Konstantin Obenland 10:42 pm on January 9, 2015
Tags: 745-meta,   

Theme Directory Update 1/9

After some slow-down over the holidays, the main parts of the new Theme Directory finally made their way onto 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/ this week. Since the last update I worked mostly on the functionality side, rewriting the theme uploader and creating a small workflow to approve and suspend themes from `wp-admin`.

Both the theme and the plugin that make up the new Directory are open sourceOpen Source Open 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., and can be contributed to on meta.trac.

There are still a few things to figure out before we can start working on the launch:

  • Fix some annoying JS bugs around display themes on first load r1119-meta.
  • Make synchronizing theme review results a cron job.
  • Make sure uploaded theme files are always deleted, no matter the outcome.
  • Rewrite the Theme 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. and downloads handling to work with WordPress.
  • Import existing themes from bbpressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org.
  • Make the theme and 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. available for translations.
  • Test localized versions.
  • Add navigational links to Upload and Commercial page to global 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..
  • Actually making the switch.

Big items that already work:

  • All necessary API changes are in.
  • The upload process(!).
  • Theme suspension and approval.
  • Theme version handling.
  • Theme index (a little buggy for now, scroll down to reveal the themes).
  • Commercial theme page.

You can read up on the entire project process in #745-meta.

#theme-directory

Scott Reilly 11:00 pm on December 10, 2014
Tags:   

Plugin Directory Theme

In parallel with the Theme Directory reimplementation effort being chronicled by @obenland, work is also underway on 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. Directory theme. In a similar fashion, the goal is to bring the directory more into sync with the in-dash experience introduced in WordPress 4.0.

Unlike the Theme Directory, the Plugin Directory is not yet undergoing a backend reimplementation simultaneous to its visual refresh. As such, the change is more superficial, a modification of the existing bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org 1 theme rather than becoming a true WordPress theme.

The plan is to first reimplement the simpler Theme Directory, transitioning it from bbPress 1 to WordPress. Then, with that experience and ideally extending on code common to both directories, we’d perform the same reimplementation for the Plugin Directory.

In the course of bringing the backends into WordPress and building on a shared base, we’ll be in a better position to implement long asked for features — particularly for the Theme Directory, such as: supporting multiple theme authors (#27-meta), readme.txt support (#215-meta), favoriting themes (#28-meta), changelogs (#45-meta), and just generally parity with features found in the Plugin Directory. And, of course, having the code become modernized and publicly accessible will facilitate additional future enhancements.

#plugin-directory

Ian Dunn 10:14 pm on December 10, 2014
Tags: updates, , , , WordPress.tv   

Project Updates: Meta Environment, WordCamp Payments, and WPTV

Since WCSF, we’ve made significant improvements to the 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. Environment, launched the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Payments 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., and open-sourced WordPress.tv.

Meta Environment

The Meta Environment has seen a lot of improvements since it was introduced in June, especially in the past few weeks.

  • We’ve added developer.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/, global.wordpress.org, apps.wordpress.org, wordpress.tv, and jobs.wordpress.net.
  • It’s also transitioned from being a full fork of Varying Vagrant Vagrants, to being only the scripts needed to provision the sites into an existing VVV installation, which is a huge win for maintainability.
  • Also dozens of smaller tweaks and improvements.

So far the feedback has all been positive, and I think it’s becoming a useful tool for contributors. props to @netweb, @iamfriendly, and @miyauchi for their contributions.

WordCamp Payments

The new WordCamp Payments plugin has launched, along with the corresponding Payments Dashboard plugin by @kovshenin. These plugins provide a centralized and streamlined way for WordCamp organizers to request payments to their vendors by WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each., which will save a lot of time over the current method.

We’ve also discussed — here, and here — expanding the plugins to include sponsor invoices as well.

WordPress.tv

The theme and plugins[1] for WordPress.tv are now open source, thanks to @obenland, and some improvements are already being planned by the WPTV moderators.

It’s also been added to the Meta Environment to make contributing easier.

[1] – Since it’s hosted on WordPress.comWordPress.com An 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/, the plugins are bundled in a plugins folder inside the theme, which is the convention for VIP sites.

Get Involved

In addition to contributing to the projects above, there’s been some recent discussions — here, and here — on an invoicing feature for CampTix, which would save a lot of time for WordCamp organizers.

If you’d like to help out, read through the chat transcripts, and then submit a patch to #103 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/.

#updates, #varying-vagrant-vagrants, #wordcamp-org, #wordpress-meta-environment, #wordpress-tv

Konstantin Kovshenin 6:56 pm on December 10, 2014
Tags:   

Quick WordCamp org update We’re working on the…

Quick WordCamp.org update! We’re working on the URL structure change as well as some minor changes around organizers reminders and the payments 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.. We’ve also release a small update to the CampTix plugin, so if you’re using it outside of WordCamp.org you should update immediately.

#wordcamp-org

Konstantin Obenland 6:53 pm on December 6, 2014
Tags:   

Quick status update for the Theme Repository Theme…

Quick status update for the Theme Repository Theme:
I’ve moved over almost all of the information that we want to keep from the current single-theme-view. The single view now also looks more or less like the modal and is en par with it information-wise as well. Fixed a few bugs surrounding keyboard navigation in the theme preview, tag linking. Yesterday I also started with some 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. changes necessary to get more 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. information that it was necessary in the WP admin. Jan Cavan Boulas will help me with some design work around the single-theme-view.

