Dev Chat agenda, January 24, 2024

(Update from new Contributor Meeting added)

The next WordPress Developers Chat will take place on Wednesday, 17 January 2024 at 20:00 GMT in the core channel on Make WordPress Slack.

Discussions

These will focus on open proposals in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and release items.

• Interactivity API and building interactive blocks has moved past the proposal stage and is aimed at being a key feature planned for 6.5. Now that it’s near complete and planned for 6.5:
  • is there anything actionable in the proposal?
  • or is it considered done / closed?

Next week’s dev chat, a discussion opportunity is identified for this open proposal on core relating to major release Field Guides.

Highlighted posts

Summary from the experimental new style Dev Chat from January 17, 2024 – @webcommsat and @hellofromtonya

A Week in Core – January 24, 2024 – props to @audrasjb for creating this.

On TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. between January 15 and January 22, 2024:

• 35 commits
• 62 contributors
• 67 tickets created
• 10 tickets reopened
• 72 tickets closed
• and a welcome to three new contributors

Performance team roadmap for 2024 is out and covers priorities.

Team reps update. The nomination period has been extended for the Core Team Reps 2024 edition to Wednesday, 31 January 2024 at 23:59 GMT. Full details are on the original nominations post where nominations can be added.

New core contributor meeting – if you were not able to attend and would like to find out more, check out the link to the meeting in Slack on January 24, 2024 which includes useful information on getting started and the contributor mentorship program. The deadline for applications for the second cohort for the program is Wednesday, February 7, 2024.

Core-editor updates

Core Editor Improvement: Robust Revisions in the Site Editor.

Props to @annezazu for sharing this list.

• Marketing tracking issue opened for the highlight grid for 6.5.
• Section Styling: some questions remain around CSS specificity to unblock this work. Whether that problem can be resolved determines whether this will be included in the release.
• Font Library: biggest work continues to be the Font Library: refactor REST API which needs feedback. Please help review if you have experience with the REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. and review the merge criteria for this feature..
• Pattern overrides: PR was merged to Stabilize the pattern overrides block context/remove it as experimental and to add override support to image blocks, heading blocks, and button blocks.
• List View: a nice UXUX User experience improvement the merging of Displace list view items when dragging (a bit more WYSIWYG).
• Data Views: the default layout has been set to table layout for template, template parts, and patterns after feedback from design. A PR is in progress to stabilize the new Data Views for Patterns ahead of the release with the grid layout as the default.
• Interactivity 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.: work continues for a public launch with 6.5 with great optimism that it will make the cut off.
• Link Control: A bigger draft PR is in the works for Implementing new UX for invoking rich text Link UI, alongside some smaller quality of life PRs like improving the link control preview.
• 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. Bindings: a discussion was kicked off around what parts to include for 6.5 alongside a PR to backport for introducing the API to core and broader technical work in Add block bindings PHP registration mechanisms and “Post meta” source under the experimental flag.

Releases

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

Any other updates?

Phase 3 media library meeting will take place on Thursday, 8 February 2024 at 00:00 GMT in the #core-media
channel. The Media Component team is coordinating a meeting with the Editor team and other interested stakeholders to work on planning for the proposed Phase 3 Media Library.

Core-editor improvement – revisions in the site editor. This is a useful post for understanding some of the changes and new features to current revision functionality in the Site Editor aimed for 6.5 and the wider work in this area. 

WordPress 6.5 release squad formation as at January 18, 2024. Additional discussion on size of the squad can be found in the comments on this post.

Important milestones in the Editor for 6.5 – useful post for contributors working or wishing to support the 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/ repository with the scheduled 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 for WordPress 6.5 scheduled for February 13, 2024.

Existing 6.5 links

• Roadmap to 6.5
• WordPress 6.5 Editor Tasks board
• Development cycle page

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

Any other updates?

Earlier today there were four open tickets – update in 6.4 release leads channel.

Tickets to highlight for assistance

Tickets for 6.5 and 6.4.3 will be prioritized.

Open floor

#6-4, #6-5, #agenda, #dev-chat