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.
This hallway hangout is a continuation of prior hallway hangouts in the FSE Outreach Program about release specific updates. In this session, we’ll talk through some of what’s to come in the next WordPress release with a proposed schedule for March 26th. This is being shared early to help encourage more folks to tune in and to build some excitement for this next release.
How to join
If you’re interested in joining, the Hallway Hangout will happen on 2024-01-16 21:00 . A Zoom link will be shared in the core-editorSlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel before starting and all are welcome to join, whether to listen or participate, for as long or as little as you’d like. This will be recorded and recapped.
Agenda
At a high level, expect this to take the form of a free flowing demo/presentation going through as many release priorities as possible. @annezazu and @saxonafletcher will take point to demo and share what’s being worked on. Others might jump in to share as well depending on the roadmap post for 6.5 and where work stands by that point in the release cycle.
As a reminder, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind. Depending on how large the session is, we may not get to all questions live on the call but we can always include follow up in the recap.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #accessibility channel after a prior hallway hangout on improving 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) in the Site Editor and took the new form of a concrete working session to address a specific problem. It was first announced on October 1st and was open to all.
To kick off, Joe asked Alex to talk through the current pain points and differences between modes. As Alex said, navigation mode is a hackedhacked together feature. The biggest problem we have, the navigation mode is a dynamically updating button. Everytime you press your arrow key or tab key when you’re in navigation mode, it dynamically re-renders. This is a challenging problem to handle with screen readers because it’ll ignore this. For Windows, there’s also a longstanding issue where the arrow keys don’t actually send the keyboard events through the browser so tab is the only viable key. Conversely, List View is much simpler in the way you can navigate with keys and it’s wrapped in a navigation role. You are able to expand rows, have control over what you’re looking at, etc. Another current problem with navigation mode, it’s not entirely clear when there are inner blocks. Alex started to work on this but stopped to focus on list view.
What are the consequences if we stripped out navigation mode and used list view as the primary way of browsing through blocks?
To date, there has been no modal, tips, etc for keyboard users in the editor. People who are used to this would have no idea it has changed and we need a way to communicate that change, perhaps using a similar approach to the change in template parts to the patterns section.
Andrea, who helped implement navigation mode, offered some historical context. He shared that if we are going to use navigation mode, we’re going to reintroduce a major issue that existed before introducing the two modes. Imagine that a post contains dozens of blocks. If you want to navigate these blocks in the post content area with the tab key, you are going to have to go through all of the dozens of blocks including the interface of each 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. (dozens of tab stops). Nav mode was originally meant to reduce the number of tab stops when navigating through the blocks in a way that each block was only one tab stop rather than multiple then pressing enter gives the ability to switch the block to edit mode where you can navigate inside the block. This was the original implementation and it made sense when there were no inner blocks.
Joe noted that List View works the same way where you can go block to block. When you use the tab key you are going through all of these elements. However, there are still a lot fewer elements than going through the blocks themselves. We should be willing to compromise to some degree. Arrow key navigation in List View also does work. It’s 100% accessibility and there are a total of three tabbable elements in list view: tab panel, close button, and list view area itself.
Alex would like to find a better way to manage focus between block editor and block 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. but that’s a broader discussion. Jerry and Alex have worked on this but it’s a long battle.
Trying List View + Focus Mode for container blocks as an experiment
Anne pitched trying getting rid of navigation mode and use list view + focus mode as an experiment in 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/. We could then do a call for testing and get a sense of what the experience might be like more practically. Folks were very much onboard with trying this out, especially since in the long run this would reduce the number of mechanisms to maintain.
The question of how many people are used to using navigation mode came up though, especially since the feedback folks are worried about is more about non screen reader users. Anne is going to try to get some initial data from WordPress.comWordPress.comAn online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/.
