Tag Archives: dev chat

Isaac Keyet 5:47 pm on January 23, 2013
Tags: dev chat   

Weekly Dev Chat Summary for Jan 23, 2013

This week’s chat log.

Agenda

  • WPiOS Status and What’s Next
  • Navigation 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. for WPAndroid
  • WPiOS Sign Up Wireframe Discussion

WPiOS Status and What’s Next

Version 3.4 of WPiOS has been submitted, the main new feature is a Notifications panel for 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/ and Jetpack-enabled blogs. It also features stability improvements.

A bug fix update is in the works, in which the UI/UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. around Notifications will be improved further. Tickets going into this bug fix update will be listed on the WPiOS TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/..

We’re also working on better Previews for WPiOS, this will likely be the next major version of WPiOS – would be v 3.5 then. Since we have feature-based dev cycles this may be subject to change though. Any new contributors should jump in at #wordpress-mobile on Freenode to a mobile group member for starting work on any major new feature.

Navigation UI for WPAndroid

Background.

We decided to iterate on the UI in an upcoming WPAndroid release:

  • Add ActionBarSherlock and ‘convert’ our homegrown action bar to the native one
  • Remove the ‘dashboard’ home screen and instead put the items in a slide-out menu
  • Make small style updates around the app (lists etc) to better conform to the Holo UI pattern

Tasks delegated so far:

Previews is also in the works, @koke says it’s about half-way there. Whatever finishes first will be v. 2.3.

WPiOS Sign Up Wireframe Discussion

Background courtesy @karmatosed.

We had a discussion around what a sign up flow for WPiOS could look like, based on the wireframe. We like the direction but concluded that some basic improvements to the sign up/login flow might be nice altogether. The team highlighted plans to remove the “Select Blogs” step from the set up flow altogether, but this doesn’t have to happen at the same time.

We decided that another round of wireframes may be in order that ditches the first screen altogether and moves straight into a combined self-hosted/WordPress.com log in form. We want to make sure there’s enough space there for some explanatory copywriting and that there are ways to highlight fields and provide additional instructions (at least for the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org field). We’ll wait to discuss more until we’ve seen some more wireframes.

It was a big discussion, if you’re interested be sure to check the chat log.

Next week

The next dev chat will be on Jan 30, 2013 at 16:00 UTC. Mark your calendar and join us in #wordpress-mobile on Freenode.

#dev-chat

Isaac Keyet 4:44 pm on January 2, 2013
Tags: dev chat   

Weekly dev chat summary for Jan 2 2013…

Weekly dev chat summary for Jan 2, 2013

Today’s chat log.

Agenda

WPWindowsPhone 1.9

The dev team provided a little heads up for the progress on WPWindowsPhone 1.9: the update is due to be submitted tomorrow (Jan 3). It includes Featured Images, media improvements, crash and bug fixes (see Trac). Announcement post needs to be drafted.

Mobile Handbook

We acknowledged that there’s content to be written for the Mobile Handbook. We’ll all review it and discuss leading up to next week’s dev chat. We decided that there’s a need to have a section on Windows Phone development, @daniloercoli and @aerych will tag-team on that. We also said that it’s better to stay ahead of the curve and start writing ASAP. We’ll all start writing within the next few weeks – some of us have already started.

WPiOS Mockups

We discussed @karmatosed‘s wireframes briefly, and decided to continue discussing in the comments of the post leading up to next week. We’re also looking forward to some revised/new wireframes and a review of the (iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads.) WP app – pain points and revelations.

Next week’s dev chat

The next dev chat will be a regular one and we’ll have it on Jan 9, 2013 at 16:00 UTC as usual. Mark your calendar and join us in #wordpress-mobile on Freenode.

#dev-chat

Isaac Keyet 4:40 pm on December 26, 2012
Tags: dev chat   

Weekly dev chat summary for Dec 26 2012…

Weekly dev chat summary for Dec 26, 2012

Since most of the team is away celebrating the holidays today this week’s meeting was a little different. Basically Noel Tock and I discussed a responsive admin instead of going through the usual. A summary of this chat is here, you can also read the chat log.

