AH-O₂ Update — 6 January, 2013

Help Overview Update

• @mdbitz shared some screenshots of what he’s working on earlier in the week. These screenshots are available in the Google Group. The code isn’t quite ready to be merged yet, so the initial release on 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/ will just be with the tooltips.
• The current solution involves hacking coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. — @mdbitz is trying to get it so we can pull existing help tab content from WP_Screen into the new help overview containers 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
• The plugin will display the current help content (if it exists) for the current page, but can be overridden and new content added by the plugin
• @mdbitz is also working on getting the overviews to work responsively. @trishasalas and @ubernaut both said they’d be willing to help with this, if needed.
• @jazzs3quence will hide the profile option for the help overviews temporarily for the initial release

Docs input

We (still) need input from docs folks if things are going to be changed in terms of how the content is presented vs. what was proposed in the original mockups. For reference, the main points that have been discussed are here and here.

• @nlarnold1 will attend the thursday meeting and talk to the docs team to start the discussion
• @jazzs3quence will try to be there as well.

Tooltips

• @ubernaut brought up the issue that tooltips may not be usable on touch devices. Is there a solution/workaround? How are other people/projects handling this?
• keyboard shortcuts for a11yAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) wouldn’t work, either, on touch devices
• No new tooltip hotspots (for lack of a better word) have been added. The plugins pages do not have anything filled in in the spreadsheet
• @ubernaut will work on filling out those areas first and pinging the Google Group
• once that’s done, @brainfork can work on adding in those tooltip areas
• @jazzs3quence can also help fill in the gaps in the spreadsheet so it’s not bottlenecking development

Updating and testing the plugin

• @jazzs3quence suggested adding support for the Github Updater plugin for access to bleeding edge updates. This was ultimately overruled — not really necessary if the maximum amount of lag between .org updates is one week and if ppl want the latest latest version, they can get it from 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/ repo.
• .org plugin will be updated after the meeting, once a week
• the first version of the plugin will be uploaded to WordPress.org today sometime

(Revised) Development Timeline

• January 6 — AH-O₂ to be added to wordpress.org/plugins
• January 6 January 13 — initial help overview integration
• January 13 — initial tooltips to be added for plugins pages
• January 13 January 20 — initial tooltips to be added for all admin pages
• January 20 — list of wants/needs from docs sub-team (this is on the outside, ideally we need this as soon as possible)
• February 3 — first AH-O₂ 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. release
• April 15 — tentative release date for WordPress 3.9, AH-O₂ is fully tested and ready for inclusion in core.

Full IRC log

#admin-help, #ah-o2