The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.
If you’d like to help test Full Site Editing, please join the FSE Outreach Program. You can find current calls for testing for this program here and you can join the fun in #fse-outreach-experiment.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance:
Jeff Ong, Ellen Bauer, Nick Diego, and Edwin Cromley
Video Recording:
Topics:
We covered a wide variety of topics: the outreach program’s future, updates for the 6.1 release, aspects of phase 2 to wrap up, the current experience of developing and maintaining blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. themes, and more.
What will happen to the outreach program now that 6.1 is out?
The outreach program is continuing as is! When it comes time to wind it down, it will be heavily communicated and, ideally, continued in some form or another. As with “gradual adoption” of FSE features, expect a more gradual phasing out.
Various updates around 6.1
We chatted through some of the key feedback coming in with 6.1 released last week. This was shared publicly in the release leads channel prior to the call.
Managing updates for block themes
The discussion around 6.1 feedback led to a conversation about managing updates for block themes. In particular, there were some layout changes that needed to be managed. Keeping up with these changes for each release can lead to a feeling of “Why did we build these themes already?!” when there’s so much to keep on top of with each release. It still is taking a lot of work with each release.
@bph the idea was brought up to have a compressed set of links to follow based on audience perhaps for the Developer blog, inspired by Rich Tabor’s twitter roundup. We discussed how there were also 2x the number of dev notes for this release compared to 5.9 and 6.0.
In general, there seems to be a cycle of finding a solution to work around current limitations > the gap getting filled in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. > needing to update > cycle repeats. There are questions around when this process will get less intense.
Themeshaper
Questions around themeshaper came up with folks wanting to see more there and reminiscing on the kinds of posts that were shared previously as being quite illuminating. Speaking personally, I’m now trying to share more directly in Core when posting but it is an “outlet” that would be great to see revived.
Pixl theme discussion
After Matt tweeted about the Pixl theme, this led to questions around: “Is this the direction we’re heading in? Is it meant to be super simple block theme? Am I overcomplicating it somehow?” We talked about how it was likely just a note about a cool, quirky theme and that ultimately block themes are for all cases (or will be in the future as functionality grows). The goal is to do everything, from very simple to very high level. Nick shared that he’s, “Taking a lot of block themes and throwing them away. I took what was available and took it to the next level, like custom classes or custom code, that block themes couldn’t do at that time. Now, I’m stripping it out and refreshing it with a much simpler architecture.” Ellen is doing the same and it’s a lot of work. From there, you have to consider propagating updates. While this is a big part of being an early adopter, it’s still worth noting and it becomes intimidating to step into eCommerce considering.
Stability for maintenance & stability for 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. of block themes
We talked about how there’s a split when talking about stability: stability of block themes in terms of less maintenance and stability of the UX for end users of block themes. We discussed how patterns are a big deal for UX in general and shared some examples of using starter patterns, with Nick sharing a great resource he wrote.
Latest Phase 2 Update
We went through the latest phase 2 overview issue update, talking at a high level about what’s to come and how work is progressing. This included a lot of discussion around the ability to save, import, and export variations. Feedback was given that style variations are often ignored for clients and that it would be more useful to be able to copy style variations/copying block styles. At the same time, being able to import/export your own branding via style variations would also be wildly helpful.
What about removing the beta label?
We ended by talking about the 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. label, how it’s likely slated for 6.2, how another update will need to be done to ensure the issue is up to date, and how the label itself might change away from just “editor”.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance: Rich Tabor, Damon Cook, Courtney Roberston, Paal Joachim Romdahl, Jeff Ong, Nick Diego, Vagelis, Sé Reed, Piermario Orecchioni.
Video Recording:
Topics:
The main topic centered around the work underway to wrap phase 2 gathered in this overview issue. Expect regular updates to this issue and know that other work will continue but there’s a big emphasis to complete the tasks outlined there.
As of last week, the following was in place:
From there, we dug into the following individual issues to chat through at a high level what we were seeing. At a high level, it stuck out to folks how many different explorations there are, conflicting designs at times, etc. By doing this work concurrently, these differences can be resolved and the solutions refined together.
