DevChat meeting summary – December 8, 2021

Agenda written by @estelaris. Dev chat Notes by @webcommsat. Meeting facilitated by @marybaum

Start of the DevChat meeting, in the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. 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

Agenda

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

Update from @hellofromtonya
Beta 3 is next week in 6 days, i.e. December 14, 2021. Efforts are focused on fixing bugs identified in the beta cycle. There are some new bugs identified where tickets were reopened or new ones created. Help in testing and fixing is greatly appreciated in:
Milestone’s report for Core specifically
List of items for Gutenberg

Overall, progress looks to be on track. Not currently seeing any red flags.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to 5.9.

@mkaz: The list of 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. relating to the release is on GitHub rather than as a spreadsheet.

Blogblog (versus network, site) posts to note

WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 fixed 24 bugs reported by contributors and needs testing. If you can help, please report your findings on the announcement post.

The Editor Chat Summary highlights improvements made by the team.

Gutenberg 12.1 RC1 was released.

@audrasjb published the latest issue of A Week in Core (6 December 2021).

And remember that the release schedule has been revised.

WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 – Can you help test the latest software version of WordPress? 5.9 Beta 2 was published on 7 December 2021, please help find any bugs.

Update from Component Maintainers

Build/Test Tools, Date/Time, General, I18Ni18n Internationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill., Permalinks

Update from @sergeybiryukov: no major news this week. 

Help/About

Update from @webcommsat: About Page and related materials.

  • Monday 6 December 2021 20:30 UTC collaboration
    • Key areas covered: sections, video options, discussion on the navigation 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..
  • Wednesday 8 December 2021, 15:00 UTC plus async
    • Start of the more detailed exploration of key benefits by audience and messaging for social media .
    • Also provided an earlier time for anyone wishing to collaborate than the Monday 20:30 UTC sessions.
  • Follow the discussions: Links to all of these sessions are in the TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticket and in the Marketing Team GitHub card to help people follow along and get involved, especially those less familiar with Trac.
  • Next live collaboration session on slack: this will take place on Monday13 December 2021, at 20:30 UTC in core.
  • Over the next few days, @marybaum and @webcommsat will continue to bring together the different suggestions. Please do continue to add to the documents and spreadsheet asynchronously or reach out if you have a query. Thanks so much and to everyone from core, marketing, training and documentation that have been contributing.
  • Request for input: Dev and extenders insights are particularly needed.
    • You can also contribute to the spreadsheet created by @webcommsat for marcomms. This has different tabs for major audience groups, and information will be broken down by subject in each tab, eg Navigation Block. If you have a suggestion, please add it to the sheet and include the feature area in brackets to help us categorize them. To avoid the problems of internet spamming, @vimes1984 after testing has set the spreadsheet to comment mode. Anyone can add insights by opening the link, and clicking on ‘comment’ in the relevant tab. If anyone has difficulty with using it or has a query, please let us know on Slack (abhanonstopnewsuk). We have options for those who need an alternative format for 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). A post with more information to help contributors will be published later today and a link added to this post. @hellofromtonya suggested making it available on the core blog too.
    • @marybaum: One question we want to answer now is, think of the times you’ve been working on the front end of a site, going back and forth between your code and the block editor.
    • How does 5.9 make your life easier? For instance, almost every time I do a redesign, I forget I have to rebuild the menus until the last minute. Now the Nav Block means menus stay intact)
    • @costdev: Also another way to think about it for non-dev users:
      • Install 5.8.2 and try to create a site. At what points would you need to install another theme, 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, or hire a developer to make a change?
      • Install 5.9.0 Beta 2. What items are no longer on that list?
      • 5.9 benefits both dev and non-dev users, so this is a great way to highlight where non-dev users get “stuck” without extenders.
    • Further insight on the dev benefits from 5.9 requested. This will be the focus of the session on Monday 13 December 2021, 20:30 UTC in the core slack channel. @costdev hopes to attend and bring a list from testing.

Open Floor

Upgrade issue 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/ 12/1 and 5.9 Beta 2

@nickdiego: Raised a Gutenberg issue that he and @ Brian Gardner found after upgrading to 12.1 and 5.9 Beta 2. They have been exploring the issue and wanted to get visibility for it before raising a Trac ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.. Nick highlighted that the issue has a big impact, and is likely to do with merging code from Gutenberg to Core. He can create a ticket if needed.

@hellofromtonya: A Trac ticket isn’t necessary as once it’s fixed it will get backported with each Monday’s updates. She also highlighted the issue in the core-editor channel for suggestions and adding to the 5.9 project board. She thanked Nick and Brian for testing and identifying the issue.

