New @wordpress/create-block package for block scaffolding

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. scaffolding is a shorthand term that describes the supporting directory structure you need for WordPress to recognize a block. Typically that directory includes files like index.php, index.js, style.css and perhaps others—which in turn hold calls like register_block_type.

You’ve likely noticed a lot of tools that aim to automate the scaffolding build—or at least make it easier to build your own blocks. They’re nothing new in the WordPress ecosystem. And there’s even one in 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/: the wp scaffold block command.

You’ve probably also noticed that some of those third-party tools get you up and running with just one npx command, while WP-CLI still needs a full WordPress installation to run. And WP-CLI doesn’t play well with advanced JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. tooling like code transpiling, linting or formatting.

Until now.

WordPress 5.4 brings you a brand-new, officially supported npm-based scaffolding package.

Create Block generates PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher, JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors. and CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. code—and everything else you need to start building your WordPress 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. Its quick-start mode lets you pass it a slug that then becomes both the target location for the generated files AND the internal block name:

$ npm init @wordpress/block todo-list
wordpress-create-block

You don’t need to install or configure tools like webpack, Babel or ESLint yourself. They’re preconfigured and out of sight. So you can focus on the code.

Create Block also has an interactive mode that lets you customize several essential block options before code generation:

$ npm init @wordpress/block

Finally, despite its support for modern JavaScript tooling, Create Block also lets you to pick an ES5 template—and skip the transpiling tools that trigger ESNext and JSX support.

Note: If you’re concerned about backwards compatibility, the new tool comes straight from the existing WP-CLI implementation—and in particular, the optional ES5 template uses the existing ES5 code.

#5-4, #block-editor, #dev-notes

Block Collections

Collections allow specific 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. types to be grouped together for added visibility in the editor’s Inserter menu, regardless of their categories. For instance, 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 such as CoBlocks may register a Map block of categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. Widgets and a Post Carousel block of category Layout. By registering a collection for the coblocks namespace, these blocks will appear in the Inserter under their respective categories but also grouped under a CoBlocks collection.

The Block Collections 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. thus aims to improve the relationship of block discovery between users and plugin authors without compromising the semantics of block types, notably around categories (e.g. formatting, layout, 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., embed).

registerBlockCollection( 'coblocks', {
	title: 'CoBlocks',
	icon: brandAssets.categoryIcon,
} );

#5-4, #block-editor, #dev-notes

New: the block variations API

Just as you can declare a 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.’s style variations when you register a block, a block type can define block variations the user can pick from. The difference is that, beyond changing the look, this field offers a way to apply initial custom attributes and inner blocks at the point of insertion.

By default, all the variations will show up in the Inserter along with the regular block-type item. But you can set the isDefault flag for any of the listed variations—and in the process, you’ll override the regular block type in the Inserter.

variations: [
    {
        name: 'wordpress',
        isDefault: true,
        title: __( 'WordPress' ),
        description: __( 'Code is poetry!' ),
        icon: WordPressIcon,
        attributes: { service: 'wordpress' },
    },
    {
        name: 'google',
        title: __( 'Google' ),
        icon: GoogleIcon,
        attributes: { service: 'google' },
    },
    {
        name: 'twitter',
        title: __( 'Twitter' ),
        icon: TwitterIcon,
        attributes: { service: 'twitter' },
    },
],

An object describing a variation defined for the block type can contain these fields:

  • name (type string) – The unique and machine-readable name.
  • title (type string) – A human-readable variation title.
  • description (optional, type string) – A detailed variation description.
  • icon (optional, type String | Object) – An icon helping to visualize the variation. It can have the same shape as the block type.
  • isDefault (optional, type boolean) – Indicates whether the current variation is the default one. Defaults to false.
  • attributes (optional, type Object) – Values that override block attributes.
  • innerBlocks (optional, type Array[]) – Initial configuration of nested blocks.
  • example (optional, type Object) – Example provides structured data for the block preview. You can set to undefined to disable the preview shown for the block type.
  • scope (optional, type String[]) – the list of scopes where the variation is applicable. When not provided, it assumes all available scopes. Available options: block, inserter.