Introduce “Browser” and surface main navigation UI.
We talked about how this was a change in the entrance to the site editor just as much as it was for navigating between content. There was a desire to be able to click on the site title in the nav component to take you to the front end of the site. We discussed the important of 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) testing for this change and it’s top of mind to test for the FSE Outreach Program.
Global styles: Offer a way to view a document containing all blocks and styles
Make it possible to push local block styles to global block styles
Using the template editor for plugins
Media library getting the “FSE treatment”
Feedback on the Quick Inserter prioritizing patterns in certain circumstances
Other topics and questions
Folks shared that responsiveness is still a big topic along with navigation block. Multiple people echoed both. Damon shared in the chat: “The Navigation block has SO much complexity, but tackling the challenges will likely surface many great ideas that can be rolled out to other blocks that have complete 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./interaction”. Finally, we chatted at the end about the history of the Query LoopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. block naming (why not loop?), where folks can report issues when 6.1 is out in the wild, and what’s next for the FSE Outreach Program.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance: Carolina Nymark, Daisy Olsen, Manuel Esposito, Rich Tabor, Herb Miller, Ellen Baeur, Ana Segota, Evan Mullins, Damon Cook, David Bowman, Jessica Lyschik, Ed Beck, Courtney Roberston, Amy L, Rita Best.
Video Recording:
Topics:
Apologies for the lack of timestamps – this conversation was vast and deep, making it hard to separate out into specific sections.
theme.json. It would undoubtedly be high maintenance and would have to be under active updates alongside new GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ features being merged into core, but it could also have a webpage equivalent to markup/output. A WordPress theme Style Guide: Figma file with the equivalent of block output on a site for users to copy/paste the code into their theme and see everything on a page… kinda deal.”Overall, while there is both excitement and interest in what block themes unlock, it’s also clear that there are a build up of pain points to address, whether through clearer resources or changes to Gutenberg itself. These conversations are just one way to start surfacing these themes (get it) and to begin finding ways forward.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in!
Attendance:
@elmastudio @fabiankaegy @annezazu Lisa Synder @beckej @oglekler
Video Recording:
Topics
We mainly talked through the following different posts that help show both the complex problems at hand and potential thoughts around how to approach solutions:
Throughout the conversation, we had mini dives into various topics, including talking about comparing patterns, template parts, and reusable blocks. We also discussed how there are various layers in which to approach this work from the end user level to the deeper technical considerations. The hope throughout it all is to make these more complex and detailed explorations more understandable and engaging.
Here is the agenda for the upcoming Test Team Chat scheduled for 21 June 2022 at 16:00 UTC, which is held in the #core-test Slack channel. Lurkers welcome!
If any of the above apply, please leave a comment below.
Props to @hellofromtonya and @boniu91 for peer review of this post.
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):
@todo Investigate whether Trac supports pre-populated template options, for initial post and/or comments.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.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).<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.
Update: Nominations are now closed.
As announced in today’s team chat, I’ve stepped down as one of the Test Team Reps. As the next term’s elections aren’t until the end of July 2022 (i.e. new term starts 3 August 2022), the team agreed to do a nomination call to select a new 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. (to take my place) for the remainder of this current term.
tl;dr
A team reps is responsible for communicating on behalf of the team to the other contributor groups and teams via weekly updates and cross-team chats.
It is not called “team lead” for a reason. While the person elected as a team rep will generally come from the pool of folks that people think of as experienced leaders, remember that the team rep role is designed to change hands regularly.
Team Rep is a leadership role that is mostly administrative in nature; it is not a Lead role. Letting go of the Team Rep title is not a loss of status, just a handing off of responsibilities. Someone who is a leader in a team can lead whether they are doing the team rep job or not.
from Team Reps on Updates
A rep is an active team member who is reliable and trusted, advocates for and is knowledgeable of one or more areas of testing, and wants to represent, nurture, and grow the team to serve the WordPress 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. project.