Mobile concerns
Rich chimed in that the current primary use for that view is on mobile devices as this makes it easier to select child first nested blocks so it’s easy to tap onto. We never really got to the bottom of this on the call as we all pulled out our phones to investigate and couldn’t figure out how to even evoke the mode.
Locked blocks and inert
We discussed how to explain disabled blocks in List View which relates to a broader discussion on alternatives to inert. There’s no good way to explain to a blind user what a template looks like when editing a smaller portion like a page. Anne showed an option to toggle on/off a template preview when editing a page in the Site Editor and we discussed a few ways we could enhance that feature to save it as a preference/have it be persistent in some way.
Focus mode concerns
We discussed Focus Mode and adding it to Container Blocks. A big piece to figure out is how the back button works and ensuring it returns you to where you’d expect in the Site Editor experience.
Gutenberg as a framework concerns
Alex brought up an excellent point around Gutenberg being used as a framework, like with Blocks Everywhere, and how navigation mode is built into it as a package. We need to consider this in removing the navigation mode and it might be that it remains for third party usage.
To provide context, when navigation and edit mode were initially introduced in 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/ 6.3, nested blocks and the Site Editor did not exist. We now face the challenge of finding a more efficient way to navigate between content.
If you’re interested in joining, the Hallway Hangout will happen on 2023-11-15 16:00. A Zoom link will be shared in the #accessibilitySlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel before starting and all are welcome to join, whether to listen or participate, for as long or as little as you’d like.
Agenda
At a high level, we’ll start with some intros to get familiar with who has joined us on the call before diving into the topic in practical terms: How does everything work today? How might deprecation work? What 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) improvements or fixes are needed for this to be viable?
As a reminder, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind. Because this will be more of a working session, we’ll be solely focused on the topic prepared so please keep that in mind when considering whether to join.
At a high level, we will go through quick intros (what each person does/focuses on) before reviewing WordPress 6.3 performance impact in the field, diving into WordPress 6.4 performance improvements and looking ahead at what can be learned for WordPress 6.5.
As a reminder, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind along with any questions or items you want to discuss around this important area of the project, especially since the agenda is intentionally loose to allow for it.
During the call, @joemcgill discussed the benchmark results from WordPress 6.4 where we have identified good improvements for classic themes in particular, and a hypothesis for where those improvements came from was discussed. Currently, it’s difficult to identify where the improvements to classic themes in WordPress 6.4 comes from, but the team are planning to spend additional time investigating this.
@adamsilverstein discussed whether we can start to identify these differences using automated testing, but the variance is difficult to assess. @adamsilverstein suggested having the data in Opentelemetry or Grafana where you can map a trendline with all the data. However, the set up that you use for testing makes a large difference to results.
@flixos90 mentioned that the old approach for benchmarking provided different results compared to the new approach. @joemcgill discussed important considerations for benchmarking, saying that lab results are instructive, however this does not necessarily translate to what we see in the field. @pbearne suggested a query string switch and for people to disable a range of variables, and potentially we could build in A/B testing, this could be a headerHeaderThe 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.. This could point towards a third method, lab in the field benchmarking!
@flixos90 shared this spreadsheet where benchmarks were compared from previous WordPress versions to WordPress 6.4, as we know so far. This contains only one negative number which is a great result! The results from 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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/ actions workflow built by @swissspidy are relatively consistent. @pbearne discussed diminished returns as we do the benchmarks, and discussed how best we set expectations around these improvements.
@flixos90 one thing the performance team needs to work on is consistency in benchmarks. The WordPress 6.3 in the field post was discussed. It was great to see lazy loading and fetchpriority contributed to these improvement and improvements to LCP were discussed. The CWV tech report which looks at overall WordPress, using all sites that are listed in the httpHTTPHTTP is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. archive dataset, was also shared and discussed at length. Between July this year, and September this year, the CWV passing rate went from 39% to 41.5% passing rate which is a significant improvement in a short space of time.