@jeffpaul: requested view from @oandregal on the ticket.

Plugin upgrader

@costdev: In #core-auto-updates, they have been running through an issue with changes to the plugin upgrader. There’s been a lot of investigation done so far. They will make a decision on Friday about whether we can get this into 5.9 or whether it will need 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.) to 6.0.

Request: additional contributors to join the conversation, particularly if they use VVV or Chassis

@hellofromtonya: The issue so far is impacting Vagrant environments, though wider testing on shared hosts, etc. is also needed. If you can help test or contribute, please join in the #core-auto-updates channel.

@marybaum: Is it okay on Local and the AMPs?

@pbiron: to be more specific: 5.9 beta2 includes a feature that ‘does a backup’ of the currently installed plugin before the update happens. If the update fails, then it ‘rolls back’ the previously installed version. This feature seems to work fine in every environment in which it has been tested except for VVV/Chassis

@costdev: So far, we haven’t been able to reproduce the issue on Local or other Docker environments (right @pbiron?) or in WSL2 (Hyper-V). (edited) 

@pbiron: in VVV/Chassis , the plugin actually gets deleted after the update.

@hellofromtonya:  final comment on 5.9 release: The team is working on identifying and resolving this issue this week before Beta 3. If it can’t be resolved, then a hard decision will need to be made. 5.9 will not be at risk. The team is asking for help to join in the effort.

Target release dates for 2022

Post dev chat announcement from the core slack.

@chanthaboune: I have been in meetings two weeks in a row during core chat time but I have a very important topic, so I’m just going to drop it in here anyway. We’ve got to talk about target release dates for 2022. As I see it we have some options:

  1. Four releases, essentially quarterly
  2. Three releases, essentially….trimester-ly?
  3. Start with Two for the first half and see how we feel about the second half

I have suggested schedules for all of those options (and will post about it to make.wordpress.org/core), but meant to open the discussion here first.

@audrasjb: In my opinion, with the first update on January, we can probably target 4 releases in 2022. I’d say it’s currently a bit difficult to target 4 full release cycles in one year, but since most of the work for 5.9 was done in 2021, I do think it’s realistic to aim for a 4-release year in 2022.

@joyously : I’d vote for as few majors as possible, and focus on 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. fixes.

@pbearne: With the work on performance ramping up will at least one release for that work that will/maybe short on UIUI User interface features

#5-9, #dev-chat

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for November 9, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, November 9, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on the #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the meeting is to discuss the rollback for failed 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/theme updates 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. #51857

@peterwilsoncc reported some failures on his tests, so the commit might need to be reverted. Let’s discuss it together.

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

See you there!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Dev chat summary – October 13, 2021

@audrasjb led the chat on this agenda. You can also read the Slack logs.

Highlighted blogblog (versus network, site) posts

Bringing to your attention some interesting reads and some call for feedback and/or volunteers:

The proposal for a new Make/Performance team was well received by the meeting participants. Encouraging! Please add your feedback in the post comments.

Worth mentioning:

Thanks to the 30 contributors of the past week, including 3 new contributors! Kudos to the 5 coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. committers of the week, too.

A Week in Core – October 11, 2021

Upcoming releases updates

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.(s)

Please note that 5.8.2 was deferred due to the lack of ready-to-ship tickets.

Reminder: @desrosj and @circlecube are co-leading the 5.8.x releases. The 5.8.x point releases are coordinated in the #5-8-release-leads 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. This channel is public and will be archived once 5.9 is released.

@sergeybiryukov proposed to also backportbackport A port is when code from one branch (or trunk) is merged into another branch or trunk. Some changes in WordPress point releases are the result of backporting code from trunk to the release branch. changeset [51883] (which is milestoned to 5.8.2) to older branches.

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.

Concerning the next major release —WordPress 5.9— a planning roundup was published some weeks ago.

@kjellr introduced the new bundled theme on Make/Core last week. The first Twenty Twenty-Two meeting was hosted on October 11, in the #core-themes Slack channel.

As usual, there is a public repository on GitHub so feel free to help testing the theme, and to contribute to this project.

The go/no go date for the main WP 5.9 features is October 14.

@audrasjb will run another 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. scrub on Thursday October 14, 2021 at 20:00 UTC.

Reminder: everyone is welcome to run a bug scrub on the #core Slack channel. If you are interested, please read this handbook post: Leading bug scrubs and get in touch with @audrasjb or @francina for details.

Component maintainers updates

Upgrade/Install – @sergeybiryukov @afragen

Work has continued on addressing PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 7.4 or higher timeouts or missing files during large 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 or theme updates. A couple of solutions were implemented so far, but it looks like the issue might not be fully resolved yet. Any testing and feedback welcome! See ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #54166 for more details.