#5-4, #block-editor, #dev-notes

New Blocks in WordPress 5.4

Social Icons 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.

This new block lets users link to social media and other popular websites by using those sites’ logos. Initially called Social Links, Social Icons were an experimental feature 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/ 6.5 but held out of WordPress 5.3. Since then, the Block Variations 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. has progressed to the point that Social Icons in Gutenberg 7.5 are much simpler and more stable – and ready for merge in WordPress 5.4.

This reimplementation is a breaking change in the way Social Icons are saved (see details). Only sites that have run the Gutenberg 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 since September are potentially concerned. 

In WordPress 5.4, the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. block editor will not recognize any Social Icons blocks built before Gutenberg 7.5.

There are two ways to deal with this:

  • (Recommended method) Manually migrate any content with old Social Icons. Here’s how: load a post in the block editor (Gutenberg 7.5 or higher) and save it. The block editor will automatically update its contents. 
  • Keep the Gutenberg plugin installed after upgrading to WordPress 5.4. The plugin will give you manual backwards compatibility for the old Social Icons.

Buttons Block

This new block is a collection of buttons, because authors often need to use several at a time (for instance: download and read more buttons).

The buttons block shows each button as an individual button-block child of the Buttons block. You won’t be able to insert a button block outside Buttons, but your existing button blocks will work the way they always have.

In case you were using the button block as part of a template or a system that automatically inserted a button block, you’ll want to use the Buttons block with a nested button instead.

Plus, here’s some good news: you won’t need to migrate your existing button blocks. They’ll just work — again, as they always have.

#5-4, #block-editor, #dev-notes

Devchat summary: February 26, 2020

@francina facilitated the chat on this agenda.

@valentinbora took care of publishing the meeting summary with special thanks to @amykamala, @audrasjb, @Cenay and @marybaum.

Full Meeting transcript on Slack

This devchat marked week 7 of the 5.4 release cycle.

Announcements

Upcoming Releases

Release Candidaterelease 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). 1, scheduled for March 3rd (read more about the WordPress 5.4 Development Cycle)

WordPress Release Cycle

For background, please read:

@johnbillion got to the heart of the matter: should 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. be for fixing bugs that predate the ones introduced during alpha?

@jeffpaul shared his experience since version 4.7: beta is for any bugs, but the release candidate is for regressions only, even though the handbook doesn’t specifically point one way or the other.

@johnbillion liked the idea that beta is for every 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., as long as it’s in the milestone. But he noted that could make things tough in shorter release cycles.

@jeffpaul pointed out that avoiding committing non-regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. bugs during beta means Beta and 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). wouldn’t be as clearly different from each other as they are now. Potentially, they could merge into a single term.

@johnbillion averred that bugs could still get fixed in beta, but RC should be the point where the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team is happy to release.

@joemcgill confirmed the current release cadence is set to assume that bug fixes of all types happen during the beta period (with digression from committers about what is safe to commit).

@joemcgill @johnbillion @azaozz all liked the idea of branching earlier in the cycle — for instance, at beta 1 — so people can keep working in 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., and @sergey confirmed things typically go pretty smoothly on that end. He also favors branching as soon as the current milestone is empty.

per @johnbillion, @matt has, in the past, preferred to keep focus on the current release. 

@joemcgill stressed that the core team needs more clarity on what types of fixes are appropriate to commit to the 5.4 release, pointing out that the discussion in chat echoes this proposal to review historical practices to improve the project and potentially speed up release cycles.

@francina referred the group to the Release Model Working Group Chat Summary: February 19th, 2020 for the latest on that proposal.

@joemcgill and @francina — with other voices chiming in from the group — confirmed that 5.4 will continue as planned, with no changes. Any changes the working group comes up with will be effective no sooner than with the 5.5 cycle.

Components Check-in

  • News from components
  • Components up for adoption (Filesystem API and Rewrite Rules)
  • Components that need help
  • Cross component collaboration

@francina proposed a change to the Components Check-in. 

Up to now it’s typically fallen towards the end of the chat, so it feels rushed and rarely leaves enough time to dig into topics the group might bring up. She offers two options:

  1. Schedule a weekly post in Make, where maintainers can leave a status update, like the one for Community deputies;
  2. Adopt a Slackbot that, once a week, asks maintainers for a status update. 

