The WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. development team builds WordPress! Follow this site for general updates, status reports, and the occasional code debate. There’s lots of ways to contribute:
Found a bugbugA 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.?Create a ticket in the bug tracker.
Ipsum is the proposal for the next default theme, planned to be bundled in WordPress 7.2. It is an intentionally minimal blogblog(versus network, site) theme that centers on a blank canvas to make your own, with built-in room for creativity. The approach for this theme also marks a move away from year-based naming, based on direction from @matt. Going forward, default themes will have their own names and change when the design calls for it, not when the calendar does. The road to 7.2 is short, so we’re opening Ipsum for testing now—the sooner we get feedback, the more it will shape the release.
How we got here
Months ago, we began to develop the default theme, building real demo pages directly in the Editor rather than in Figma mockups. That work started as Mētis, a theme for writers, makers, and thinkers, designed to showcase the design possibilities GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ now offers. After reviewing the direction with Matt, we shifted: the default theme bundled with WordPress should be the simplest possible starting point, and the more expressive design can still stand.
There’s a principle behind this choice: build in public, and ship. Mētis is a powerful theme that’s diverse and opinionated, with lots of ways to stretch what’s there. However, Matt gave clear direction to go with a simpler blank canvas style approach that could appeal more quickly to more people to make their own. That’s why we picked a blank canvas blog design and are sharing it with the public for suggestions, instead of making Mētis the one. Real artists ship.
Mētis remains a separate theme that won’t ship with this release. Our new flagship theme will have its own post as soon as it’s ready to download and test.
Ipsum is a blank canvas built around the blogging experience, our proposal for what this year’s default theme should be. Named after lorem ipsum, the placeholder that fills a page until real content arrives, it is composed enough to stand on its own and to be transformed the moment people start writing.
It keeps the page quiet: dotted underlines from an editor’s pencil, a handful of typesets, and style variations that re-ink the whole page, images included. Every combination passes WCAGWCAGWCAG is an acronym for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines are helping make sure the internet is accessible to all people no matter how they would need to access the internet (screen-reader, keyboard only, etc) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/. AA. Headers, heroes, and sidebars are there when you reach for them, but remain invisible when you just want to write.
What’s available today reflects the design work; development review is still ahead. The window before 7.2 is tight, so this is a focused ask: try it and tell us what breaks and what’s missing. We’ll fold in what we can before the release; what we can’t will shape the updates that follow, as it does for every default theme.
As part of the 7.2 release, Carolina Nymark (@poena), Maggie Cabrera (@onemaggie), and Juanfra Aldasoro (@juanfra) are leading development, while Henrique Iamarino (@iamarinoh) is leading design and theme building. The current build reflects the design work; the formal development review comes next, folding in what we hear from you along the way—we look forward to your involvement throughout the process.
Learn more
For information about previous default themes, read the following posts:
Here are a few resources if you’re interested in learning more about BlockBlockBlock 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. Themes and the Site Editor:
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss and collaborate on the development of the Twenty Twenty-Five theme. This meeting is held in the #core-themes channel in Making WordPress SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.
Topics
Status update
Priorities
BetaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1
Open Floor
If you have anything you would like to add to the agenda, please add a comment.
Thanks to @juanfra and @joen for reviewing the agenda.
In the Figma file you can see what is completed by looking for a green circle. Designs in progress have a yellow circle, and anything that is blocked or not planned at this time, is labeled with a red circle.
Work on the style variations. There’s an open issue to address these.
Work on items that are set to [Priority] High.
Once we finish adding the remaining blockBlockBlock 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. patterns and templates, we’ll start adding issues and instructions on how to proceed with i18ni18nInternationalization, 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. (making strings translatable, etc.), indentation, and polishing the patterns/templates.
Open floor
@erichmond brought up that it is difficult to pick issues to work on, and that even if a contributor is assigned to an issue, there may be duplicate pull requests submitted.
The intention is to follow the assignment to the person who has shown interest in the issue first. A recommendation would be to see if there are pull requests open before starting to work on a given issue.
@luminuu Asked if it would be a good idea to test the theme during the WCUS contributor dayContributor DayContributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ on Tuesday the 17th of September, and if anyone would be available online during the start of the contributor day.
It is difficult to predict what kind of issues that may be open in the repository on the 17th and if they are suitable to work on during a contributor day. A new label in the repository can help contributor day attendees to select issues to work on.
This post summarizes the latest Default Theme meeting (agenda).
Status update
The work on Twenty Twenty-Five is happening in the GitHub repository. At the time of the meeting, there were 54 open issues and 19 open pull requests.
There were about 45 patterns designed in total. 31 patterns were built/merged or had open in-progress PRs. 14 patterns were not yet built.
There were 34 templates designed in total, 22 templates are built (the default personal blogblog(versus network, site) and alternative ones for personal, photo and news blogs). Due to time constraints, the “blogging with sidebar” alternative likely won’t get built.
There’s an open issue to create the “combined” global style variations. 1 of the 8 variations has been created, 4 others are assigned.
It is possible to see what’s 🟢 built/ 🟡 not built/ 🔴 may not be built in the Figma file.
