Author Archives: Matt Mullenweg

Matt Mullenweg 2:01 am on April 23, 2017  

Target Browser Coverage

Previously, we discussed the new editor and browser support within WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. Following up on those conversations, we are officially ending support for Internet Explorer versions 8, 9, and 10, starting with WordPress 4.8.

Microsoft officially discontinued supporting these browsers in January 2016, and attempting to continue supporting them ourselves has gotten to the point where it’s holding back development. I realize that folks still running these browsers are probably stuck with them because of something out of their control, like being at a library or something. Depending on how you count it, those browsers combined are either around 3% or under 1% of total users, but either way they’ve fallen below the threshold where it’s helpful for WordPress to continue testing and developing against. (The numbers surprised me, as did how low IE market share overall has gone.)

Of course, wp-adminadmin (and super admin) should still work in these older browsers, but with fewer capabilities, and we will no longer be testing new features and enhancements in these browsers. For example, the next versions of TinyMCE – currently targeted at WordPress 4.8 – will not support older IE browsers.

As part of this change, we will work to update Browse Happy to show that these browsers are no longer supported and encourage users to upgrade or switch browsers.

Matt Mullenweg 12:31 pm on April 13, 2017
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First Quarter Check-in

Just wanted to give folks my perception and feelings on of how we’re doing thus far with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. foci:

Writing: I’m really happy with the progress. It has had some slower weeks here and there the past few months, but by and large the technical prototypes we implemented have been successful and we’re ready to move into the next phase. We have a Chrome fix we have to get in the 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., and the link boundary improvements will be going into TinyMCE core and could be great for an interim +0.1 release.

Customization: Doing well. Remember: The plan is for the larger 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.-driven customization work to kick off in June. Prior to that, we’re focusing on widgets and other low-hanging fruit. Lack of developers slowed us down last few months, now doing better but could still use more help there. Media widgets + WYSIWYGWhat You See Is What You Get What You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page. on text widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. seem simple but will have a big user impact.

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/.: There has been little to no perceivable progress on having any parts of wp-adminadmin (and super admin) powered by the REST API.

Considering 4.8: The TinyMCE inline element / link boundaries, new media widgets, WYSIWYG in text widget, and perhaps something else small like the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. / meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. dashboard upgrade to the “news” section, would comprise a nice chunk of new functionality for a +0.1 “major” release. I’m hopeful their progress over the remainder of April will allow us to kick off a process to do a nice 4.8 update in the May / June timeframe, without drawing too much focus away from the Big Changes in the next-generation editor that is still the top priority.

#4-8

Matt Mullenweg 5:32 pm on January 9, 2017
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Aaron Campbell Leading Security

@aaroncampbell is now the new lead of security triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. and resolution for the WordPress project, also known as the Security Czar. Many thanks to Nikolay Bachiyski for kicking this role off and getting a lot of the infrastructure we use in place. This is also a good time to thank the dozens of volunteers who participate in the security group, and the researchers and reporters who bring issues to our attention.

#security

Matt Mullenweg 10:32 pm on January 4, 2017
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Focus Tech and Design Leads

There are three main focuses this year: 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/., the editor, and the 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..

For the REST API we’re going to work on getting first party wp-adminadmin (and super admin) usage of the new endpoints, and hopefully replace all of the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. places where we still use admin-ajax.

The editor will endeavour to create a new page and post building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers., or “mystery meat” embed discovery.

The customizer will help out the editor at first, then shift to bring those fundamental building blocks into something that could allow customization “outside of the box” of post_content, including sidebars and possibly even an entire theme.

Each focus will have a tech lead, and a design lead, and I’ll be working closely with each to make sure we’re aligned and moving diligently in the right direction even though we don’t have the normal release hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same.. These starting leads will be:

REST API: Ryan McCue and KAdam White.

Editor: Matias Ventura and Joen Asmussen.

Customizer: Weston Ruter and Mel Choyce.

Given there is no set timeline for releases that would normally set a term, these leads are free to bow out at any time they feel they can’t contribute fully and we’ll find a replacement.

You might be wondering what each lead is responsible for. The REST team gave some thought to this for their focus, and this is the list they came up with:

Tech Lead responsibilities:

  • identify and ensure implementation of first-class REST API usage within WP-Admin,
  • replacing/refactoring admin-ajax use.
  • overall REST API architecture
  • infrastructure and endpoint performance
  • security at an infrastructure and endpoint (data-exposure) level
  • improving authentication options and documentation
  • working with the Design Lead to build new, or expand on existing, endpoints
  • working with the Design Lead to address usability feedback for the infrastructure and endpoints

Design Lead responsibilities:

  • usability of endpoints for internal or external clients
  • usability of the infrastructure from the perspective of a 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. client
  • working with the Editor and Customizer focus teams to collect requirements and gather feedback
  • identifying ways to improve the overall experience for folks building clients or consuming endpoints (like documentation)

#customizer, #editor, #rest-api

Matt Mullenweg 9:30 pm on December 28, 2016
Tags: wp-cli   

Supporting the Future of wp-cli

wp-cliWP-CLI WP-CLI is the Command Line Interface for WordPress, used to do administrative and development tasks in a programmatic way. The project page is http://wp-cli.org/ https://make.wordpress.org/cli/ is a command-line interface that is deployedDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. and relied upon by almost every major user of WordPress out there. As we head into 2017, I wanted to make sure that its future is certain for everyone who builds on it, and that the major contributors to the project, chiefly Daniel Bachhuber, are able to work on it even more in the coming year.

