Editor chat summary: 27 September, 2023

This post summarizes the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda for 27th of September meeting) for Wednesday, September 27 2023, 03:00 PM GMT+1 in #core-editor. Moderated by @paaljoachim.

Accouncements

Gutenberg plugin 16.7 was released today. A big thank you to @mikachan for handling the release!
Beta 1 of WordPress 6.4 was released yesterday.
Only fixes can be added during a 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. period.
The current release target is 7th of November.
WordPress 6.4 Editor Tasks.

Key project updates:

Here is a new list of key updates. Thanks to @bph for gathering this list.

Task Coordination

No updates.

Open Floor

@NekoJonez

During translationtranslation The process (or result) of changing text, words, and display formatting to support another language. Also see localization, internationalization. I noticed that some strings about the pattern directory were added… So, I wonder the new string “Directory” about what is it talking? Since in Dutch that can mean two things. I created this ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. for it: Translator confusion about “Directory”
Also, isn’t a verb missing here? See more details in this GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issue.
Missing verb in string?


Read complete transcript

#core-editor, #core-editor-summary, #gutenberg, #meeting-notes, #summary

Developer Blog Editorial Meeting – 07 September 2023

A complete transcript of the meeting can be found in the #core-dev-blog channel in Making 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/..

Attendees: @greenshady @marybaum, @milana_cap, @oglekler, @ndiego, @bph (facilitator) and @webcommsat (async)

Agenda

  • Site updates and new posts
  • Project Board
    • In Progress
    • Today
    • Needs Review
    • To be approved
  • Proposal for modification of the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page.
  • In-between meeting approval rounds for time sensitive post around releases.
  • Open Floor

Site updates and new posts

The Social image pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party was migrated to JetPack, and since then, we struggled a little to find a good way to automatically generate a decent Social Image when sharing posts on Social networks. We could use some design help for a universal template, as the current one is not the most attention-grabbing one.

If you want to catch up on the discussion, there is this GitHub Issue for the Theme

  • Request writers to select a feature image that works with the options in Jetpack
  • Set a default template similar to how it worked before, blue background + post title.


Nick Diego and Birgit Pauli-Haack will work on this.

Project Board

New Posts published since the last meeting.

Huge Thank You to the writers and their reviewers!! Fantastic job!

We published in July and August as many articles as in the three months before! So excited to see this! Incredible work! Thank you to all who contributed!

Posts in the works

On the To-Do list:

To be approved

These topics have been converted to issues, and the discussions are closed. Prospective authors who would like to contribute to the Developer Blogblog (versus network, site) are invited to select one of these to work on, that have not already been assigned an author.

In-between meeting approval rounds for time sensitive post around releases.

If there is a time sensitive topic, they will be voted on in an async fashion over two days. If there is further discussion is needed, it ought to happen on the GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ discussion thread, and voting is deferred to the next monthly meeting.

Proposal of modification of the Field Guide

It would need more input on why a secondary digest version would be needed beyond the Field Guide, or if there is a way to improve on the Field Guide itself (most important issues on top). The original discussion takes place on the Make Blog. Proposal: An update to the Field Guide.

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Developer Blog Editorial Group will be on October 5, 2023 at 13:00 UTC in the core-dev-blog channel of the Make WordPress Slack. Contributors continue on GitHub.

Props to @ndiego for reviewing

#core-dev-blog, #summary

Dev Chat Summary, September 27, 2023

The notes from the weekly WordPress developers chat which took place on September 27, 2023 at 20:00 UTC in the core channel of Make WordPress Slack.

Key links

Announcements

WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is available – please help test and make the release the best it can be. All details are on the post. Thanks to everyone who contributed to getting this to 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. 1 and those who came and led the release party on September 26.

Highlighted posts

The following were listed on the agenda but not highlighted during the meeting due to a discussion on GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ and Beta 1:

  • WordPress Performance team has a new version of the Performant Translations 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 with improved compatibility and performance. It has more than 1000 installations as at September 26, 2023. More testers will be needed and @swissspidy has created a proof-of-concept core patch in the meantime.

Release updates

Next major WordPress release: 6.4

WordPress 6.4 Beta 2 is scheduled for October 3, 2023.

