Mark Jaquith 4:44 pm on October 29, 2012  

Summary of Morning Discussions

Notes by Mark Jaquith and Brian Layman

Aaron Jorbin: AccessibilityAccessibility 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)

Action Item:make 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//accessibility which will talk about successes we’re having and ways people can get involved

  • Also talked about increasing involvement of accessibility experts and ease of testing of patches.
  • Need for default themes to be good examples of accessibility.
  • 2013 should have the #1 goal of accessibility.

Helen Hou-Sandi: 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. CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. in WP Action Item:Review the draft handboook on UI processes, decisions, philosophies and publish it.

  • Talked about communication and how to be collaborative in the development process
  • With a large pool of developers already, how to we attract and retain designers contributors?
  • Discussed pain points & doing weekly summaries on the UI blog.
  • In the P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org posts they will summarize meeting notes but will also present advancements and news and links from around the web for discussion.

Chip Bennett: Theme review team

Action Item:Better document the workflow for theme review to make that process more transparent and consistent.

  • talked about workflow, consistency, timelines

Siobhan McKeown: Improving Handbooks

Action Item:Recent rockstars will be immediately to include non-coders

  • A standard format should exist for the handbooks
  • WordPress.org profiles need to be updated to include many more areas of contribution

Ben Metcalf: Managed WP Hosts

Action Item: Formalize methods of communication between the core teams about problem plugins.

  • The lists of problem plugins that each host has should be communicated with core
  • A standardized definition of “Managed WordPress Hosting” is perhaps needed as it means different things.
  • Discussed WordPress.org/hosting

Mitcho: Making WP global

Action Item:make./global Site with a forum, and

  • Discussed where the international conversations occurs
  • Profiles should list the languages in which people work with

Nacin: i18n improvements

Action Item:Theme updates destroy translation files. This must fixed and a solution is currently under dev now.

  • Languages into core
  • Multibyte into core
  • Will be open sourcing Simon Wheatley’s multilingual WordPress code

Mitcho: Using WordPress as a framework

Action Item:Implement a stability index for our APIs like Node.js and create a development philosophy page on the codex.

  • What is the philosophy of dev in WP cycle & APIs: Should it be users first or devs first?
  • Core use cases or other use cases?
  • New things built into core should be built as 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 shipped as a plugin
  • ForWordPress, not BackPress

Peter Chester: Contributing to Core without it being a Full Time Job

Action Item:Put a 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. on P2 themes telling you what to do to contribute to that area

  • Discussed how to not quit your day job and get business buy in to improving the core.
  • Licking a firehose is not a sustainable working model
  • Lots of mailing lists, lots of information. It is too much for a non dedicated dev to fully follow contribute effectively.
  • Could put together teams around components, modularize the communication
  • Core commits rely too much on serendipity. Hard to get a commit through without talking to the right people at the right time.
  • Should architect a workflow to increase efficiency.

Mike Schroeder: Improving Deployments on WordPress

Action Item: Create a codex page that lists the popular ways to deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors. and discusses options that are available

  • Two problems: users being able to easily test changes, and roll back. Devs being able to push from localdev to staging to deployment.
  • Files are mostly a solved problem. Talked about GitGit Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. Most modern plugin and theme development is being done with this version control system. https://git-scm.com/ and WP Stack. Will partially solve the issue.
  • Content is the main issue at this point.
  • There are probably many solutions available that were not released to public and these should be discussed.

Andrea Rennick: WordPress CodexWordPress Codex Living online manual to WordPress.org https://codex.wordpress.org/

Action Item: A roadmap will be created, separating different use cases for the codex

  • Codex is a mess and a mix of perspectives
  • User, Dev and end user sections need to be seperated
  • No best practices page
  • Too much stuff is missing
  • We should focus on getting data up on the Codex
  • Relates to handbooks

Remkus DeVries: Transparency of the WordPress Foundation

Action Item:Publish make/events subcommittees list

  • The foundation revolves around 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.
  • Discussed WordCamps & Foundation
  • Talked a lot with Andrea about guidelines
  • Better ways to re-word guidelines that make them more clear and explain the reasons behind them
  • Talked about make.wordpress.org/events which started but did not get followed up on