Next up are more API changes, responsive styles (and styles in general), as well as tag filtering improvements.

#theme-directory

Konstantin Obenland 9:20 am on November 20, 2014
Tags:   

Theme Repository Theme

A while back, @otto42 started to work on bringing the Theme Directory over to WordPress (I know that sounds weird, but currently it runs on an old version of bbpressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org). The idea is to split functionality and appearance, making the Repopackage custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. and the uploader a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party., and let a theme handle the display of themes.

With the help of Matias Ventura, I continued Otto’s work on the theme part of things, taking the existing theme install experience from the admin and making it work on the front-end of the theme. I’m currently in the process of adding server output, so the repository stays crawl-able for search engines. Steps to take going forward include determining what features to take over from the existing theme repository (as the theme install UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. is a lot simpler), adding these things to the 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., and figuring out how single theme views should look like vs. detail views on index.
I haven’t committed any improvements to meta.tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. so far as they are dependent on #30116, but the plan is to make that process a little bit more public. Once the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. improvements are in, I’ll make sure to push my updates. Everything will be trac’ed in #745-meta so you can follow along there.

Yesterday @coffee2code and I chatted about how we can work together on the project as well. He’ll look at the difference between the current theme repository and the in-dash experience, to determine what to keep and what to drop. Scott might also be able to pitch in on the plugin side at a later point in time, where we still need to make the theme uploader work.

We’d like to have the new experience ready to go before the end of the year. For that to happen we might decide to take a more iterative approach, go with what the in-dash experience has to offer right now, and do a v2 where we port back features from the existing theme repository. This part has not been determined so far.

#theme-directory

Jen 6:51 pm on October 20, 2014
Tags: ,   

WCSF Final Planning

If you are not attending WCSF this year, you can ignore this post. If you are coming and planning to participate as part of the 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. team, please click through and read it all. 🙂

Continue reading →

#wcsf, #wcsf2014

Tammie Lister 4:36 pm on October 7, 2014
Tags:   

At the theme review team we’d would like…

At the theme review team we’d would like to increase the automation of our processes and try and make things a little easier for new members to become reviewers. In light of this we have a tool request for a new reviewer assignment button.

Spec of an assignment button:
A button that when clicked takes the 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/ username logged in as and assigns the next ticket in the #4 queue. This will only ever assign one theme, if you have one not approved but in review you can’t get another this way – you must do one by one. It will also cc in any admins we want – primarily thinking Emil and me.

Placement of button and extras:
Along with this, there would be a report we could look at that showed any of these themes. This button will live as a menu item and also on the handbook in the ‘How to Join’. This will remove the request post requirement forever. This post creation each season is a bit of a pain point and people ask a lot where it is, this will solve that. It will also mean at contribution days people can get a theme without an admin being around. That should have a knock on effect of increasing reviewers – which is great.

Design:
As far as the term button goes, this could be a link to a page. The idea is though it is obvious. Perhaps button styling would achieve this, but we’re flexible about that. The goal is it’s obvious though and easy to use.

Any questions I’d be happy to answer.

#theme-review

Andrew Nacin 5:41 pm on September 23, 2014
Tags: ssl   

WordPress.org is now forced SSL

In the last week, we transitioned almost all of 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/ to load over SSLSSL Secure Socket Layer - Encryption from the server to the browser and back. Prevents prying eyes from seeing what you are sending between your browser and the server..

In the coming weeks, any redirects that are temporary will become permanent, and we’ll be adding 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. Strict Transport Security (HSTS).

api.wordpress.org and downloads.wordpress.org still listen over HTTP as some servers out there do not have OpenSSL and thus cannot communicate with WordPress.org securely. (But if you hit api.wordpress.org with an SSL request, you will always get an SSL downloads URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org.)

If in a script you’re downloading https://wordpress.org/latest.zip or latest.tar.gz, please change this to https. Here are common issues you may run into:

  • Problems with curl? If you’re using curl without following locations (-L), your script will break. Switch to httpsHTTPS HTTPS is an acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. The 'S' at the end of HTTPS stands for 'Secure'. It means all communications between your browser and the website are encrypted. This is especially helpful for protecting sensitive data like banking information..
  • Problems with wget? If you are using an old version of wget (~1.12.1 or older), it will stumble on the SSL certificate. Switch to https. Also, update wget.

If you find any issues, please leave a comment here or open a meta ticket. Issues could include:

  • Any mixed content warnings.
  • Something that should be forced SSL but isn’t. Note: The Codex has not been redirected yet but it will be soon. Same goes for the global and mobile forums (*.forums.wordpress.org).
  • General breakage or weirdness.

This all applies to BuddyPress.org and bbPress.org too.

#ssl

Ian Dunn 4:10 pm on September 8, 2014
Tags: ,   

From Jen’s post about the WCSF community days…

From Jen’s post about the WCSF community days:

This isn’t just a chance to meet face-to-face, though. We’re expecting teams to take advantage of this opportunity to talk about issue, review progress (or lack thereof), set goals, and have discussions that will improve the processes and output of the teams. Working on a specific project together that’s been neglected or hasn’t been prioritized so there’s also a tangible output from the meetupMeetup All 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. is expected. Each group should start talking about their potential agenda and project.

So, what are some potential projects that you think we should work on?

#meetups, #wcsf