Discussion at Dev Chat focused on Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4. More on this discussion will be available in a separate post on the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. channel soon. Link to start of the discussion on Slack.

@joemcgill suggested adding comments to the discussion from the WordPress Community Summit: Community Summit Discussion Notes: Aligning processes and contributions between WordPress Core and Gutenberg.

Stay in the 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. with 6.4 by following:

Next minor WordPress release: 6.3.2

Call for ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. reviews by @joemcgill 

The scrub on September 27, 2023 focused on the 6.3.2 milestone in preparation for another 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..
Five tickets in the milestone remain to be fixed in trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision..
Request/ Action: reviews are needed of these tickets to move them forward, and if they are able to get in this week. Of note, are a few that need to be synced from the Gutenberg repo. If someone has planned to help with this, please comment in the 6.3 releases leads channel on Slack.

Also six tickets that are fixed, but need to be back ported to the 6.3 branchbranch A 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"..
Request: if committers have some time to review and help, that would be a big help.

Discussion followed in Dev Chat and after on potential target dates for the next minor, which would allow time for work to be wrapped up on the remaining tasks. Provisional dates included October 10, earlier in the day from Beta 3. @joemcgill able to help with the 6.3.2 release and noted contributors are still need to be identified for official release roles.
Action: If you can volunteer to help with 6.3.2, comment in the 6.3 release leads channel on Slack. The date for the release is still under discussion.

Gutenberg

Help requests: Components maintainers & Tickets

No other tickets were raised in the agenda comments or after Dev Chat.

Open Floor

This item did not feature at this week’s Dev Chat due to time constraints.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be on Wednesday October 4, 2023, at 20:00 UTC.

Props to @webcommsat for the summary, and @nalininonstopnewsuk, @ironprogrammer, @hellofromtonya for review.

#6-4, #dev-chat, #meeting, #summary

Performance Chat Summary: 26 September 2023

Meeting agenda here and the full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

Announcements

  • Welcome to our new members of #core-performance
  • WordPress 6.4 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 is September 26, 2023 today
  • Early version of WordPress plugin checker launched

Priority Projects

Server Response Time

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @joemcgill @spacedmonkey @aristath @swissspidy @thekt12 @mukesh27

  • @spacedmonkey committed [56621], [56650], [56677], [56678], and [56683]
  • @thekt12 is working on #59314
  • @flixos90 committed [56681] and just opened a follow up bug fix PR that would be great to commit in the next hour if there is consensus (since committed in [56717])
  • @mukesh27 has been working on additional unit tests for #22192
  • @joemcgill posted some additional benchmarking for the two approaches in flight for #57789, and plans to do some more profiles to get more detailed info on both. He is still planning on tracking these PRs in the 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/ repos but have punted to 6.5 for now to keep the release moving while this is getting worked out.

Database Optimization

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @spacedmonkey @mukesh27

  • @spacedmonkey committed [56656] and is currently reviewing a PR for #59442 which @thekt12 has been working on
  • @pbearne would like to start working/focus on the option auto-loading issue. now that there is the new filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. to allow easy shortcutting from [55256]
    • @flixos90: There are a few more existing ideas around, some of which are being worked on already, such as #42441
    • For any new ideas, a good next step would be to open issues. Depending on what you envision, you may either want to open a new 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. or a new module proposal in the Performance Lab 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
    • There’s also the autoloaded options Site Health check in Performance Lab, for which there are a few ideas to make it more helpful

JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. & CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets.

Link to roadmap project

Contributors: @mukesh27 @10upsimon @westonruter @spacedmonkey

  • @westonruter committed elimination of manual construction of script tags in WP_Scripts and of inline scripts on frontend/login screen in [56687] (see #58664). With this, Strict CSP can now be opted into on the frontend and wp-login screen. Followed up on prior ticket which sought to do the same for all of WP, and opened new ticket to complete effort in admin.
  • @westonruter also iterated on PR for #55491. In a 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 yesterday, we agreed this ticket is actually a defect and not an enhancementenhancement Enhancements are simple improvements to WordPress, such as the addition of a hook, a new feature, or an improvement to an existing feature., so it can still land after beta1 today

Images

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @flixos90 @thekt12 @adamsilverstein @joemcgill @pereirinha