To that end there are two big announcements:

1. The website of wp-cli.org, the code / GitHubGitHub 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/, Twitter, and such are all coming in under the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ umbrella and there will be a CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress. Make site with a P2P2 A free theme for WordPress, known for front-end posting, used by WordPress for development updates and project management. See our main development blog and other workgroup blogs. and all of the resources that used to be under wp-cli.org. There is already #cli on Slack and that will continue. (Will live at https://make.wordpress.org/cli.)

2. I’m going to be bringing together a number of companies in the WordPress ecosystem to solidify their financial support of runcommand so that Daniel and others can devote more time to making wp-cli better and better through 2017. This is a continuation of the fundraising started a few weeks ago.

This will all happen the first part of January, and I’m looking to a full and exciting year for wp-cli. Also big thanks to everyone who has chipped in, whether time or money, to support the project in the past. It has been one of the highest impact developments for WP in many years.

Many of the logistics are yet to be determined. Feel free to weigh in with questions, feedback, etc. in the comments, or join #cli 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/.. We’ll do our best to keep everyone in the 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. as things develop.

#wp-cli

Matt Mullenweg 8:27 pm on May 12, 2016
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New lead for 4.7: Helen Hou-Sandí

Due to some unexpected constraints on my time this year, I’m going to be stepping down as the 4.7 lead, and I’m happy to announce that Helen Hou-Sandí is stepping up to lead the release in my stead. I’ll still be behind the scenes providing whatever support is necessary, and I’m really looking forward to the release . You might remember Helen for her famous work on WordPress 4.0.

#4-7

Matt Mullenweg 5:35 pm on December 12, 2013  

Since some people read this and not the…

Since some people read this and not the news blogblog (versus network, site), 3.8 is out. 🙂

Matt Mullenweg 8:41 am on December 6, 2013
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State of 3.8, and thoughts on the next week

tl; dr: Still on track for release next Thursday. We’re extending the window for code changes by 3 days, through the 8th. RC2 package on the 9th will be what ships on the 12th.

December 5th, our targeted but controversial freeze date, is drawing to a close. First the bad news: there are two blockers and we could not ship the package we have tonight, despite a lot of great effort. The good news is we are close, there are good priorities on the remaining issues, the new features appear resilient and are live on WP.com which has generated a ton of testing, and we’re far enough out from our target (the 12th) that I’m confident we can ship that morning and still have had a 4-day freeze.

As a side-effect of the longer freeze and predictable date, I also think the best WP hosts will push it to their customers same-day and we’ll continue or improve our record of having localized versions ready to go.

What could break it? If an unknown unknown blockerblocker A bug which is so severe that it blocks a release. pops up on Tuesday or Wednesday, we’re going to have to delay the release until the following week. Discovering that issue sooner, so it wouldn’t cause a delay, is a function of testing — the more we can test and cover now the better. We want to shake out big issues now, not next week. The more people that can run the RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). or trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. at this point, the healthier the release will be.

What’s open right now? Our most substantial blocker, no-JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors. fallback for THX #25964, was raised a few weeks ago and we could have flagged its priority and developed a solution then, rather than the flurry of activity its had over the last two days. Our other blocker, the about.php page, is similar: I should have kicked off that page (#26387) when we nailed down exactly what headline features would be in the release, which was much earlier. Often user-focused non-code deliverables wind up as the last thing we do, but they’re so visible they deserve time to bake just like a complex backend change would. Of the the other 15-ish open issues there is nothing intractable, but there’s also nothing trivial, and for some issues we need to make a non-obvious decision to move it forward. We made the decision to puntpunt Contributors sometimes use the verb "punt" when talking about a ticket. This means it is being pushed out to a future release. This typically occurs for lower priority tickets near the end of the release cycle that don't "make the cut." In this is colloquial usage of the word, it means to delay or equivocate. (It also describes a play in American football where a team essentially passes up on an opportunity, hoping to put themselves in a better position later to try again.) or revert a number of things that weren’t fully ready yet, like the new author widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. and RSSJS.

The things we missed are not a matter of having enough time, they’re a matter of priority. I think properly triaging issues as soon as they come in and being disciplined about working from highest to lowest will allow future release to avoid these problems. Even though that’s not hard to understand intellectually, sometimes you have to make the mistake to really grok it. I’m extremely proud of everyone who has been involved so far and in the amount of learning and growth I’ve observed even in our accelerated cycle.

#3-8

Matt Mullenweg 7:20 pm on August 8, 2013
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Excellent 3.8 brainstorm session today People talked about…

Excellent 3.8 brainstorm session today. People talked about a number of interesting ideas and started to form some groups around them. Not everyone is in IRCIRC Internet Relay Chat, a network where users can have conversations online. IRC channels are used widely by open source projects, and by WordPress. The primary WordPress channels are #wordpress and #wordpress-dev, on irc.freenode.net., so wanted to give an opportunity for people to post a comment with a given area here, and if you’re interested in contributing to that area reply to that comment. This allows people to connect asynchronously. As people comment please connect with them directly in IRC, email, whatever, and discuss.

Next week groups will bring more fleshed out proposals for forming a PluginPlugin 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 Project team, including a lead, mockups, user tests, existing plugins…

#3-8

Matt Mullenweg 8:36 pm on September 16, 2012  

An upcoming free Stanford HCI human computer interaction…

An upcoming free Stanford HCI (human computer interaction) course coming up:

https://www.coursera.org/course/hci

(Hat tip: @DanielBachhuber.)