Performance dev notesdev noteEach 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. for WordPress 6.4
@joemcgill took us through some upcoming improvements for WordPress 6.5, including:
Sever Timing
Performant translations pluginPluginA 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 (see #59656)
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.HooksHooksIn 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. follow-up
Review Fonts APIAPIAn 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.
Image optimizations
Better sizes calculations (to be completed after 6.5)
Next month, @greenshady, @welcher, and I will host a casual conversation about the most important and exciting developer-related changes coming soon in WordPress 6.4. From 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.HooksHooksIn 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. and the Font Library to improved Editor flows and the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme, there is just so much to talk about.
The Hangout will begin with a brief overview of the major changes, and then we’ll open it up for group discussion and Q&A.
This event will be held on Thursday, October 12, 2023, at 1:00 PM CST (18:00 UTC), which is right before WordPress 6.4 RC1. The meeting link will be shared through the Learn WordPress MeetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. group. RSVP for the event to access the link. We hope to see you there!
Interactivity APIAPIAn 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. powered features:
Query LoopLoopThe 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. Block (53812)
To ensure the Site Editor can be used by everyone, this hallway hangout aims to dive deep into the current 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) of this new experience with the aim to iterate and improve.
How to join
If you’re interested in joining, the Hallway Hangout will happen on 2023-09-14 15:00. A Zoom link will be shared in the #accessibilitySlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel before starting and all are welcome to join, whether to listen or participate, for as long or as little as you’d like.
Agenda
At a high level, we’ll go through the following:
Quick intros.
Discussions around current concerns.
Demos of pain points from @alexstine and @joedolson.
Discussion about ways to resolve/address current, known issues.
As a reminder, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind along with any questions or items you want to discuss around this important area of the project. Outside of the time for demos, we’ll intentionally have space for open discussion.
Join Ryan Welcher (@welcher) and me next month for a casual conversation 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. variations and how you can use them to enhance the editing experience in WordPress. An often overlooked feature, variations are a great way to extend existing blocks and can be as simple or complex as you like. Many WordPress CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blocks you use daily are variations!
To kick off the discussion, we will provide a brief overview of what variations are and how they work. Ryan will then share how he built the Advanced Query LooppluginPluginA 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 and why he opted for a variation of the Query block instead of building a custom block from scratch. And if you have built any variations or are using them in interesting ways, we encourage you to share them with the group.
While block variations tend to be a more developer-focused topic, this Hallway Hangout will be accessible to everyone. The event will be held on Thursday, September 14, 2023, at 1:00 PM CST (18:00 UTC). The meeting link will be shared through the Learn WordPress MeetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. group. RSVP for the event to access the link.
Recording
Notes
The Hallway Hangout was attended by 34 community members, including facilitators @ndiego and @welcher.
Nick gave a brief overview of what Block Variations are and how to use them. Ryan then discussed how and why you might want to build more advanced variations and demoed his Advanced Query LoopLoopThe 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. plugin. Questions were asked and answered throughout. The following resources were shared during the event:
The code reference for all Core blocks and their attributes.
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 be the repository owner. https://github.com/repository for the Advanced Query Loop plugin.
At a high level, we’ll go through quick intros (what each person does/focuses on) before diving into WordPress 6.3 performance improvements led by performance leads (@clarkeemily@flixos90) and looking ahead at what can be learned for WordPress 6.4. Here’s a preview from the 6.3 beta 2 post:
As a reminder, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind along with any questions or items you want to discuss around this important area of the project, especially since the agenda is intentionally loose to allow for it.
After a round of intros for anyone who wanted to participate, we jumped into the following discussions.