  • @flixos90 committed [56651], [56690], and [56693]
  • @pereirinha could use some help to track the tickets that need help
    • @flixos90: One of the most flexible ways to search Trac with various filters is the https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org
    • For example, this query shows all remaining 6.4 tickets with a performance focus; it looks like most tickets there are already assigned but please feel free to take a closer look and familiarize yourself with those issues to see if you’re interested in a particular ticket and/or have additional feedback

Measurement

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @adamsilverstein @joemcgill @mukesh27 @swissspidy @flixos90

Ecosystem Tools

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @mukesh27 @swissspidy @westonruter

Creating Standalone Plugins

Link to GitHub overview issue

Contributors: @flixos90 @mukesh27 @10upsimon

  • @10upsimon pretty much finalized https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/651, has implemented necessary logic for redirection back to WPP Settings Screen following certain standalone plug-in actions, will outline in code review given that a few approaches needed to be tested before arriving at the working solution.
    • @flixos90 is looking forward to taking a closer look

Open Floor

  • @spacedmonkey raised #42441
    • The PR needs review and feedback
    • There was consensus that due to a lack of feedback this should be punted to the 6.5 milestone
    • Let’s continue discussing on the ticket so we can figure out a good approach for 6.5
  • @thekt12 has updated the PR for #59442 and would like additional feedback since he is not confident if this leads to any new issue as the new approach does change how cache key is generated for query

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, October 3, 2023 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-performance, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

Editor chat summary: September 20th, 2023

This post summarizes the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda for September 20th meeting) held on Wednesday, September 20th 2023, 03:00 PM GMT+1 in Slack. Moderated by @fabiankaegy.

WordPress 6.4 BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1 will be released in less than a week on September 26th. The full development cycle for 6.4 can be found here: https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-4/

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/ 16.7 RC1 was released right before the meeting. It’s available to test through GitHub.

Gutenberg 16.6 was released last week and the full changelog was posted here in the Make blog.

Key project updates

Open Floor

@mamaduka asked for feedback/testing on a PR that fixes an issue relating to contentOnly locking.

@mdxfr shared several regressions related to the post excerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. functionality in WordPress 6.3.

Just want to point out several issues related to Excerpt regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. in WP6.3. Since it is a base feature, it is important to fix it soon.
The tracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. issues are milestoned for 6.3.2 but would be nice to ship the fixes into next Gutenberg release (16.7/16.8) but also next WP6.4
https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53570
https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/15117
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59270 (flagged 6.3.2)
https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59043 (flagged 6.3.2)
It has impact for instance on
https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-blocks/issues/10653
https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues/39934

About Cover 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. align-top doesn’t work for awareness, the fix was merged into 16.7, thx (https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54050), maybe we can pick it into WP6.3.2 target list also…

@proxxim asked about any plans for adding a focal point picker to the cover block when it pulls in the featured imageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. of a post. We moved the discussion to the relevant GitHub issue.

#core-editor, #core-editor-summary, #gutenberg, #meeting-notes, #summary

Dev Chat Summary, September 20, 2023

The notes from the weekly WordPress developers chat which took place on September 20, 2023 at 20:00 UTC in the core channel of Make WordPress Slack.

Key Links

Announcements

No announcements were made this week.

Highlighted Posts

Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.4: Make plans to talk Performance at this hangouts session planned for October 19, 2023 at 15:00 UTC.

Analyzing the Core Web Vitals performance impact of WordPress 6.3 in the field: Read this thorough breakdown from @felixarntz of how 6.3 performance improvements have been reflected on production sites using WordPress at scale. Feedback in invited on the post.

Community Summit Discussion Notes: Increasing contributor recognition and celebration: Join the discussion on how contributor impact can be better identified and highlighted. The discussion at the summit considered the system of props, credit outside of a release, badges, encouragement of contribution.

Evolving the FSE Outreach Program: A reminder to provide feedback on the next phase for the #fse-outreach-experiment: Deadline for feedback: Friday, September 22, 2023

Additional Highlighted Post on Interoperability under Open Floor.

Release Updates

Next major WordPress release: 6.4

The last 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 before 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. 1 will be on Monday, September 25, 2023 at 17:00 UTC.

More on 6.4 highlighted under Open Floor.

Beta 1 is scheduled for next Tuesday, September 26.