@francina also proposed that those updates — and other communications — live in a new #component-maintainers 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/. channel. Core is getting very busy with automated updates like TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. and Travis bots, plus RSS.

@valentinbora observed he hasn’t seen many check-ins in past meetings. @francina surmised that maintainers might not have time [to meet], or that time zones and other commitments [could be sources of conflictconflict A conflict occurs when a patch changes code that was modified after the patch was created. These patches are considered stale, and will require a refresh of the changes before it can be applied, or the conflicts will need to be resolved.].

@francina and @valentinbora agreed that going async [communicating asynchronously] could help.

@cenay was in favor of the Slackbot option.

Action items

  • @francina to collect all the different info streams about the development cycle, offer a window to comment and update documentation;
  • @audrasjb to get all dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. by the end of the week and publish the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. before RC1.

Next Meeting

Meetings for #devchat take place weekly in the #core channel. The next meeting is Wednesday, March 4, 2020, 21:00 UTC.

#5-4, #component-maintainers, #core, #dev-chat, #meetings

Dev Chat Agenda for February 26, 2020 (5.4 Week 7)

Here is the agenda for the weekly meeting happening later today: Wednesday, February 26, 2020, at 09:00 PM UTC.

Announcements

  • This week marks week 6 of the 5.4 release cycle 🙌
  • WordPress 5.4 Beta 3 was released yesterday, February 25, as scheduled.

Highlighted Blogblog (versus network, site) Posts

Upcoming Releases – 5.4

  • 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). 1 to be released on March 3rd
  • 5.4 and beyond: a discussion about the release cycle phases originated in the core-committers Slack channel.

Components Check-in

  • News from components
  • Components up for adoption (Filesystem API and Rewrite Rules)
  • Components that need help
  • Cross component collaboration

Open Floor


If you have anything to propose for the agenda or specific items related to those listed above, please leave a comment below.

This meeting is held in the #core channel. To join the meeting, you’ll need an account on the Making WordPress Slack.

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

Miscellaneous Developer Focused Changes in WordPress 5.4

WordPress 5.4 adds a handful of small developer-focused changes. Let’s take a look!

Better information about errors in wp_login_failed

A new parameter, $error, gets passed in the wp_login_failed action, to get you more information about the error that caused login failure.

It’s the second argument of the action and holds a WP_Error object with the authentication failure details.

Find it in wp-includes/pluggable.php:

/**
 * Fires after a user login has failed.
 *
 * @since 2.5.0
 * @since 4.5.0 The value of `$username` can now be an email address.
 * @since 5.4.0 The `$error` parameter was added.
 *
 * @param string   $username Username or email address.
 * @param WP_Error $error    A WP_Error object with the authentication failure details.
 */
do_action( 'wp_login_failed', $username, $error );

See this related ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. on TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress.: #49007

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: add site ID to newblog_notify_siteadmin 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.

A new parameter, website ID, gets passed in the newblog_notify_siteadmin filter, to help you to customize site admins notifications depending on the website ID.

Find it in wp-includes/ms-functions.php:

/**
 * Filters the message body of the new site activation email sent
 * to the network administrator.
 *
 * @since MU (3.0.0)
 * @since 5.4.0 The `$blog_id` parameter was added.
 *
 * @param string $msg Email body.
 * @param int$blog_id The new site's ID.
 */
$msg = apply_filters( 'newblog_notify_siteadmin', $msg, $blog_id );

For more, see the relevant ticket: #48554

Introducing TikTok videos embed

WordPress 5.4 introduces TikTok as a new oEmbed provider.

As of version 5.4, WordPress will recognize TikTok video URLs that follow this pattern:

'#https?://(www\.)?tiktok\.com/.*/video/.*#i'

TikTok support also comes with its own 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. for the editor.

Plus, TikTok embeds work in the Block and Classic Editors, in the 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. — and anywhere else you can use Embeds now.

For more, see:

  • Related ticket on Trac: #49083
  • Related pull request on 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/ 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/ repository: 19345

Removal of CollegeHumor video embed

Since the CollegeHumor service no longer exists, its oEmbed provider was removed from CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. in WordPress 5.3.1.