Overview of 6.3 performance improvements
@flixos90 discussed an in-progress post rounding up performance improvements for 6.3, highlighting that thus far performance improvements are looking even better than for 6.2. Here are some quick stats from 6.3 RC2 shared yesterday:
LCP for 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 ~28% faster than 6.2.2
TTFB ~22% faster
LCP-TTFB ~37% faster
LCP for classic themes ~19% faster than 6.2.2
TTFB ~1% slower
LCP-TTFB ~30% faster
We also went through the following dev notesdev noteEach 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.:
As part of the above item, it’s important to note that dependencies for larger plugins are handled with care, opting for the more conservative pathway if broader extensions of a larger pluginPluginA 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 haven’t opted this approach when the overall plugin has. If both switch, this new approach will be used. While not a performance enhancementenhancementEnhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature. out of the box using WordPress since it requires adoption, it is an important item to cover to ensure folks see how they can put it to use. As part of this, we discussed both Delay loading comment-reply script with async loading strategy and Use defer loading strategy for frontend view scripts with the latter already merged to improve loading performance for frontend scripts in WordPress itself. More here:
Now that we have Script Loading Strategies committed, I’ve started exploring how we can take advantage of them to improve frontend performance in coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress./themes/plugins. As a first step, I wanted to try one set of enhancements to see what is involved and what the impact is to see whether the effort is worth it. As an initial exploration, I focused on the scripts that 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/ adds to the frontend, that is the block view scripts. These are unfortunately all added to the head and are all blocking. So opened a PR to leverage async and defer, and my findings a 19.3% reduction in LCP-TTFB! https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52536#:~:text=Performance%20Analysis
Sparked by a question from @oandregal about when should we expect the improvements landed in 6.2 and 6.3 to impact RUM public datasets, we dug into data to see the impact of changes. André later shared a personal post on the topic! For context, lab data is what improvements we expect to see in a more contained environment where as field data is what we end up seeing on real sites. A note from Felix that we always have to wait at least a month after a new release to get a first set of metrics from the Chrome UX Report & HTTP Archive. To help aid digging into data, block theme detection was added to the HTTP archive a few months ago.
As discussed, the key is to pull tendencies as it’s hard to get absolutely exact data. Right now, the tendencies validates lab assumptions when looking into the field data! We went through reports both in Chrome UX Report data and Core Web vitals for TTFB:
Of note, data in CrUX is added at aggregate level and it’s not weighted by number of pages so a site with tons of pages is equally weighted for one with none. For Core Web Vitals, it shows a steady increase since April and it shows that we can look for delayed impacts for 6.3 in September/October to see how changes are landing.
Discussion around PHP backports to Core
We ended talking about backports to Core and the impact on performance as the the current performance process involves analyzing the previous state of WordPress versions to identify opportunities for improvement, implementing those improvements, and validating their effectiveness. The performance team wants to be more proactive and involved in looking ahead at work to come to ensure that WordPress remains performant, particularly with new features like duotone functionality being added late in the development cycle. We talked about the efforts from @hellofromtonya to ease the backportbackportA 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. process as well as the current time constraints to do so. We have a shorter release cycle for 6.4 so there’s a chance that we can experiment a bit more to see if we can do more frequent package updates.
We discussed the idea of a mid-point merge for PHP backports and a more formal workflow for both Core and Gutenberg teams. The proposal included a “PHP backport party” chat, similar to the release party chats, during the release cycle to facilitate collaboration ideally from more folks. We ended chatting about whether the Core Editor had a dedicated group on performance, explaining that there isn’t a dedicated group so much as a collection of performance-minded individuals within the Gutenberg development.
@hellofromtonya as someone who spends so much time living in this space, I’d love to know what you think here and how myself and @clarkeemily can facilitate as co-members of the 6.4 release squad.
Following up on the prior hallway hangout on Performance Considerations for Block Themes, @flixos90 and I are running an additional one on performance improvements in WordPress 6.2. @flixos90 is the performance lead for the WordPress 6.2 release (a new role!) and this is a chance to get a more behind the scenes look at what’s to come.
At a high level, we’ll go through quick intros (what each person does/focuses on) and what performance work has been done with WordPress 6.2, with a likely specific focus on enhancements to theme.json. Ultimately, hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind along with any questions or items you want to discuss.
