This post summarizes the dev chat meeting from January 18th (agenda, Slack archive).

4.7.x Releases

• Moving to monthly checkins for 4.7.x releases
• A few people stepped up to lead a future 4.7.x releases, a great way to get involved in the release process. If you’re interested in leading a future 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., pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” @samuelsidler anytime.
• For 4.7.2, we haven’t set a schedule yet, but we’ll be checking tickets and commits in early February to decide if we should release. @jnylen0 will be the release leadRelease Lead The community member ultimately responsible for the Release..
• Reminder for those who helped get 4.7.1 out, please check the handbook to see if updates are needed to help @jnylen0 on 4.7.2.
• @jnylen0: some 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. stuff I want to get into a potential 4.7.2, but let me know about other tickets you’d like to milestone
• Outside pressure on MIME issues not as horrific as one might have expected (ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #39550: Some Non-image files fail to upload after 4.7.1)
• Potential that since people using special MIME types (which are the most likely to get caught by this bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority.) are already aware of having to add in custom mimes, adding in the “unbreak” 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 to fix the problem right now isn’t seen as insurmountable.

REST API team update

• kicking off the new year by defining the scope of our activities, and prioritizing what is most critical to do first
• @kadamwhite, @jnylen0, @tharsheblows, @kenshino, & others working on expanding the documentation
• As we’ve moved the support for 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/. from the “WP-API” 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/ repo, we’re seeing a few repeat questions that can be clarified with better docs & docs organization
• Today we finished grouping existing docs from the old wp-api.org site into “Using” and “extending” buckets, which are reflected in the left nav; next up, we’ll be adding more docs for using the basics of what’s there
• @rmccue leading the technical investigations into what to prioritize from an implementation standpoint (see: January 9th 4.8 kickoff meeting notes)
• a lot that could be converted to use the API within WP-Adminadmin (and super admin), but change for the sake of change has never been a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. value of this project
• Whereas for something like list table actions, there’s a lot of inconsistency within the admin and converting some of those areas of functionality to use the REST API endpoints would be a clear win
• We’re using a Trello board to track the areas of investigation
• the Multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site and BuddyPress teams are both investigating how best to improve or create API endpoints tailored to those use cases
• @flixos90 did an excellent writeup of our users endpoint discussion
• We are sorting out how user and site membership management and display should work for the users endpoint.
• master ticket #39544: REST API: Improve users endpoint in multisite
• the REST API team intends to continue using the feature projects model to structure proposed API enhancements (such as menu support), with the added requirements of starting from a design document, and checking in with a core committercommitter A developer with commit access. WordPress has five lead developers and four permanent core developers with commit access. Additionally, the project usually has a few guest or component committers - a developer receiving commit access, generally for a single release cycle (sometimes renewed) and/or for a specific component. for periodic review to avoid the feature project from becoming silo’d
• Multi-site is the first such feature project that’s officially under way.
• For 4.7.2 we should be looking for related bugs around the existing functionality
• @jnylen0: propose that we continually evaluate test and documentation coverage for new additions, as an excellent way to find bugs before they ship and we are stuck with them
• Regarding bugs, to all: when (not if) you find a documentation issue or omission, or find an area where the API does not behave as expected, you are all welcome in #core-restapi at any time and we welcome the feedback.
• We’re glad to see that the support questions so far tend to fall in a few specific buckets, but this is a new thing and the more eyes on it, the more likely that we’ll be able to identify the key areas where improvement will really drive admin or 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. improvements.
• REST API team meeting is weekly at Monday 14:00 UTC in #core-restapi, and we welcome one and all to come chime in about how you’d like to see this used

Customizer team update

• Please read and contribute to the discussion happening on the “What makes a great customization experience?” post
• Also recommend reading through the meeting that happened earlier today in #core-editor. There’s going to be a lot of overlap, especially as the editor team starts working on content blocks. Lots of discussions have been happening there and in #core-customize related to what we focus on for customizer in the immediate term.
• We’re identifying some smaller, quick wins we can do to improve the customization experience while content blocks are being built.
• Update coming on Make/Core soon for more ways to get involved and a separate post from @karmatosed on Make/Design for some ways to help us test the existing customization flow
• Customize team meeting is weekly at Monday 17:00 UTC in #core-customize, please do join us for general brainstorming and ticket triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. (see also: prior meeting notes)

Editor team update

• Please read and comment on the “Editor Technical Overview” post
• Recap of #core-editor meeting on a target of a prototype plugin for exploring these concepts from @matveb: Yes, target could be:
  • Data structure.
  • Parsing mechanism.
  • General UIUI User interface for 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. display / controls.

TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. Ticket(s)

• #39535: Canonical redirects disallow tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.) named comments
  • @asalce: looking to get owner on the ticket and review of patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing.
  • will ping @markjaquith or @dd32 as maintainers of Canonical component

#4-7-2, #core, #dev-chat, #summary