Trent Lapinski: Theme Functionality vs Plugins

Action Item:Codex page for standards, containers for common functionality, better communication

  • Themes sometimes have functionality better suited for plugins

Isaac Keyet: Mobile Apps

Action Item:Make a page that describes the apps, their place in the ecosystem, and their goals (for potential contributors)

  • Different experience from the web
  • built on native device capabilities
  • Offline usage: easier in apps than on web
  • Better communication between 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. devs and mobile devs
  • Weekly chats happening now
  • Moving forums over to wp.org main site
  • Who owns mobile apps and develops them? WP.org? Automattic?
  • It’s okay for “third parties” to have specific functionality in the WP mobile apps.
  • Make it easier to fork the apps for specific hosts.

Alex Mills (Viper007Bond): Plugin dependencies

Action Item:continue the discussion (too long for session)

  • Themes and Plugins both need it

Jared Smith: GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.

Action Item:Improved resources around GPL topics

  • Split licenses were discussed
  • Talked about GPL distribution
  • Spirit of law vs letter
  • User interests vs dev
  • community vs commercial
  • uniform application of guidelines
  • IP protection, copyright, trademark, etc
  • Have businesses embrace the GPL
Jen 9:24 am on October 29, 2012  

Calling All Drivers

If you have a car with you and would be willing to be part of the shuttle team this morning, we’ll happily give you a couple of people to pick up this morning. You can come to the venue early to get assignments at the Traffic Control table in the parking lot. Thanks!

Jen 8:46 am on October 29, 2012  

Where To Go This Morning

The venue is the Tybee Island Wedding Chapel. The address is 1114 1st Street, Tybee Island, GA 31328.  We’ll start out upstairs.

There should be plenty of parking spaces for those driving over. If you don’t already have a ride to the venue, please email me (jane at 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/) so I can send someone over to get you in time for the start. In your email please include your address/the name of the place you are staying, and your cell number.

Thanks!

Jen 10:51 pm on October 28, 2012  

Tonight! 7pm!

HucaPoo’s at 7pm! We’ll have a dozen pizzas, and while we’re not covering the bar, their beers are cheap! Be there or be square. 🙂

Ryan Duff is doing some BBQ on Tuesday for anyone who is still around and interested. Contact him via twitter or leave a comment on this post.

Challenge! Mika Epstein (ipstenu) says she would change her gravatarGravatar Is an acronym for Globally Recognized Avatar. It is the avatar system managed by WordPress.com, and used within the WordPress software. https://gravatar.com if someone got a decent picture of her. See what you can do tomorrow, folks.

Yeah…. so, I didn’t finish the welcome packs (basically name badge, some post-its for proposing sessions, a welcome letter, etc). I have mostly been welcoming people in person, so I’ll just have the paper goods ready at the venue tomorrow morning (need to punch holes in the name badges tonight…. having the #fakekid take care of that while we are at HucaPoo’s). We’ll start at 8, but will be there at 7 to finish some last setting up, so feel free to come over early if you like. We’ll have coffee and mini muffins, but if you want an early breakfast, The Breakfast Club and the Sunrise are open by 7am.

See you all (again) soon!

Jen 10:11 am on October 28, 2012  

Sunday Update

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my good intentions to have the welcome packets/envelopes ready for early birds by 8am today were derailed. For the sake of my simplicity, let’s say I’ll have them ready by this afternoon, and they can be picked up  tonight after 7pm at Huc-a-Poo’s, or tomorrow morning at the event itself. When they’re ready I’ll post to twitter and comment on this post letting you know if they can be grabbed any earlier at the Jitterbug.