6.2 improves performance, in particular for 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.
Block themes are still slower with server response time than Classic themes due to higher configurability. Based on how block themes work they allow us to do more for client side performance than Classic themes.
Testing environments can be quite different, making it hard to replicate at times and important for folks to run across different environments before coming together to cross compare.
Performance regressions seem to be caused by a build up of PRs causing minor changes rather than a few PRs. On the flip side, object cache improvements are responsible for most of the improvements though.
Some regressions are quite minor, a few ms, and it’s important to contextualize percentage changes with that in mind.
There’s a sense that there’s an opportunity with newer mechanisms, like 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., to bring bigger improvements in performance.
Education for developers is needed from a few angles: documentation, learn WP content, developer tools, automated testing.
We need to differentiate between consistency and variance coverage when it comes to performance testing. Start small and expand.
Consistency is critical to have when doing these tests. No matter how good this work gets, there will always be some variance in performance results and an inability to cover all of the real world cases.
Overview of performance lead role
Came about as part of the last hallway hangout and is a new role for the 6.2 cycle, requiring some level of creating a new path.
@flixos90 has taken on this role and shared about his experience thus far.
Responsibilities include: Prioritize performance enhancements, catch performance regressions and collaborate with relevant teams on fixing them, keep track of overall load time performance of WordPress coreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. for the release.
More specifically, this work includes periodically reviewing tickets with performance focus keyword, assessing performance of different PRs, and conduct overall performance analysis of WordPress trunktrunkA 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. / 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. / RCrelease candidateOne 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). to identify notable wins and regressions. This latter task can hopefully become a lot simpler in the future, by relying on the automated core testing environment.
In the future, this role could expand for 6.3 to include general profiling to proactively identify bottlenecks to focus on.
6.2 Improvements
There’s been amazing work done to improve performance with block themes in particular for 6.2
@spacedmonkey brought up though that the numbers for block themes still aren’t comparable to classic themes. Block themes are 2-3x slower.
It’s going to be difficult to keep the same level of performance with a classic theme because a block theme does more stuff to generate that page.
While the block themes have a slower server response time, it’s in part due to configurability which is higher.
Based on how block themes work they allow us to do more for client side performance than classic themes. Haven’t measured how much that offsets negative server side impact.
Cause of regressions
Lots of little things causing regressions rather than one main PR, making it hard to address at times. On the flip side, the object cache work is responsible for most of the improvements though for 6.2.
Should we prioritize small fixes too rather than really big? We could prioritize smaller items and do lightning rounds of PRs. Little tweaks do add up but we also do not want to get in the way of development.
In systems that are newer, like theme.json, @oandregal believes that there’s more space to improve things. For example, with theme.json caching the settings was obvious in retrospect. However, you don’t always anticipate how the call you write will be used. It’s likely that the newer systems will have bigger spaces for improving and other ones will be more like little tweaks.
More developer education
@spacedmonkey spoke about how he wants to see more developer education done.
Helping folks write performant code or learn to use query monitor could help the entire ecosystem improve.
There’s an opportunity to bake this into Learn WP work too cc @psykro for consideration (gave you a shout out in the call).
It’s critical to not just ship these improvements but to publicize them and get the word out.
If we start to notice consistent code patterns where people are repeatedly using certain functions in certain ways that could be optimized, we could work with other Make Teams to help reinforce best practices.
@tweetythierry brought up if there was more that could be done on the developer tools level, especially for core developers.
Automated testing, testing environments, and variance vs consistency
Don’t want an automated suite to dampen running our own tests and tweaking things.
Even small changes, like using a localeLocaleA locale is a combination of language and regional dialect. Usually locales correspond to countries, as is the case with Portuguese (Portugal) and Portuguese (Brazil). Other examples of locales include Canadian English and U.S. English. or loading 30 posts rather than 10, can make a big difference.
