Summary, Dev Chat, August 21, 2024

Announcements

Really excited to see the announcement about all of the new learning pathways that have been created recently. Read more here.

Forthcoming 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.: 6.7

We are currently in the WordPress 6.7 release cycle. WordPress 6.7 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 scheduled for Tuesday, October 1 (6 weeks away)!

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.: 6.6.2

The next maintenance release will be WordPress 6.6.2. RC1 is scheduled for Sept 4, and the full release is planned for Sept 10. See the Trac milestone for the release.

Next 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/ release: 19.1

The next Gutenberg release will be 19.1, scheduled for August 28.

Discussion

On WordPress 6.7, @peterwilsoncc and @kirasong mentioned that a few tickets on the milestone have been tagged as needing early attention, so feedback on them would be appreciated.

@chaion07 and @stoyangeorgiev are drafting a Bug-Scrub schedule which will be published soon.

@annezazu mentioned that they are planning on assembling another release roadmap post for WP 6.7, which will also include many of the new features expected from the Gutenberg repo during the syncs in this release.

@peterwilsoncc highlighted the following that @noisysocks has mentioned:

• 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.
• 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
• HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. API

@dmsnell mentioned that the release planning for the HTML API is available in this issue. You can read more about the HTML API in the introductory post here and there are several related update posts.

In terms of other updates from the Gutenberg repo, there is already this project board that includes a lot of what is currently planned.

Open Floor

@mikachan raised #61708. @joemcgill asked: What happens to sites that are currently using that pattern in a template? Does the pattern stop being rendered, or is there a way to ensure that the change doesn’t adversely effect sites that are depending on it?

On #61708, @peterwilsoncc suggested: My suggestion would be soft deprecation and hide it from the inserter if it’s too poor quality for CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..

@dmsnell raised #61833 and @peterwilsoncc offered to review this ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. soon.

On 61833, @elrae asked: I wonder if a similar fix needs to be thought of for the work being done on the GB dataviews stuff, I think they’re working on the quick edit stuff now. @dmsnell confirmed that they can look into it: I suspect that any fix for DataViews will be different as that will probably be sourcing its data from a different spot. this is a kind of jumble based on the PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher templating.

@elrae also asked if more attention could be given to the following issue, Allow the sidebar to be a more flexible width: Particularly because there’s more and more push to get rid of old metaboxes. But developers don’t like sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. plugins because they’re too limiting and narrow.

@poena raised: One of the features that users asked for in Twenty Twenty-Five was support for post formats.
To be able to use post formats with the query loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop., a new filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. needs to be added. I already mentioned this in core-editor but I need help from developers with 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/. experience to complete the changes.

Props to @joemcgill for proofreading.