A lot of people are in town now after all the successful flights that made it last night, so a few notes on entertaining yourself around town today:

  • Georgia doesn’t like booze on Sunday, and no one will be allowed to sell you any before 12:30pm today. This includes mimosas and bloody marys for brunch, so go ahead and sleep in/go later.
  • The Jitterbug inside seating area will be occupied by the 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. meeting from 9am-12pm. The deck is yours to claim. Wifi password is “superdecent” on “Sparkle Motion” network.
  • It’s supposed to be sunny and in the 70s today. The weather can change quickly, though, so bring a hoodie or jacket just in case. If you make any plans that involve being out on the water, it will be windy and a little chilly.
  • Restaurants that I personally tend to frequent the most on the island include Tybee Island Social Club (flatbread tacos), Sundae Cafe (the nice restaurant in town, but closed Sundays, believe it or not), AJ’s Dockside (sandwiches, fried seafood, deck seating that is awesome), and North Beach Grill (more sandwiches and seafood but with Caribbean leanings, usually has reggae playing). There’s also Lisa Sabin-Wilson and Michael Torbert’s favorite, the crab shack, but I’m still thinking we’ll try to get the group there Monday for dinner.
  • If you wind up stranded somewhere and need a ride, you can call the Island Hopper shuttle and they’ll zip you over to wherever for $3 a person: 912-656-0805.
  • Today will be fairly hectic, so I may not be monitoring my email as closely as I did yesterday, so if you need my attention, an email is good but also pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me on Twitter @janeforshort to make sure I get to it promptly.

See you all soon!

Jen 8:30 pm on October 27, 2012  

When You Arrive on Sunday

Hi everyone. I’ll be sending out a group email tonight, but I thought if I posted here in the meantime it might help people make plans.

  • You can pick up a welcome packet anytime between 8am-8pm on Sunday at the Jitterbug (they’ll have them for you in envelopes at the counter) on Sunday if you would like to help speed up the check-in process on Monday. The Jitterbug is at 106 S Campbell Ave.
  • If people want to get together informally on Sunday evening, I suggest heading to Huc-a-Poo’s for pizza and beer, maybe around 6:30 or 7.
  • Today and tomorrow, the contributor group reps are having meetings at the Jitterbug, but they’ll be out and about in the evenings, so keep an eye on the #WPCS twitter feed.
  • We’ll start at the Wedding Chapel promptly at 8am on Monday, to make the most of the day we have there together. Tonight’s email will also include more schedule/format info about Monday.
  • I’m trying to set up a group dinner for Monday evening at the Crab Shack, so I’ll provide more info about that tomorrow.

It’s been exciting to see everyone rolling into town (via tweets). Can’t wait to see you all on Monday! (OR Sunday night!)

 

Matt Mullenweg 7:31 pm on October 27, 2012  

Summary: Mobile Apps Discussion

There are 6 official mobile platforms for WordPress, most active being iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. and Android by far.

Mobile apps have been a place to experiment with native interfaces, like the dashboard layout in Android. Lately a move to the swiping sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme., what’s nice about that is it scales up for example the panels in the iPad version, it’s like responsive design.

We’ve had a lot of issues finding contributors for native platforms because there is a specific set of skills. There are some issues around GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. and the app stores. There are also issues around APIs, more interested in a 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.-based 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. than using XML-RPC. JSON is lighter weight to parse, and usually lighter to send. REST is a different paradigm though which is more of a remote procedure call.

APIs should come from the mobile apps and 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. features we want, not vice versa. It’s difficult for mobile devs to have to put everything through a long review, vs in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. where we make the API at the same time. Perhaps we need APIs that we mark for first-party apps only (officially) so we don’t have to worry as much about mantaining things for ever.

Node has a system where different APIs indicate their rigidity, from raw to frozen.

On WP.com they can iterate a lot faster because they can co-develop and immediately deployDeploy Launching code from a local development environment to the production web server, so that it's available to visitors..

Mobile app sub-forums, we can arrange them however team wants. It’d be sweet if you could view / post in the support forums from directly within the app. Mobile app websites have forums, blog, homepage, download, and a get involved.

We have lots of mobile app sites, each with its own landing pages, download, blog, FAQ, forums. Bring all of that into 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/.

Apps on the download page? Consensus yes. (Action item for Isaac.)

Feedback for apps. “Moderating comments on iOS kind of sucks, because you can’t go back to see other comments on a post.” A uniform design language that can be used across all of the apps, whether in the dashboard or in the mobile apps. Been of the approach that you should follow platform UI guidelines and conventions first. Guidelines should probably go both directions.

What does native do that we don’t get on the web? Device-specific functionality, some is catching up, performance is the biggest thing. Animations, shadows, scrolling, getting data vs getting 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. with every pageload.