We discussed the need for a responsive admin and the different ways we can go about it. In the end we were pretty much in agreement over how we think it should be done, but acknowledged that it’ll most likely be up to the 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. team to figure out a plan and decide how we should go about the project. What we suggest though is the following:

  1. Define screen resolutions we want to focus on (and understanding that the UI should be fluid beyond the pre-defined grid)
  2. Wire up general concepts around key elements and their break points (ex admin bar, navigation) and get a discussion going
  3. Start working on any low-hanging fruit that comes out of these discussions – an easy win is a big win since the release cycles are long
  4. Wireframe and discuss individual pages from the top down, starting with the pages that would have the most impact for mobile users (ex Comments list, Posts/Post Editor, Settings pages). Start individual tickets and have teams for each page.

For instance it would be a huge win to create a working navigation for screens at 480px or less, regardless of the responsiveness of page responsiveness in the admin. [Editor’s note: IMO this should definitely be a priority for 3.6 if we had to pick just one thing to make the mobile experience better. Maybe coupled with a collapsable admin bar.]

We also discussed the need to clean up the markup of the admin. In our mind this project can not be about creating more CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. and more JS to “deal with” small screens, but rather a chance to rethink key elements of the admin and make sure they’re implemented in the best way possible from the ground up – for all screen sizes. This is something that’s been brought up in many other discussions about the responsive admin in the past as well.

Noel is interested in helping out on the technical side once there’s work to be done.

Next dev chat

The next dev chat will be a regular one and we’ll have it on Jan 2, 2013 at 16:00 UTC as usual. Mark your calendar and join us in #wordpress-mobile on Freenode.

#dev-chat

Eric 6:15 pm on December 19, 2012
Tags: dev chat,   

Mobile dev chat summary for Dec 19, 2012

We had a brief meeting in iRC today.

Agenda

  • WPiOS status
  • Windows Phone status
  • Forum and Dev blog migrationMigration Moving the code, database and media files for a website site from one server to another. Most typically done when changing hosting companies. heads up.
  • Mobile Handbooks

WPiOS

The current plan is to submit to Apple on December 28th.  Development is proceeding while we await a few 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.

Windows Phone

Version 1.8.1 was submitted Monday and should be available for download by week’s end.
Work is proceeding on version 1.9 with an early January target for submitting to the store.  The big items for this release are improvements to the post/page content editor and the addition of featured images.  There are extensive changes in this release so we’ll take some extra time for testing before we submit.

Forum and dev blog migration heads up

We mentioned the planned migration of the mobile forums and dev blogs.  @Nacin dropped by to comment that the dev blog migration might begin before the forums and the start date might be the week after next depending on how the holidays go.  The todo list https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2012/12/19/plan-for-migrating-mobile-dev-blogs-and-forums/ is still valid, just maybe reordered a bit.

Mobile Handbooks

We’re not sure what the timeline for having these ready looks ilke or what might be blocking us from starting.  We have a todo of answering these questions.

Next week

Join us for the next weekly chat Wednesday at 1600 UTC on irc.freenode.net in the #WordPress-Mobile room.

#dev-chat, #weekly-chat

Isaac Keyet 6:50 pm on December 14, 2012
Tags: dev chat,   

Mobile dev chat summary for Dec 12, 2012

Unfortunately the IRC channels doesn’t seem to have been logged at all for the past few days (although it seems to be working again today). This means there’s no public transcript of the chat this week.

Agenda

  • WPWindowsPhone bug fix release and what’s next?
  • WPiOS’s next release, release date?
  • Other platforms heads ups
  • Team repTeam Rep A Team Rep is a person who represents the Make WordPress team to the rest of the project, make sure issues are raised and addressed as needed, and coordinates cross-team efforts. voting

WPWindowsPhone

We’re working on v 1.8.1 to fix a couple of crashes and some layout issues on taller Windows Phone 8 screens. When submitted, we’ll have two binaries: one for devices running less than Windows Phone 8 and one for Windows Phone 8 and up. This should help fix display issues for the latest Windows Phone devices. This update should be submitted late this week.