Stay in the 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. with 6.4 by following:

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/

Reminder: the revised release schedule for the next Gutenberg release is as follows:

  • Gutenberg 16.7 RC1: released September 20 (originally planned for September 13)
  • Gutenberg 16.7: September 27

Components & Tickets

Testing request following a recent bug scrub from @joedolson:

  • 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. #58912: Mobile: Adminadmin (and super admin) menu unexpectedly closes with Safari – after the 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. is updated, this will be ready for testing
  • Trac ticket #58756: Media library improvements: UIUI User interface, Non-closing options, and Button select state issues in image editing – this is ready for testing
  • Trac ticket #40822: no longer requires further feedback and is ready for commit


From the tickets posted by @oglekler before dev chat, assistance is needed with the list of tickets left to tackle before Beta 1 (updated September 22, 2023):

  • Trac #55459: Change Login Label name
  • Trac #56886: Admin facing add site screen missing search engine visibility field
  • Trac #58703: wp-list-table: <label> is preceding <input> in the checkbox column – this ticket has a new patch, and further testing is requested
  • Trac #40762: Login: add canonical admin shorthand URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org for login.php

Open Floor

  • Call for WordPress developer proposals: Update from @adamsilverstein regarding Interop 2024 was added to the Highlighted Posts list by @webcommsat.
    Seeking proposals for Interop 2024. WordPress developers are asked to contribute their proposals for 2024 as on GitHub or as a comment on the proposals post. Interop aims to improve interoperability across the three major web browser engines (Chromium, WebKit and Gecko) in important areas as identified by web developers.
  • Call for assistance with 6.3.2: @joemcgill highlighted @mikeschroder‘s message about next steps for getting another bugfix out for 6.3, and if there were any contributors available to help lead the release.
    • @ironprogrammer raised that there may be many busy with beta 1 next week, and more hands may be raised after this
    • @jeffpaul thought the concern before WCUS was that something(s) milestoned for 6.3.2 might be worth getting out before 6.4 lands. He asked if people had interest and availability, could they share this in the #6-3-release-leads Slack channel as it would be very helpful.
  • ** A number of contributors highlighted the final stretch to 6.4 Beta 1, and the calls to help deal with as many bugs as possible, clear triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. queues, and review available content.
    @cbringmann reminded the meeting that contributions are for all and not restricted to just the release squad and cohort. She thanked everyone who is lending a hand to the 6.4 release.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be on Wednesday September 27, 2023, at 20:00 UTC.

Are you interested in helping draft Dev Chat summaries? Volunteer at the start of the next meeting on the #core Slack channel.

Props to @ironprogrammer for hosting the meeting,
@webcommsat and @zunaid321 for the notes,
and to @marybaum and @oglekler for reviews and updates on tickets.

#6-3, #6-4, #dev-chat, #meeting, #summary

Performance Chat Summary: 19 September 2023

Meeting agenda here and the full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

Announcements

Priority Projects

Server Response Time

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @joemcgill @spacedmonkey @aristath @swissspidy @thekt12 @mukesh27

  • @spacedmonkey
  • @mukesh27 I’ve been working on issue #22192 and have received some feedback related to backward compatibility on the PR. I’m now in need of feedback from Joe and Felix
  • @thekt12 #58319 completed (about to be committed)
  • @thekt12 #58196 in progress, planning to give for initial review tomorrow
  • @joemcgill I made good progress on #57789 yesterday and could use a second set of eyes. It doesn’t full solve the issue of making Theme.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. data persistent, but is a step in that direction, which reduces unnecessary recalculation of that data during a page load. I’m going to work on a parallel PR to the 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/ repo to get some testing of the strategy in the 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 prior to making the change in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..

Database Optimization

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @spacedmonkey @mukesh27

JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/. & CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets.