Some important information regarding the project timing was shared: the theme needs to be more or less complete before October 1, 2024, after that it is bugbugA 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 only. And text strings need to be final before October 22, 2024.
Priorities
BlockBlockBlock 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. patterns are the highest priority now, and need to be completed as soon as possible to be used to create the other layouts such as landing pages and homepages. There are “High priority” labels and they will also dictate what’s becoming a priority along the project.
Call notes
According to the agenda, a short, informal call happened to take a look at what’s built and what’s not, and determine if some of the original designs need to be left out. Those present were @beafialho, @poena, @juanfra, @luminuu and @oncecoupled.
The call focused on the progress and challenges of the development of Twenty Twenty-Five.
Key points:
The completion of personal default templates and alternatives, with some patterns still pending-
Four patterns are blocked due to the lack of image support for categories in search templates and the new accordion block’s delay, leading to the possibility to leave out three “categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.” patterns
The team discussed the feasibility of adding patterns directly from the patterns sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. and the need for consistent naming and ordering of section styles
The team also considered the impact of WordCampWordCampWordCamps 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. US contributions and the need for thorough testing and accessibilityAccessibilityAccessibility (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) checks
Action items:
Follow up on the new accordion block PR and status
Evaluate building search result patterns or leaving them out
Consider adding a “page” category for patterns
Eventually pingPingThe 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.” accessibility reviewers for testing
Most presets are now part of the theme, and work is being done on the different templates and patterns. The repository now has priority labels to indicate the urgency of specific issues and pull requests.
Over 20 contributors have participated so far, and over 60 open issues are in the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository. Many are related to blockBlockBlock 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. patterns, and the ones with the “Need Dev” label are ready to be worked on. https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfive/issues
A decision was made not to use domains or brands in graphic elements or patterns. More about that discussion and decision here. There were also conversations on how to improve the process of getting the images from the Figma file to add them to the theme, which resulted in hosting the images in a public directory.
Priorities
With the different presets already in the theme, contributors are ready to start working on the different theme styles. Next, the alternative templates for photo blogblog(versus network, site), complex blog and personal blog.
At the same time, work needs to be completed on block patterns to be used in the creation of other layouts, such as landing pages.
Open floor
@joen mentioned that there’s a good list of Gutenberg-related issues to the theme development, created by @poena, and that he’d be willing to help expedite those.
@beafialho asked how to proceed with implementing templates, when parts are still being discussed or there are independent issues to work on. The conclusion was that as long as there’s communication on why there are things that are not being fully implemented according to the design, and there are links to the other issues we can move forward to expedite things.
@beafialho also asked about creating GitHub issues vs. opening PRs directly when she finds issues with the implementation. The idea is that if the issues found are quick to fix, a PR could be the best way to expedite things. If the issues found are related to bigger changes, then creating GitHub issues would be the best way to proceed. As it can open up the game for contributors to work on those, and it’ll keep track of the progress and what happened.
The default color palette, font families, spacing and font size presets have been added to the theme. Expect more changes to all of these as the templates and patterns are created. An early version of the site headers have been added. There are pull requests opened for the footers, the 404 template, and a few blockBlockBlock 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. patterns. Work has started on the default templates for home, single posts, page, archive and search.
Over 20 contributors have participated so far and there are over 60 open issues in the GitHubGitHubGitHub 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ repository, most of them are related to the block patterns. https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfive/issues
Priorities
With the default font families and color palette added, two of the priorities are to add the optional color palettes and typography presets. Next, the templates for the photo blogblog(versus network, site) and news need to be added. The patterns need to be completed so that they can be used to create other layouts such as landing pages and homepages.
Not least, help is needed with the list of GutenbergGutenbergThe 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/ issues and pull requests: https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfive/issues/25
Open floor
@poena suggested trying to keep the meeting to 30 minutes. This can be added to the next agenda to set the expectations.
Assigning issues and creating branches
If you would like to work on a GitHub issue, you can assign yourself to the issue or add a comment with your intent. Before assigning yourself to an issue, check if someone else is already assigned or has expressed interest in working on it. Please limit your assignments to a few at the time.
You do not need to wait for the repository maintainers to assign you. You can create a fork of the repository, create a new branchbranchA directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"., and submit your pull request. @karmatosed and @juanfra shared some tips for naming your branches:
Use try/something if you are trying something
Use fix/something if you are fixing something
Use add/something if you are adding a new feature, for example a pattern
Sample content for testing
@erichmond Asked what content data to use for testing, that uses blocks and not legacy data. The most up to date XML files for importing sample content using the WordPress Importer are found at https://github.com/WordPress/theme-test-data. The file 64-block-test-data.xml does not contain legacy data.
Theme.jsonJSONJSON, 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. schema & versioning
@erichmond Also asked if there will be a different theme.json schema that we should know about. There will be updates to the schema if new features are added to theme.json in WordPress 6.7. There are no known plans to update the versions.
Issues and pull requests
@luminuu Highlighted an issue about the theme screenshot. @rejaulalomkhan Brought up a question about using HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. in translatable strings: HTML in translatable strings should be avoided when possible. Missing translations or incorrect translations are not blocking at this time, because it is expected that there will be many changes both to text and markup before the theme is complete.
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