Also, @afragen made a few updates to the new move_dir() function based on @sergeybiryukov’s comments.

Help/About – @marybaum

Help/About: the component had a scrub Monday and is following up with another on @audrasjb will run another bug scrub on Monday October 18, 2021 at 19:00 UTC. So far two tickets are ready for commit action.

The #core-auto-updates team is still looking on getting a consensus on which approach to proceed with for #22316. Two competing PRs are proposed (1547 and 1724), there is a need to decide what is the best approach.

Open Floor

@johnjamesjacoby raised ticket #38231 and asked for another pair of eyes. @costdev pointed out some possible enhancements in the unit tests provided by the ticket.

@webcommsat shared that the Marketing Team is exploring how to help the Test Team reach extenders with the message to update their test suites to bring them in line with the latest WordPress Core PHP Test Suites.Everyone is welcome to join the collaboration in this document, and they are looking specifically for items to be filled in on the table on page 4 to 6.

#5-8-x, #5-9, #dev-chat, #summary, #twenty-twenty-two

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for September 21, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, September 21, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on the #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the meeting is to discuss the four years old ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. #22316 and two PRs that have been proposed to solve it.

Let’s try something different! A Zoom call 🙂 I will drop the link to it in the Slack channel at the start of the meeting.

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

See you there!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for September 14, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on the #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the chat is to check the status of the [Feature project] Updates on updating the updaters and scrub tickets for inclusion in WordPress 5.9

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

See you there!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install Meeting Notes, September 7

Quiet but productive chat, only two attendees, @afragen and @francina, but here is a quick recap 🙂 Slack logs.

#51857

@afragen stress tested it but didn’t find any concerning blockers. I asked @sergeybiryukov about commit: he is going to do another round of code review tomorrow, September 8, and if everything looks good, it will be committed. The solution addresses Outcome 1 and 2 of the initial feature proposal.

Outcome 3 – Have managed updates (database migrations)

This is going into the icebox momentarily. It needs a new 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. to work. If anyone is interested in picking it up, join our meetings on Tuesdays, at 17:00 UTC.

Outcome 4 – Create a unified JSONJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. convention for requirements and dependencies.

This nine-year-old issue was revived. Worth reading through it all.

Here is @afragen TL;DR

  1. Any 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 that requires a dependency should degrade gracefully if that dependency is not present.
  2. Dependencies should have notices to install and later activate the dependency.
  3. Some notification of which plugin is a dependency of what other plugin.

There is also the potential for abuse, with plugins reporting dependencies that aren’t really dependencies.

Andy also suggested making a proof of concept plugin, instead of creating a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. 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..

What say you?

Do you want to add to the conversation? Please comment on the 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. (beware, comments in GH will be shown in Trac, but not the other way around, so please use Trac, thank you 🙏). We are in the “feedback, validate, outreach, test, inform, reply to questions” 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. stage. Join us!

See you next week 👋

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for September 07, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the chat is to check the status of the [Feature project] Updates on updating the updaters.

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

See you later!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for August 24, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, August 24, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the chat is to check the status of the rollback for failed plugin/theme updates after last Friday’s testing session and triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors./scrub tickets in the component.

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

See you later!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install Meeting Notes, August 17

On August 17, the Upgrade/Install component met to discuss the proof of concept that builds on the rollback update failure 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 prepare it to merge in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. Slack logs.

In the post and during the meetings a number of concerns and potential improvements were mentioned, so here are the next steps:

  1. @aristath will write steps for manual testing, in time for the next Test scrub (Friday, August 20) ✅ Instructions in the Pull Request
  2. @francina will liaise with the Test Team and Hosting Team (aka cross post 😇) so the PR can be tested ✅
  3. @sergeybiryukov will do the code review once there is a good amount* of testing.

The conversation led to other two topics

  1. Unit tests for the updater classes. They don’t exist. Should they exist? Yes. But it’s a big task and it needs a dedicated initiative. Let’s take one step at a time.
  2. #51928 is independent from the auto-updates/failures/rollback items, but closely related. As @pbironmentioned, failure data can give information about areas in the updater that could use more error checking/recovery logic, etc. The results are anonymous and seen only by the .org system folks.

If you have input on any of the above, please leave a comment – here or on the relevant PR/Tickets.

Thanks!

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install

Upgrade/Install component meeting agenda for August 17, 2021

The next meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, August 17, 2021, at 17:00 UTC and will take place on #core-auto-updates 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.

The aim of the chat is to check the status of the rollback for failed plugin/theme updates and decide if it is ready for a merge proposal.

Got something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.

#core-auto-updates, #updater, #upgrade-install