We’re also working on a better crash reporting tool but since it’s not a major feature it would likely be a point 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..

For 1.9 (next version) we’ve discussed either having 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. support or a 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/ Reader being the main new feature. [Since the meeting we’ve agreed upon making Featured Image support the title feature for version 1.9.]

WPiOS

We’ve had to push back the release another few weeks to make sure 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. on WordPress.com’s side is fully optimized. We’re now looking at a submit date around Jan 1st.

Since the release is a ways out still, we contemplated doing a bug fix update to resolve some of the issues we’ve fixed so far for the next feature release. We’ll discuss this more next week.

Other platforms heads ups

Nothing to report on other platforms (WPAndroid, WPBlackBerry, etc).

Team rep voting

We noted that we’re voting on new team rep(s) for the first time, and made mental notes to go vote.

Next week

Join us for the next weekly chat Wednesday at 1600 UTC on irc.freenode.net in the #WordPress-Mobile room.

#dev-chat, #weekly-chat

Isaac Keyet 4:08 pm on October 3, 2012
Tags: dev chat, , , XML-RPC   

Mobile Dev Chat Summary for Oct 3, 2012

Today’s discussion mainly consisted of WPiOS planning. Chat log.

Agenda:

  • WPiOS planning
  • XML-RPC in 3.5 (status update)

WPiOS planning

  • There are 9 tickets left in the 3.2 milestone, visual editor, sounds, and the WPcom Notifications panel have been moved out to meet the deadline (1 week). Feature set for 3.2 is now 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. support, app settings moved in-app, and comment push notification support for Jetpack-enabled blogs.
  • For sound effects, we agreed there needs to be a setting to turn them off (#1407-ios).
  • We discussed a new way to approach app development (starting with WPiOS). We’ll try this for the next few releases. In short:
    • Trunk should never be broken and effectively be submittable for bug fix updates without enhancements.
    • Enhancements should be worked on in branches or outside of trunk until ready.
    • When enhancements are ready and tested, an update is submitted and the version number is bumped.

XML-RPC in 3.5 (status update)

  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. is now in 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., but a few issues remain with 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. improvements. @markoheijnen is going to take a look at these, among other things wp.getUsers has an issue and there needs to be a way to mimic wp.getAuthors.
  • Overall we’re in a good place for 3.5. We should start planning app updates around the release so we can support the improvements once they’re available (revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. + real previews, galleries, user details editable through apps).

Join us for the next weekly dev chat on Wednesday at 15:00 UTC.

#dev-chat, #ios, #wpios, #xml-rpc

Dan Roundhill 9:04 pm on September 26, 2012
Tags: , dev chat, , , , , ,   

Mobile Dev Chat Summary for Sep 26 2012…

Mobile Dev Chat Summary for Sep 26, 2012

We had a shorter meeting this week but still had some good discussion (chat log):

Agenda:

  • WPAndroid 2.2. Launch Update
  • 3.5 XML-RPC Improvements
  • WPWindowsPhone 1.7 Discussion

WPAndroid 2.2. Launch Update

3.5 XML-RPC Improvements

  • Patch for #21397 was reviewed with some feedback, and @markoheijnen updated it and added a new patch. Team is doing their best to get this in 3.5 still.

WPWindowsPhone 1.7 Discussion

  • A bit of tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. cleanup for 1.7 has been done, but more needed. @irbrad will review the milestone.
  • @daniloercoli has picked up a few tickets and will likely start dev next week.
  • We discussed how to get up and running with the Windows Phone 8 SDK.

#android, #dev-chat, #ios, #windows-phone, #wpandroid, #wpios, #wpwindowsphone, #xmlrpc

Isaac Keyet 8:05 pm on September 19, 2012
Tags: , dev chat, , , , , , ,   

Mobile Dev Chat Sep 19, 2012

Summary of this week’s dev chat. chat log.