It’s important to think about which environments we want to run tests in. A few sample environments – a little content, a lot of content, one without any language pack, one with a different locale, etc.
We can start small and expand as we will never be able to cover the real world. It’ll always be limited. Most important thing is that we test across consistent environments. No matter how good we make this, there will always be some variance in performance results.
@tweetythierry brought up the need to differentiate between consistency and variance coverage. With automated testing, important to have consistency in setup but we shouldn’t just rely on one set of configuration forever. Should do it manually to increase variance coverage. It’s super important to have consistency though at the end of the day.
@spacedmonkey brought up wanting to profile in different languages since 58% of sites aren’t running in English. There’s a solid chance that there’s low hanging fruit on translated strings that could really add up for majority of sites.
Profilers and tooling
Discussed Blackfire accounts for core contributorsCore ContributorsCore contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org. as there’s been conversations with them in the past. It’s not open sourceOpen SourceOpen Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. though and couldn’t be used broadly for pluginPluginA 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 and theme authors for example.
@spacedmonkey said to 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.” him if folks would like an account for testing and exploration.
This is another area that needs clear documentation on how to setup and what to use.
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/ measuring more frontend metrics
Currently, there aren’t many numbers yet for LCP since it just landed a few days ago.
Time to first byte doesn’t have much variance when comparing against something like typing that has a lot more variance.
With frontend measurements having less variance, it should be easier to find regressions since they are more stable than the others.
Thus far, not a ton of data but need to be mindful of the data because of the current setup. For example, we need the template we are using to use big images to spot other kinds of regressions.
@oandregal shared that there are some things this library does that the tests he implemented don’t do. Especially as we grow and add more metrics, it would help to go with a library.
As more is being done to work on performance as it relates 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. themes, a hallway hangout has been planned to bring together folks from various backgrounds to see what else can be worked on, unblocked, and better understood. This is meant to be both a knowledge sharing and alignment creating session between folks from various areas including but not limited to @flixos90@adamsilverstein@spacedmonkey@youknowriad@desrosj@tweetythierry@oandregal@aristath.
At a high level, we’ll go through general intros (what each person does/focuses on), current work underway to address performance, what work is being done specifically for block themes, and general open Q&A. Hallway hangouts are meant to be casual and collaborative so come prepared with a kind, curious mind along with any questions or items you want to demo/discuss.
There’s difficulty in this work partially due to how backports happen from 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/ to CoreCoreCore is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. both for finding and fixing regressions.
There’s still a big need to have solid measurements and track them in some level of granularity for both Core and Gutenberg.
There’s great potential in Block theme performance because of how they are built to improve performance.
Some level of changes in performance is okay but we need to avoid major regressions and not let perfect get in the way of good enough.
A Performance role for the upcoming 6.2 release squad should be considered to improve coordination between various teams and focuses.
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. performance & avoiding major performance regressions with merging Gutenberg into Core
We kicked the call off discussing issues in 6.1 around caching data in theme.json, which led to a broader discussion around merging Gutenberg into Core in a way that avoids regressions.
Andre shared how performance is measured in Gutenberg (typing, time it takes to load a big post, etc) for each release. You can see the results of each test in the various release posts under “Performance Benchmark”.
Some performance concerns for 6.1 happened only via manual testing. How can we automatically find this rather than needing to manually manage much of this work?
Testing needs to happen both in Gutenberg and with Core.
It’s not always easy to spot performance concerns in the Gutenberg pluginPluginA 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 for a variety of reasons:
How code is ported from Gutenberg to Core making it hard to track problems down with this example shared of the kind of large backports that happen.
Iteration happens much faster on the Gutenberg side than Core.
Inconsistencies in results depending on the tool used.
A question was raised around whether there is load time performance tracking on the front end for Gutenberg. This currently doesn’t exist but it was agreed that it should be explored.