Link to roadmap project

Contributors: @mukesh27 @10upsimon @westonruter @spacedmonkey

Images

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @flixos90 @thekt12 @joemcgill @pereirinha @spacedmonkey

Measurement

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @adamsilverstein @joemcgill @mukesh27 @swissspidy @flixos90

  • @flixos90 Last week I spent some time conducting field analyses to assess the performance impact of the WordPress 6.3 release. Primarily focusing on Web Vitals metric LCP which measures load time performance, and how it’s affected both in general, but also specifically by the two major enhancements that were projected to affect LCP:
    • the emoji loader script optimizations
    • the lazy-loading plus fetchpriority improvements
  • Sharing the most important highlights:
    • Overall, the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) passing rate has improved by 5.6% for classic theme sites and by 2.7% for blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. theme sites :tada:
    • The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) boost for classic theme sites using the emoji loader script is 3.4% to 7% higher than for those that don’t use it, and for block themes it’s 0.7% to 4.5% better as well :tada:
    • When looking at only the sites where that is the case and which were still lazy-loading the LCP image with WordPress 6.2, the LCP performance impact amounts to a massive 16% to 21% improvement for mobile viewports and 6% to 9% on desktop. :tada:
    • Lazy-loading accuracy has notably improved: In WordPress 6.3, only 9-10% of sites still lazy-load their LCP image for classic theme sites (down from 27-28% in 6.2) while for block theme sites it’s 5-8% (down from 17-29% in 6.2) :tada:
  • @flixos90 drafted and published the Analyzing the Core Web Vitals performance impact of WordPress 6.3 in the field post
  • @joemcgill Nothing new from me this week, but we expect to do an initial round of benchmarks against WP 6.4 beta1 after it’s released next week.

Ecosystem Tools

Link to roadmap projects

Contributors: @mukesh27 @swissspidy @westonruter

  • No updates this week

Creating Standalone Plugins

Link to GitHub overview issue

Contributors: @flixos90 @mukesh27 @10upsimon

  • No updates this week

Open Floor

  • @joemcgill I wanted to mention that we should probably prepare some time after beta1 next week for some initial triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. of any performance issues we see after the first round of code syncing from the Gutenberg project has occurred.
  • @spacedmonkey I would like to start a tracking ticket for 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. this team is going to work on
    • Created https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/840 for tracking 6.4 Trac tickets that require dev notes

Our next chat will be held on Tuesday, September 26, 2023 at 15:00 UTC in the #core-performance channel in Slack.

#core-performance, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

Analyzing the Core Web Vitals performance impact of WordPress 6.3 in the field

As highlighted in the WordPress 6.3 performance summary post, the 6.3 release included numerous performance enhancements. Based on the lab benchmarks cited in that post, the test sites used with WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. were loading 27% faster for blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes and 18% faster for classic themes based on the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) metric.

While lab benchmarks are great to estimate the projected performance impact of a release, the tests are not representative of the average WordPress site and real-world traffic. Therefore, it is crucial to further review and attempt to validate the impact in the field, i.e. on actual production sites using WordPress, at scale. Last week, three analyses were conducted to assess the performance impact of WordPress 6.3, using the public data sets from HTTP Archive and the Chrome User Experience Report.

Highlights of the WordPress 6.3 performance analysis findings

Before diving into the results, the term “passing rate” should be briefly explained here. It denotes the percentage of sites in a dataset for which a specific Web Vitals metric performs better than the threshold value that is considered “good”. For LCP, that encompasses all sites in the dataset that load faster than 2.5 seconds in total per the LCP metric. For example, if 600,000 out of 1,000,000 URLs have an LCP faster or equal to 2.5 seconds, the LCP passing rate is 60%.

The results from the analyses indicate that WordPress 6.3 is indeed a great success from a performance perspective, as indicated by the lab benchmarks. Some notable findings to highlight include:

  • Looking at all applicable sites in the dataset, the Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) passing rate has improved by 5.6% for classic theme sites and by 2.7% for block theme sites for mobile viewports. In terms of the absolute LCP passing rate, for classic theme sites this means a bump from 31.3% to 33%, while for block theme sites it means a bump from 42.8% to 44%. For desktop viewports, the improvements are not as pronounced, yet they are still positive. See the source for overall LCP passing rate changes.
  • When segmenting between sites that use the emoji loader script and the sites that have disabled it, the impact of the improvements to the emoji loader script are clearly visible. The Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) boost for classic theme sites using the emoji loader script is 3.4% to 7% higher than for those that don’t use it, and for block themes it’s 0.7% to 4.5% better as well. To outline the numbers behind that more clearly, classic theme sites using the emoji loader script see a relative LCP boost of 8.4% on phone and 2.4% on desktop, compared to only 1.4% and -0.8% for those that don’t use the emoji loader script. Similarly, for block theme sites using the emoji loader script the relative LCP boost amounts to 4.2% on phone and 0.8% on desktop, compared to only -0.3% and 0.1% for those that don’t use the emoji loader script. See the source for LCP passing rate differences between sites using vs not using the emoji loader script.
  • When looking at the impact of more accurate lazy-loading heuristics and support for fetchpriority="high", segmentation is especially important, since the enhancements themselves have a varying degree of accuracy. As a reminder, the LCP image of a URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org should not be lazy-loaded, but it should have fetchpriority="high". When looking at only the sites where that is the case and which were still lazy-loading the LCP image with WordPress 6.2, the LCP performance impact amounts to a massive 16% to 21% improvement for mobile viewports and 6% to 9% on desktop. Even in absolute LCP passing rate numbers, this is a jump of 4.3% for classic theme sites and 8% for block theme sites, which is nothing short of amazing. See the source for LCP passing rate changes for sites that no longer lazy-load LCP image and use fetchpriority correctly.
  • Of course this only applies to a subset of sites, however the accuracy of the lazy-loading heuristics has notably improved as well: In WordPress 6.3, only 9–10% of sites still lazy-load their LCP image for classic theme sites (down from 27–28% in 6.2) while for block theme sites it’s 5–8% (down from 17–29% in 6.2), so this multiplies the above LCP improvements horizontally. See the source for the accuracy comparison of how many sites (correctly) no longer lazy-load their LCP image.

Explaining the metrics

Tooling used

HTTP Archive is an open-source project that runs a pipeline across millions of URLs every month to monitor the state of the web, recording aspects like which technologies are used, how specific web features are being leveraged, how many HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. tags or attributes of a specific kind are present on pages, and much more. The Core Performance Team has been heavily relying on this tool to measure success of specific features or enhancements in WordPress core releases. In fact, HTTP Archive even monitors a few specific metrics that are specific to WordPress.

The Chrome User Experience Report (short “CrUX”) exposes Core Web Vitals (CWV) performance data for millions of URLs, based on how real-world Chrome users experience visiting those URLs. While the tool can be used for individual sites to monitor their Web Vitals (e.g. via PageSpeed Insights), the data can also be aggregated at a larger lens. While CrUX does not contain much data other than the actual Web Vitals metrics, intersecting its dataset with that of HTTPHTTP HTTP 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 allows gathering valuable insights. For example, it becomes possible to group sites into specific segments (such as all sites that use WordPress) and measure their CWV passing rates.

Both HTTP Archive and CrUX expose data aggregated on a monthly basis.

Joining data from HTTP Archive with data from CrUX is the foundation for tools like the Core Web Vitals Technology Report, which displays CWV passing rates for numerous technologies over time. The dashboard also includes WordPress-specific passing rates, which can be helpful to look at for a quick overview of how WordPress sites are performing on the web at a glance. However, it should be noted that those numbers are quite broad, since the passing rates are based on all WordPress sites in the dataset, regardless of the version used or any other factors. Therefore, in order to assess the impact of a specific WordPress release such as 6.3, a more granular approach is needed.

Methodology

The WordPress 6.3 performance summary post highlighted two client-side performance enhancements as the main sources for the improved LCP performance, which are the optimizations of the emoji loader script (see #58472) and the lazy-loading fixes plus the newly added support for the fetchpriority attribute, which are closely related (see the WordPress 6.3 image performance enhancements post). To assess whether those enhancements resulted in the anticipated LCP improvement, two analyses were conducted specific to those efforts.

Additionally, a broader analysis was conducted to compare the LCP performance of WordPress 6.3 and WordPress 6.2 sites overall, as well as their Time to First Byte (TTFB) performance, which directly impacts LCP as well. While with broader analyses like this one it is impossible to directly connect it to specific enhancements or fixes that launched as part of that release, it is crucial to look at the performance impact as a whole as well to get an idea how successful the release is at scale, regardless of how a specific feature is being used.

The analyses were conducted by running various BigQuery queries against the intersection of HTTP Archive and CrUX datasets, specifically zooming in on only the sites that were using WordPress 6.2 in July 2023 and WordPress 6.3 in August 2023. To present the approach, queries, and results transparently, the research tool Colab was used.