With version 5.4, the service is now completely gone from WordPress and the corresponding Gutenberg Embed block is deprecated. For backward compatibility, existing CollegeHumor blocks will automatically be converted into a generic embed block.

For reference, see:

  • Related ticket on Trac: #48696
  • Related pull request on Gutenberg GitHub repository: 18591

Media: store the original URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org of the attachment in the _source_url post metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. value

When you use media_sideload_image to sideload a file from a URL, the original URL is now automatically stored as metadata.

You can also use media_sideload_image to store a local copy of a file.

This is great for two reasons. First, for copyright and fairness, storing the source URL gives you an easy way to find out where that file was originally hosted. Plus, you can query existing attachments and not sideload the same file twice.

The original URL of the attachment is stored in the _source_url post meta:

add_post_meta( $id, '_source_url', $file );

For reference, see the related Trac ticket: #48164

AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility): the Adminadmin (and super admin) Bar is now loaded with wp_body_open when available

It’s a first principle of accessibility that the look of a page and its source order should match. And for far too long, it’s been a principle WordPress has observed inconsistently.

Consider the Admin Bar. Up to now, it’s been loaded with the wp_footer hook:

add_action( 'wp_footer', 'wp_admin_bar_render', 1000 );

In WordPress 5.4, the Admin Bar loads in the hook wp_body_open(new since WP 5.2) and fixes that source-order problem:

add_action( 'wp_body_open', 'wp_admin_bar_render', 0 );

Of course, some older themes don’t yet support the wp_body_open hook. For them, there’s a fallback in the wp_footer function:

function wp_footer() {
    /*
     * Sets up the Admin Bar if the current theme does not use `wp_body_open`.
     * @since 5.4.0
     */
    if ( ! did_action( 'wp_body_open' ) ) {
        add_action( 'wp_footer', 'wp_admin_bar_render', 1000 );
    }
}

See the relevant Trac ticket: #47053

Widgets: avoid duplicate IDs in Recent Comments

In WordPress 5.4, the Recent Comments widget no longer generates widgets with the same HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. ID.

Even in the rare case where you might need duplicate instances of the Recent Comments widgets on the same page, don’t target the ID on the <ul> HTML element for styling— it will be different for every instance of the widget.

See the relevant Trac ticket: #46747

Login and Registration: new parameter passed into the lostpassword_post action in retrieve_password()

In WordPress 5.4, the $user_data parameter gets passed into the lostpassword_post action in retrieve_password().

If the user exists, $user_data will return the corresponding WP_User object. Otherwise, the parameter will return false.

Either way, developers have one more piece of information to act on.

See the related Trac ticket: #38334

Theme headers support “Requires at least” and “Requires PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher” declarations

Have you ever wanted to make sure your theme users were running modern versions of WordPress and PHP? (Maybe so you could implement a particular feature?)

In WordPress 5.4 you can. It’s fairly easy, too: declare these headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. entries in your themes’ main stylesheets:

Requires PHP: declare the minimal required PHP version.

Requires at least: declare the minimal WordPress version.

delete_posts without triggering PHP notices—in every post type

What’s worse than an ugly orange PHP notice on a post—when you know your code is solid?

Have you ever triggered one by using 'map_meta_cap' => false in the declaration of a custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept.? Up to now, that could happen if you checked the delete_posts capability in several places in Core.

In WordPress 5.4, the delete_posts capability is now part of the get_post_type_capabilities() function by default—and without regard to the map_meta_cap value.

So say goodbye to those PHP notices — at least from delete_posts.

For more, see the relevant Trac ticket: #30991

#5-4, #dev-notes

New hooks let you add custom fields to menu items

WordPress 5.4 gives you two new actions that let you add custom fields to menu items—in the Menu screen and in 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.’s menu editor.

Menus adminadmin (and super admin) screen

The new wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields action fires just before the move buttons of a nav menu item in the menu editor.

