development contributors to update their local Node.js/npm as:

.. the versions of Node.js and npm required for WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development are now 20.x and 10.x.

In order to continue contributing to WordPress through wordpress-develop or WordPress/Gutenberg, you’ll need to upgrade the version of Node.js installed on your machine to one that’s greater than or equal to 20.10.0 (currently the most recent generally available version 20.x version). This should also update npm to the correct, expected version appropriately (10.2.3 or higher is required).

Release Updates

Next minor releaseMinor 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.: 6.4.3

@jorbin shared an update:

• Timeline coming before next devchat.
• No pressing issues – okay to wait “a few weeks for the next minor.”
• Reminder to “milestone any tickets” needing addressing.

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.: 6.5

• Release squad: call to join the squad ended Jan 12th.
• Current: in Alpha.
• Next milestone: 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 is Feb 13th.

Tickets / Issues that need assistance

• #60227 @jonsurrell asked for feedback to use an external library for testing the HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. 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..
• #60025 @jorbin requested help (it’s in the 6.4.3 milestone) and noted:

Joe did a great job of summerizing and shared some paths forward that I think could be good to explore

• #58719 @justlevine asked is for feedback and decision criteria for bumping the minimum PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher version to 7.2.
• @bph shared the following 6.5 features being developed in 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/ that need testing and feedback:
  • Font Library.
  • Syncing specific blocks and attributes of patterns.
  • New data views for templates, template parts, and patterns in the Site Editor.
  • Robust revisions.
  • background image support for the Group block.
  • aligning page edit features in Site Editor and Post Editor.

Open Floor

Discussion of changing DevChat

@jorbin opened the discussion for changing DevChat, i.e. to get to the important things to chat about (rather than half or more of the meeting dropping links):

As we are now 43 minutes into the meeting and it’s been almost all link sharing thus far, I wonder if perhaps 2024 should be the year we explore some alternatives for this meeting? I’m not sure that a link dump is doing it

The discussion summary:

• “expect people to read” the agenda.
• Drop a prepared message with a link(s) to the sections of the agenda.
• @jeffpaul noted DevChat is also for synchronize the discussion to help move forward the release important things:

socializing to folks leading/working on feature projects or specific items targeted in a current major release that devchat is a good place to come and share blocks/problems/areas for feedback they have.  Chatting through those things synchronously can help find alternate paths forward for those things that are of importance to the project.

• @jeffpaul also shared DevChat can include a discussion of open proposals

advance those conversations towards an acceptance or finding iterative ways to improve those proposals.

When to start? Experiment starts next meeting.

Font Library – avoid merge roadblocks

@joemcgill asked for Font Library update and plan to avoid the roadblocks experienced during 6.4. See the discussion in the Slack thread which includes Core merge criteria.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on 17 January 2024 at 20:00 UTC . This DevChat will experiment with a new approach

Props @webcommsat for peer review.

#6-4, #6-5, #core, #core-editor, #dev-chat, #meeting, #summary