Stats are a great example of this, if there were a method for “fetch my stats” different plugins could hook into it. Backbone views are broken down and can be reused.

Two big issues: people in this room have things they want the apps to do, and we’re getting lots of 1-star reviews. Many of the crashes and bad ratings are from webviews, mostly things in WP.com. One of the reasons we’ve been going native for some of the WP.com-specific stuff.

Some feedback around the hierarchy of the sidebar menu. We don’t have universal swipe to the right, you have to swipe from the button. The apps are still blog-centric, even though there is some action-centric stuff. How can more people get involved with making the apps more stable? Perhaps an iOS shop needs WP help and we could trade.

iOS world is full of highly polished, very designed apps. Why have we struggled, what’s holding us back? Most apps are single-party — one host, one developer, one API.

This week action item: add app downloads to the wordpress.org/download page.

Matt Mullenweg 6:19 pm on October 27, 2012  

Summary: Intergroup Communication chat notes

When groups started, intent was monthly chat of all the reps. Even if specific person can’t make it, another person from the team would reperesent for continuity.

Want a blog with just weekly updates, to summarize the plethora of stuff happening across P2s, IRC, etc. Every team would have a specific day that they are responsible for posting their update on. Want automated tool that says if a team has missed an update. (Might fall under tools / metrics discussion.)

The more we communicate, the more people will see that we’re a healthy project. People have a lot of curiosity on how we make decisions, who is involved, and seeing the reasoning behind things. Also will give the general public a better glance into the diversity of our contributors.

Do all the groups have a weekly IRC? Synchronous chats are difficult across global timezones. Same for hangouts, but because they have higher bandwidth (video, faces) it is worth it sometimes.

The heart of a summary update contains three parts: what team did last week, what you want to do next week, and an optional third section with any blockers, extra color, or highlights. Important to keep summaries short, like bullet points, not just a copy/paste of everything that has been done. We’re going to aim for 1-2 per weekday.

Monthly G+ hangouts, weekly posts.

Want to have a bit more control over the Make P2s, extend child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/ to include some more widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. areas. Make a list of feeds that are needed. Get involved widget, search box, scheduled chats.

Action items: every team will do weekly updates on a P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org. Schedule of different teams on weekdays. Pick place for updates to go. Matt to find example update.

Jen 4:29 pm on October 24, 2012  

Lunch is on Dreamhost!

When you got your summit ticket, you were asked about dietary restrictions. For lunch on Monday, this is what we’ll have, served on the lawn at the venue:

  • BBQ Sandwiches (pork)
  • Baked Beans
  • Corn on the Cob
  • Tomato Dill Bisque (soup, vegan, gluten-free)
  • Greek Pasta Salad (will have some without pasta for the gluten-free folks)
  • Beer Bread
  • Cupcakes

I tried to cover all the requests from the registrations, but if you can’t eat anything on that list, please email me asap and let me know so we can work out some food for you.

Lunch on Monday is being covered by Dreamhost‘s OMGBBQ Awesome level sponsorship. Dreamhost provides WordPress web hosting and has been a consistent supporter of WordPress and WordPress events over the years. Two Dreamhost employees will be at the summit, Mike Schroder (aka DH-Shredder) from coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and their recent hire Mika Epstein (aka Ipstenu) from the forums 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. review team. Mika is pronounced Mee-kuh, not My-kuh. She will probably be wearing a hat. If you haven’t met Mike and Mika from Dreamhost before, be sure you get a chance to say hello!

Thanks, Dreamhost!

Jen 8:49 am on October 22, 2012  

Summit Sponsor: Copyblogger Media

Copyblogger Media (StudioPress to the old schoolers) has long been a supporter of WordPress events. For the summit, they’re sponsoring at the First Patch level, and are sending Andrea Rennick and Ron Rennick to represent them at the event. Andrea and Ron have expertise in many areas of WordPress, but they are widely known as multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core. Advanced Administration Handbook -> Create A Network. experts.

Andrea is also a 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. for the WordPress.org support contributor group (forums/docs), so we thank Copyblogger not only for their support of the event, but for helping Andrea be involved in this capacity.

Thanks for the support, guys!