You can assign five parameters:

  • $item_id: the menu item ID (integer)
  • $item: the menu item data object (object)
  • $depth: the depth of the menu item (integer)
  • $args: an object of menu item arguments (object)
  • $id: the Navigation MenuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. ID (integer)

Here’s a simple example:

function wporg_my_custom_field() {
	esc_html_e( 'Howdy! WordPress 5.4 is coming!', 'wporg' );
}
add_action( 'wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields', 'wporg_my_custom_field' );

And here’s the result (highlighted in green dashed border):

The Customizer menu editor

The new wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields_customize_template action fires at the end of the form-fields template for navigation menu items in the customizer.

The hook lets you render extra fields there and manage them with JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/..

This brings parity with the wp_nav_menu_item_custom_fields action.

Compatibility with existing custom walkers

These new action 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. can replace the custom walkers you’ve been using for your nav-menu fields. You’ll want to check your existing code to see where that replacement makes sense.

For more, see the related TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #47056.

For more help managing duplication in custom fields, see Trac ticket #49500. In plugins, you can avoid the issue entirely with a check for the WordPress version.

#5-4, #dev-notes, #menu-customizer, #menus

Dev Chat Summary – February 19th, 2020 (5.4 week 6)

@francina facilitated the chat on this agenda

@cenay took care of publishing the summary notes. Special thanks to @valentinbora, @amykamala and @audrasjb for the peer review on these summary notes. 

Full Meeting transcript on Slack

This devchat marked week 6 of the 5.4 release cycle.

Announcements

WordPress 5.4 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. 2 was released yesterday, February 18, as scheduled.

  • 5.4 Beta 3 is scheduled to be released on February 25, 2020. (Note to committers and maintainers, the cut off time to get bugs fixed and into WP 5.4 is February 25th, 20 UTC)
  • 5.4 is intended to be released March 31st, 2020.

Agenda

  • Status report on the About page – content and design
  • Dev Notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. status and how to proceed to get them all published in time for RC1 and the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page.
  • Highlighted Posts: XML Sitemaps Kickoff Meeting Announcement 
  • Component Check-ins

5.4 Beta 3 to be released on February 25th

As mentioned, WordPress 5.4 Beta 2 was released on February 18th, 2020. 

Please help by testing the Beta and reporting any bugs on WordPress Trac (or the Gutenberg GitHub repository).

@audrasjb suggested it would be great to schedule one or two 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. scrubs before the next beta so we can 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.)/help the 134 remaining tickets in the milestone. @francina “seconded” with a call out for anyone who has spare time to help organize a bug scrub (See this post for how to run one). Open tickets for 5.4 can be found here (in order of priority). The Bug Scrub schedule for 5.4 lists scheduled scrubs for anyone to join in. 

Status Report on the About Page – Content and Design

@karmatosed stated everything is lining up to start the About page earlier this release. There will also be a push to document this. @melchoyce and @elmastudio are leading the design charge on this with @marktimemedia riding along to observe. @marybaum added they’ve got chunks of the copy written and she promised to share it with major-release-squad.  

Dev Notes Status 

..and how to proceed to get them all published in time for RC1 and the Field Guide.

@audrasjb reports since the last dev chat, four new dev notes were published:

@audrasjb also reports to date, they have a dev notedev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. published for about 50% of closed tickets with the `needs-dev-note` keyword in the milestone and 4 drafted dev notes ready to publish. He is very confident they’ll have all dev notes published by the end of the month (during last week before RC1)

@jorgefilipecosta reports he is tracking the progress of the block editor related dev notes and requests that any feedback before the dev notes are published would be great as the content there was not yet reviewed and is just what the original people involved in a PR think the dev note should contain.

@johnbillion asks that if anyone sees changes going into coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. that they think need a dev note, to leave a comment on the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.. @audrasjb adds “if you think there are some important tickets that don’t have the `needs-dev-note` keyword, please get in touch with me”. @azaozz asks that you ensure the dev notes are really for developers and are concise and to the point and preferably with a code example of changed usage. @jorbin reminds us to remember the guidelines for posts and the need to have a peer review. 

@francina thinks having a separate page with guidelines on submitting dev notes would be helpful. @earnjam mentioned @desrosj would have a draft written up on the subject.