A rep must be committed to showing up each week and doing the weekly duties.
tl;dr
Please nominate in the comments of this post. You can write a comment as simple as “I nominate @the_persons_username.” Self-nominations are welcome by leaving a comment such as “I nominate myself.”
The deadline for nominations is Tuesday, 31 May 2022, 15:00 UTC.
Each person who is nominated will be contacted to discuss qualifications and to accept or decline their nomination.
If you get nominated, please do not feel like you have to say “yes”! It’s okay for you to decline the nomination if you don’t feel like this is the right fit for any reason. “Thank you, but no thank you” 😉
An election will happen if there is more than one accepted nomination; else, the one accepted nomination will become the new rep. The election will be by an anonymous poll (example). The poll will remain open for 5 days.
Once the results are done, the new team rep will be announced in a post (example).
Ready? It’s time to nominate someone to serve for as our Test Team Rep for the remaining current term.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments. Happy nominating!
Props to @ironprogrammer and @boniu91 for peer review.
The meeting started on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. here.
@hellofromtonya made a summary of last week in Test:
@Ugyen asked if there’ll be a 5.9.3 release before 6.0, @audrasjb confirmed 5.9.3 release in the upcoming weeks.
@pbearne refreshed the @covers PR
@hellofromtonya agreed to move forward with the batch approach to make a review and commit process easier for this big PR
@tykoted joined his first meeting
@hellofromtonya reminded about the need of having one or two people that would lead the Test Handbook project. Together with @boniu91 agreed that summary post will be a good place to promote this opportunity.
@justinahinon described that moving e2e tests to Playwright in GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ is going quite well. He’s also working together with @juhise on moving existing tests to Playwright
@hellofromtonya reminded why we are in the process of switching to the Playwright
@pbearne offered Tugboat as a tool that could help the Test Team, he’ll provide more details soon.
Test Team is looking for a volunteer or two as lead(s) to shepherd Test Handbook forward. If you’re interested in this role, please leave a meesage.
The meeting started on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. here. With no agenda, the chat was open floor discussions.
@costdev asked: What projects or specific goals are targeted for 6.0? @hellofromtonya replied that 6.0 roadmap of the key features and refinements to be built for this major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality.. The Test Team will support that effort.
Team discussed other projects and goals not necessarily specific to 6.0:
@covers and #53010.@hellofromtonya shared a bigger picture framework / thinking for testing:
Tests express the intended and expected behavior of how the code should and shouldn’t behave under different conditions. When tests do this, they are a wonderful source for learning.
Testing itself fuels the feedback loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. back into the development process to know what does and doesn’t work as expected.
How?
The goals aren’t to build more tests. Rather, the goals are to build the tests that are needed to validate the code works as expected under different conditions to further help improve the user experience and get feedback fed back into the development cycles.
Team discussed whether to start with planning the test suite reorganization or getting the @covers tags added / corrected.
The team decided to prioritize the @covers tags in order to ensure the code coverage reports are accurate to point to where more work is needed.
Team then discussed how to divide the auditing work to finish the @covers PR and get it merged.
Restructuring the handbook raises the potential for more team members to work on the other initiatives. Since it feeds the numbers, confidence and accuracy of the team, it helps with everything else. Coverage reports won’t help increase the number of test team contributors, so I’m tempted to say that our first big drive should be to work on the handbook. If there’s things that need to be done in advance of handbook entries, such as establishing a new structure for the tests, that should be done in order to help 1) achieve the goal of restructuring and 2) provide information for the handbook entries.
by @costdev
Props to @boniu91 for proofreading.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. All were welcome! The intent was to chat about whatever was on folks’ minds as 5.9 is around the corner. Thank you to all who joined.
Attendance: @fcoveram, @annezazu, @bobbingwide @pdclark, @beckej, @paulbigai, @ndiego, @piermario, @paaljoachim, @courane01
Video Recording:
Topics Covered:
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Contextworks. If it’s magical and does things like matching the theme styles, it could really help with adoption.
I love the idea of pulling the first image as the featured image if there is no featured image. My role is I work in SUNY, working with students, and that’s something they always forget to do.
@beckej in the comments of the call.