Agenda:

  • WPiOS 3.1.4 heads up
  • WPAndroid 2.2 check-in
  • XML-RPC check-in
  • New welcome screen/signup/connection flow discussion

WPiOS 3.1.4 heads up

We denoted that we’re doing some work to stay compatible with iOS6 and the upcoming iPhone 5. This release is due to be submitted today.

WPAndroid 2.2 check-in

The app was released for the BlackBerry PlayBook last Monday. There have been bugs with the release but we’ve issued bug fix releases. Now another issue has arisen and we’re prepping yet another bug fix release. The announcement is still due so we’ll make sure we post it asap (today is the plan). Look for it on the WordPress for Android Blog!

XML-RPC check-in

Max is doing the final review of the XML-RPC patches the mobile team has worked on (Jorge). There’s a write-up post on the status of all 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. enhancements going into 3.5 just below this post

New welcome screen/signup/connection flow discussion (was labeled “Sign up tweak”, among others, in the meeting)

Matt had brought up that our current welcome screen in all the apps has three options where most apps only have two – sign in or sign up (and perhaps one or two ways to sign in using a third party like Twitter or Facebook). We discussed this and after going back and forth for a bit seems like we all agreed the following would be best:

  • Sign up screen has two options (may be buttons): Connect Blog, Sign Up (copy is very likely to change)
  • Connect Blog has 3 fields, the 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/ specific log in screen is gone.
    1. URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org (optional, with a placeholder that hints at the field only being necessary for self-hosted blogs)
    2. Username (just saying “Username”, not trying to specify .org or .com)
    3. Password (see ^)
  • This new flow would be a good opportunity to…
    • Use the same Geolocation toggle for both .org and .com.
    • Be consistent about actionable buttons (right now you log in automatically with a wpcom blog, but .org you need to press Save to continue).
    • Revisit the welcome screen – maybe we can make all the Connect fields visible when you first launch the app (not hidden behind a button).
    • Update/add error messages for the sign up flow to aid the optional URL field and provide a smoother set up altogether.

Epilogue

Please join us next week for the mobile dev chat, 15:00 UTC Wednesday.

#android, #dev-chat, #ios, #roadmap, #ui, #ux, #wpandroid, #wpios, #xmlrpc

Isaac Keyet 8:29 pm on September 5, 2012
Tags: , dev chat, , , , , , ,   

Mobile Dev Chat Sep 5, 2012

Summary of this week’s dev chat. IRC log.

Agenda:

  • WPAndroid 2.2 and fixes
  • Help needed for WPiOS 3.2
  • WPWindowsPhone 1.7 road map and planning
  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. XML-RPC tickets status

WPAndroid 2.2 and fixes

Things are going well with version 2.2 so far but a few bugs surfaced. A bug fix update was issued (v. 2.2.1) and submitted earlier today. There’s been some reports about Stats not working correctly, we’ve been working with people in the WordPress for Android forums to try and resolve these and figure out where Stats fails. A big thing seems to be that the Stats page is simply a really big page load.

A huge win with version 2.2 is that almost all crashes seems to be gone – the app is becoming very stable.

We discussed the need to have fields for Jetpack credentials in the Blog Settings area within the app (like we do for WPiOS since WPiOS 3.1.3). We decided it would be nice to have but are holding off for now.

Game plan for the next week.

Help needed for WPiOS 3.2

We’re half way there for 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. support, should be in before the end of the week. 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/ Notifications needs tweaks to load faster and work better (Automattic will work on this).

The visual editor is in and there’s now a toggle to switch between the visual editor and the HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. mode. Working on disabling the visual editor for non iOS5+ devices, then we can start testing for real. Should be ready for testing towards the end of the week. We discussed problems with unrecognized tags and how we should deal with it – we need to flesh this out more.

We need help closing tickets as TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. is still looking pretty grim. We’ll look over the current batch of tickets to figure out what’s still feasible to do in 3.2 and move the rest to Future Release. We’ll also try to work on specific areas within the app to remain focused.

Game plan for the next week.