Highlighted Posts

@francina announced the highlighted post. There were no comments. 

Component Check-ins

  • News from Components
  • Components up for adoption (i.e. looking for maintainers): Filesystem 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. and Rewrite Rules
  • Components that need help
  • Cross component collaboration

News From Components

Administration

@valentinbora reports 1 week after he took up Administration, 40+ tickets have been triaged with 2-3 moved to other components. Per the previous meeting’s discussion regarding the very existence of the Administration component, @valentinbora thinks it’s here to stay.

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/

@jeffpaul raised the issue of Gutenberg development overlapping existing Core components and how to best communicate with their respective maintainers/teams. @francina proposed a continued discussion about the cooperation between Components and Gutenberg out of the meeting.  

Widgets & Menus

@audrasjb noted 3 bug fixes with `commit` keyword and concerns about managing the transition and backward compatibility with tickets referring to current widgets/menus and new tickets referring to full site editing (FSE). 

@noisysocks recommends that maintainers of the widgets, 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. and editor components get involved and look at the relevant labels in the Gutenberg repository. 

Open Floor – Announcement

@pbiron announced that a new version of the WordPress Beta Tester 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 was released earlier today with a new feature. On the settings screen (`Tools > Beta Testing`), once you’ve already updated to either `Point 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. nightlies` or `Bleeding edgebleeding edge The latest revision of the software, generally in development and often unstable. Also known as trunk. nightlies`, you’ll see a new option for `Beta/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).`. Once you’ve set that as your current stream, you’ll only be updated when the next beta or RC (or official) is released rather than the nightlies. 

One advantage of this new feature is that you’ll be able to update to beta or RC packages right in the Dashboard (Dashboard > Update) as soon as the packages are built during the release parties if you’re not comfortable using 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/.  Hopefully, this will increase the pool of testers during the release parties.

As the meeting was over time, the remaining two topics from today’s agenda were not started. 

Action Items

These items were discovered within the content as stated action items.

  • @francina to add the bug scrubs to the meetings page (like she did for 5.3)
  • @francina to add “creating a separate page with dev note guidelines, adding comments to a ticket” to her desiderata. Check with @desrosj who might have a draft of a page with details about how to write a good dev note.
  • @audrasjb and @welcher should look at Widgets/Menus issues/PR on Gutenberg
  • @noisysocks to add a ‘call for volunteers’ to the next core editor chat to implement proactive communications from Gutenberg to those component maintainers to help find ways to work together.
  • @jeffpaul suggests we call out notice to the new WordPress Beta Tester plugin in the Beta 3 blogblog (versus network, site) post (and future posts as well) so folks looking to help test have a starting place. 
  • @clorith wants to chat about how to move more things into a ReactReact React is a JavaScript library that makes it easy to reason about, construct, and maintain stateless and stateful user interfaces. https://reactjs.org/. world and how to do it outside of Gutenberg.
  • @noisysocks to “put something up” on Make/Core to continue the conversation about cooperation between Components and Gutenberg (i.e. Cross Teams Collaboration).

Next Meeting

Meetings for #devchat take place weekly in the #core channel. The next meeting is Wednesday, Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 21:00 UTC

#5-4, #dev-chat, #summary

Dev Chat Agenda for February 19, 2020 (5.4 Week 6)

Here is the agenda for the weekly meeting happening later today: Wednesday, February 19, 2020, at 09:00 PM UTC.

Announcements

  • This week marks week 5 of the 5.4 release cycle 🙌
  • WordPress 5.4 Beta 2 was released yesterday, February 18, as scheduled.

Highlighted Blogblog (versus network, site) Posts

Upcoming Releases – 5.4

  • 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. 3 to be released on February 25
  • Status report on the About page – content and design
  • Dev Notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. status and how to proceed to get them all published in time for RC1 and the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page.

Components Check-in

  • News from components
  • Components up for adoption (Filesystem API and Rewrite Rules)
  • Components that need help
  • Cross component collaboration

Open Floor


If you have anything to propose for the agenda or specific items related to those listed above, please leave a comment below.

This meeting is held in the #core channel. To join the meeting, you’ll need an account on the Making WordPress Slack.

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