The links below point to the three Colabs with the analyses. They are quite detailed, so for a quick summary you may want to continue reading this post first. Please feel free to dive into the individual Colabs and their details, which you can also use to validate the summary below. Potentially you will find other notable metrics to highlight, or additional conclusions to draw.

It should be noted that any field metrics need to be interpreted carefully as they always contain some degree of noise. Websites change over time in many ways, and it is impossible to eliminate external factors from the data. For example, a WordPress site may be slower with WordPress 6.3 than it was in 6.2 simply because it activated a new 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 in the meantime that impacts performance. Such scenarios cannot be reliably detected and are therefore part of the metrics as well. Fortunately, the number of WordPress sites in the dataset is quite large: Looking at only the WordPress sites in the dataset that match the aforementioned criteria, we are looking at more than 500,000 WordPress home page URLs. This means that such specific side effects of individual sites usually have only negligible impact when looking at the overall data. Still, this is something to keep in mind: While field data is the closest there is available to assess the actual performance impact of a change, field data cannot be used to confidently claim that something is true or false — it has to be interpreted.

Conclusion

The large positive LCP impact confirms that the 6.3 release is an important milestone for WordPress performance. The numbers are particularly impressive on the sites for which the lazy-loading behavior was fixed and where fetchpriority support was correctly added. This shows the potential vertical impact that a few specific changes like that can have. Of course the overall LCP improvements are not as high, but it confirms this is a large opportunity: By further improving the heuristics so that they apply correctly to more WordPress sites, the horizontal impact of the change can be increased so that in the future the large LCP benefits may scale to even more sites.

Another metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. observation worth noting is that the LCP passing rate improvements in WordPress 6.3 compared to 6.2 for the correct behavior above (16-21% higher LCP passing rate) is actually not too far off from the lab benchmarks measured for 6.3 a few months ago (18-27% faster LCP). This makes sense, given that for lab benchmarks the test site was a simulated scenario where lazy-loading and fetchpriority were behaving correctly. It is great to know that the lab benchmarks carry some weight even when compared to the field impact.

Last but not least, there are also two points to be highlighted which show that there is still room for improvement:

  • The accuracy with which fetchpriority="high" is applied to the LCP image is only around 50% across all scenarios. While this is okay for the newly added support of the attribute, it is clearly something to follow up on. Getting the heuristics for applying fetchpriority right is even more challenging than not lazy-loading the LCP image especially since the LCP image may differ between different viewports, but it’s safe to say there should be more that WordPress core can do in that area. At least, it is relieving to see that the negative LCP impact of adding fetchpriority="high" to the wrong image is fairly low, compared to the negative LCP impact of lazy-loading the LCP image. See the source for fetchpriority accuracy against the LCP image and the source for LCP passing rate changes for sites that no longer lazy-load LCP image but use fetchpriority incorrectly.
  • At a higher level, the Time to First Byte (TTFB) passing rate is not seeing much of an improvement and in parts is even regressing: For mobile viewports, the TTFB passing rate is improving between 1.6-1.7%, while for desktop viewports it is regressing by ~4.9% for classic theme sites and ~9% for block theme sites. It’s impossible to connect that to specific changes that landed in WordPress 6.3, and as mentioned before it could be affected by external factors, but it clarifies that server-side performance needs to continue to be a point of focus. See the source for overall TTFB passing rate changes.

Please feel free to take a closer look at the analyses and leave your feedback as comments on this post. Additional thoughts, observations and questions are much appreciated.

Props @joemcgill @westonruter for proofreading.

#6-3, #analysis, #performance, #summary

Core Editor chat summary: 13th September 2023

This post summarises the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda for 13th September meeting) held on 2023-09-13 14:00 UTC in Slack. Moderated by @get_dave.

Status Updates

Updates based on updated scope for site editing projects

Task Coordination

@jeryj:

  • I’ve been working on refactoring how the block toolbar is semantically communicated in the DOM by moving it to render in the editor headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes., rather than within the editor canvas.
  • The is a PR as a proof of concept. It is not ready to really be reviewed but is useful for seeing the direction it’s going

@get_dave:

Open Floor

Registering Variations for Posts terms and Nav 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.