WPWindowsPhone 1.7 road map and planning

We discussed the 1.7 milestone and what our priorities should be as well as what we may have missed. It’s clear that Local Drafts is the most important enhancement listed, followed by combining the Comments screens (regular comments list and bulk moderation) to one list and low hanging fruit (Media positioning, maybe a better formatting toolbar – we’ll discuss this on the dev blog) in the Post Editor.

To make sure the app doesn’t fall behind further we should also add Featured Image support in the app.

Edit Comment was not discussed, but being an enhancement likely to be dropped (moved to Future Release for now).

The rest of the 1.7 milestone is a go, but we need clarification on some tickets.

Urgent todos posted on the dev blog.

Core XML-RPC tickets status

After the bug scrub we’ve updated the patches. We’re now waiting to get them reviewed again – but it looks like the RevisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision./Previews enhancements are a go for version 3.5. The revisions should also make implementing Gallery support in the apps easier. Soft freeze today!

Epilogue

Please join us next week for the mobile dev chat, 15:00 UTC Wednesday.

#android, #dev-chat, #ios, #planning, #windows-phone, #wpandroid, #wpios, #wpwindowsphone, #xmlrpc

Isaac Keyet 11:10 pm on August 29, 2012
Tags: , dev chat, , , road map, , , , ,   

Mobile Dev Chat Aug 29, 2012

Summary of the dev chat held in IRC on Aug 29, 2012. Chat log.

Agenda:

  • WPiOS 3.2 cycle status update, todos
  • WPAndroid 2.2 status update (we’re in 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.!)
  • WPWindowsPhone 1.7 planning and heads up
  • CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. and preview 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. in 3.5

WPiOS 3.2 cycle status update, todos

  • We went over the current status of version 3.2 and noted progress on 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. support, visual editor for iPad iOS5+, and Notifications screen for 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/ + comment notifications. Visual editor and Notifications for WordPress.com are in trunk, however in a very rough state, but we’re moving along steadily. There are plenty of tickets open in Trac though and plenty for would-be contributors to look into!
  • We discussed the visual editor a bit, reiterating the need to have it not tamper with posts in an unexpected way. The toolbar will need to be changed a bit to accommodate the new editor (indicating “active” status). @irbrad is going to look into some of the top plugins that alter/hook into the editor and how we need to tackle those in the app. To test this properly we’ll need to compare existing (old) posts from a large number of different websites and make sure that the markup/content is not altered in a negative way by using the app. Special care needs to be taken to shortcodes and full embeds.

WPAndroid 2.2 status update (we’re in beta!)

  • The app’s in beta, and it’s going well so far. Some issues/concerns have come up: Featured Image support is not checked remotely (we’ll work on this) and tapping images to open details in the post editor is cumbersome at times.

WPWindowsPhone 1.7 planning and heads up

  • While there’s no ETA on when the dev cycle could start just yet, we foresee this cycle starting right around WPiOS 3.2 is out.
  • There’s a tentative road map in TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. already, to bring the app up to speed with the other apps, prepare it for Windows Phone 8, and resolve lingering UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. issues.
  • @maxcutler highlighted that Windows Phone 7 apps will work on Windows Phone 8, and so our aim should be to improve the app and not exclude older devices – especially since these can’t upgrade .
  • Some concerns were raised about the WordPress.com app developed by Automattic for Windows 8, that it doesn’t fit so well into this new suite of OS’s and software that’s coming from Microsoft. We’ll need to think it through, but it may make sense to help turn this app into a full “regular” WordPress app with management capabilities and support for self-hosted blogs.

Core revisions and preview API in 3.5

  • @mrroundhill brought up the need for an improved Gallery API, although it may be a tight fit to do in time for 3.5. We decided that it would be best to hold off on gallery support in the apps for now, until the API is improved. Post revisions should help with this.
  • The feature freeze is coming up and it’s time to complete the patches and send ’em in, so it’s now the biggest priority to get the patches in that we need. @kokejb still has the lead here but should call in help accorndingly.

#android, #dev-chat, #ios, #planning, #road-map, #windows-phone, #wpandroid, #wpios, #wpwindowsphone, #xmlrpc