Brian Alexander 5:08 pm on June 7, 2022
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Field Notes from WCEU 2022 Contributor Day

Olá! We’d like to express our gratitude to everyone who stopped by the Test Team (or CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.:Test) table at this year’s WCEU Contributor Day 🙇. Your ideas, perspectives, and open discussions help foster initiatives critical to testing WordPress. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Participants at the event covered the following topics (some of which were also referred to #core-test in Slack):

Test Report Templates

  • In the proposed Test Reports guidelines, clarify how the green checkmark (✅) and red “X” (❌) emoji should be used in reports: expected vs unexpected.
  • Break out the report templates into subpages under a main “Test Report” description in the Test Handbook to improve readability.
  • Proposal to provide ticket creation templates for TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. issue reporting, similar to Gutenberg Issues (e.g for Bugs vs Enhancements).
    • @todo Investigate whether Trac supports pre-populated template options, for initial post and/or comments.

Easier Test Contributions

  • Improve/update the Test Handbook guidance for creating a local WordPress environment.
  • The desire for ephemeral test environments (no local installLocal Install A local install of WordPress is a way to create a staging environment by installing a LAMP or LEMP stack on your local computer. needed) to test PRs and patches. Some ideas:
    • Create a Core-targeted version of gutenberg.run.
      • Would need to support both PRs and individual Trac patch attachments.
    • Utilize a service similar to that used for calypso.live.
  • Add Test Handbook guidance for applying patches from 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/ or Trac, covering the various “best practice” methods.
  • Reiterate the importance of different environment flavors across the test contributor group (Docker/wp-env, VVV, Laravel Valet, Local, etc). There shouldn’t be a preference for “the best” or “one way” to run/test WordPress, since it should reflect the real-world variation across the WordPress community.
  • Assign a new week-in-test categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. to Week in Test posts, for easier filtering of “where to start” in testing (currently grouped under the more generic summary category).

End-to-End (E2E) Testing

  • Questions as to where to begin E2E testing in WordPress:
  • It was noted that it’s common for E2E tests to fail intermittently, which can confuse and hamper development. This is often attributed to unexpected delays in DOM updates.
  • Consider that E2E testing can passively validate 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) (“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)”) as a beneficial byproduct.
  • Add E2E section to Week in Test to increase awareness of this aspect of WordPress testing.

Tuesday Meetings Time Change

  • It was suggested that Tuesday meetings for <test-chat> and <test-triage> be shifted from 17:00 to 16:00 UTC to allow broader participation from European contributors. Please share your vote or thoughts here.

Props to @boniu91 for peer review of this post.

#meeting-notes