  • They are about creating variations on the server side for the post terms block and the navigation link block.
  • They happen too early, so custom taxonomies and post types may not be registered yet.
  • @get_dave suggested raising PRs and he would support with reviews or getting others to contribute.

Keep selected size on changing image in Image block

#core-editor, #core-editor-summary, #gutenberg, #meeting-notes, #summary

Dev Chat Summary, September 14, 2023

The notes from the weekly WordPress developers chat which took place on Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 08:00 UTC in the core channel of Make WordPress Slack.

Key Links

Announcements

No announcements were raised this week.

Highlighted Posts

What’s new for developers, September 2023 is available now on the Developer Blogblog (versus network, site).

  • @webcommsat highlighted there were opportunities for contributors to put forward topic ideas and write for the Developer Blog or contribute to one of the approved topic submissions.

Core Editor improvement – commanding the command palette posted by @annezazu.

  • The post explores the latest updates to the Command Palette, a new tool available with WordPress 6.3 designed to speed up your workflow. It also gives a preview of highlights in creation experience coming in 6.4.

The FSE Outreach Program is evolving.

  • The FSE Outreach Program will become a focused space for solving issues, creating resources, and facilitating conversations around Phase 2 adoption. You can contribute by commenting on this post.
  • After 6.4 betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 1, the facilitated calls for FSE testing will be replaced by ad hoc calls for testing run by the Make Test team or contributors who need specific features tested.
  • Deadline for feedback: Friday, September 22, 2023

Final call: Feedback on the Learning Pathways outline from Training team from CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. is invited.

  • Through greater focus on the unique needs of different user groups, Learn.WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ aims to create a more intuitive and effective learning environment.
  • The latest discussion focuses on how the resource can move towards consolidating the current content type offerings from courses, tutorials, and lesson plans to courses and lessons.
  • Deadline for feedback: Friday, September 15, 2023.

Reminder: Proposal for an update to the Field Guide accompanying a release

  • This came from an informal discussions at the Community Summit.
  • Two parts of this proposal: to move earlier the date of the Field GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. publication by one week to the final Beta, and to create and publish a simplified Field Guide on the Dev Blog. 
  • Deadline for feedback: September 15, 2023.

Monthly update on new materials on Learn.WordPress.orgSeptember 2023 edition.

Release Updates

Current major WordPress release: 6.3

No update on minor releases or 6.3.

Next major WordPress release: 6.4

Beta 1 is 2.5 weeks away on Sept 26, 2023 as this is a short release cycle. The next triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors. sessions will focus on brainstorming the remaining tickets to identify if they can be moved forward. A call to participate in the bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. scrubs was made by @oglekler and @webcommsat. Also, the scrubs are a great tool to review asynchronously to learn about the WordPress development process and identify ways to get involved.

Bug Scrub Schedule for WordPress 6.4
The scrubs take place in the core channel on the Make 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/..

No other updates from the release squad.

6.4 useful links:

Release parties schedule for 6.4

Roadmap to 6.4 – this release is scheduled for November 7, 2023.

6.4 Development Cycle

Project Board for Editor Tasks for WordPress 6.4 on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/

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/

What’s new in Gutenberg 16.6 (published September 6, 2023)

Updated schedule:

  • Gutenberg 16.7 RC1 on September 20, 2023 (originally planned on September 13)
  • This will be the general cut-off date for new features developed in the 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, except tasks blessed in TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress..
  • WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 on September 26, 2023
  • Except for the blessed tasks, only fixes can be included after this date.
  • Gutenberg 16.7 on September 27, 2023

Components & Tickets

The following tickets were raised by @afragen for feedback.

Core Trac #58281: Rollback Auto-Update (Rollback part 3)

Core Trac #22316: Plugin Dependencies (Yet Another Plugin Dependencies Ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.)

The discussion thread on Slack for more information.

Open Floor

An update regarding the latest Fields 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. proposal for WordPress core was raised by @sc0ttkclark

Next Meeting

The next Dev Chat will be on September 20, 2023 at 20:00 UTC.

Are you interested in helping draft Dev Chat summaries? Volunteer at the start of the next meeting on the #core Slack channel or message @webcommsat, one of the Core Team reps, in the week before the meeting.

Props to @zunaid321 and @webcommsat for the notes

#6-4, #dev-chat, #meeting, #summary