Tonya shared how iteration happens much faster on the GB side with Core happening less frequently so when we think about performance, we want to think about strategies for how we can do it on a faster basis. Let’s not wait until we get into Core and let’s retest when it gets added to Core.
Tonya’s team is working on improving the backporting process with sooner and smaller backports to Core to get them in throughout the development cycle. If it’s ready, backportbackportA 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. it rather than waiting.
Part of this work is making sure Gutenberg back end code is Core ready (runs against same thing so when backports are ready to go, it’s Core ready).
Tonya is going to do a Make post to cover what her team is working on.
Jonny brought up confusion around where to make changes when performance concerns are found. This is a larger conversation and it was agreed to bring that discussion into a different space to preserve the conversation around performance.
Avoiding regressions in Classic themes & how performance is measured
Jonny is doing very manual testing to try to catch things as much as possible. Having automated tests would be huge along with being able to generate a spreadsheet comparing RCs, commits, etc.
Database queries are usually a sign that something is loading that shouldn’t be loaded. It’s not always obvious but it can act as an early warning sign that something isn’t working.
Joseph previously volunteered for the measurement side but got pulled into other things. It sounds like this is still a significant need to figure out, do measurements, and track them in some level of granularity (per day, per commit, per release) for both Core and the Gutenberg plugin.
Sergio shared more around the WordPress.comWordPress.comAn online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ side of things with lots of tooling being run tools for WordPress.com servers which wouldn’t apply well to this situation since they are not particularly suitable to ongoing development.
Felix discussed measuring server side performance by using server timing metrics to see how many ms certain processes take. In theory, you could have something that could receive server timing metrics.
The performance dashboard for Gutenberg was discussed as a spot to make more robust and port in more tracking: https://codehealth.vercel.app/
The general topic of how to measure PRs to reflect real improvements in production came up with Andre sharing how depending on the tool used there are wildly different responses in performance impact.
Jonny brought up how complex this can get when you add in object caching, PHPPHPThe web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher versions, etc. Any performance metrics would need to have a matrix of configurations to cover cases.
In general, need to also look at regressions individually because they might be different to a different degree depending on environment.
Adam ended this section of the conversation with a great reminder that some level of small changes in performance in normal but we need to avoid major regressions. Let’s not let perfect get in the way of good enough.
Core web vitals and block themes. What parts of Core can be improved out of the box? What are we doing specifically around block themes?
Jonny shared that because of theme.json, Block themes are slower than Classic themes with work underway for them to be on par with Classic themes. There’s an amazing opportunity to do performance work with Block themes because everything is a block. You could prefetch image assets, ensure images above the fold are loaded, etc once you know entire markup of page before headers are sent.
Discussed various ways enhancements could happen with script and resource loading (CSSCSSCascading Style Sheets. file loading, font loading, etc) as well as lazy loading things as well beyond just images (what about CSS?). For example, if a block is in the footer of the page, could load later on.
Thoughts around better ways teams can work together around improving block themes.
In particular, this refers to the Core Editor, Core, and the Performance teams since we’re all ultimately a part of broader WordPress efforts and we can use our unique expertise to be better together.
Discussed having another hallway hangout specific for WordPress 6.2 items to have more practical, hands on things to go through.
Anne threw out the idea of having a Performance related role for release squad and will follow up to more formerly propose.
Jonny brought up ensuring folks are giving the time to respond during releases and to 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.” early. At the same time, Tonya reminded us to avoid having bottlenecks and to practice reviewing something after it’s merged to still fix what’s found.
Next steps:
@hellofromtonya will share a Make post about the work her team is doing at Automattic around more continually backporting items from Gutenberg into Core.
@annezazu will suggest a performance role on release squad (with +1 from Tonya, Jonny, and Thierry).
@annezazu will follow up with a 6.2 related performance hallway hangout once 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 is released.
@adamsilverstein will share a Make post on an automated testing environment and possible steps there.
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