Category Archives: Summary

annezazu 6:23 pm on June 30, 2022
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Hallway Hangout: Discussion on Full Site Editing visions and plans (30 June)

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.

#fse-hallway-hangout, #fse-outreach-program

ironprogrammer 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 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

annezazu 1:05 am on June 2, 2022
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Hallway Hangout: Discussion on Full Site Editing Issues/PRs/Designs (1 June)

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:

@ndiego @annezazu @elmastudio and a Marcy joined us for a time.

Video Recording:

Topics

Briefly touched on two recent blog posts to be aware of:

Block Font Sizes and Fluid typography
High Level Feedback from the FSE Outreach Program (May 2022)

What’s missing and what’s stopping people from switching to 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

  • Responsiveness continues to come up with Ellen sharing how she built their own system to handle this for now, knowing that they can always switch over. She believes this is one of the main reasons people are holding back from switching to block themes.
  • We chatted briefly through intrinsic responsiveness ideas related to this and how that’ll ease much of these tensions in time.
  • Onboarding to the FSE experience was brought up, particularly around how confusing it is that 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 still exists since that seems to imply it’s not usable. There’s an open discussion around removing the beta label (in time) on this exact topic.
  • The question came up around “How do we get folks to use block themes if there’s a beta label?” and how difficult that can be.
  • @poena has a post on switching over to a block theme, Ellen is working on a post for a 10 step process, and there are clear areas that can be improved to ease this process from a technical point of view in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. (see “Ease switching to a block theme/between block themes” in this post).
  • People are very confused about when to switch in general though, even if folks like Ellen are building things that are ready to go for production sites.

Communicating the value of FSE

  • Nick has done some hardcore testing with folks who are new to the site editor and when watching them go into the experience and they change the typography of paragraphs but then can’t with headings! Why? We need to take a look at consistency across the tools we’re providing people. People get very frustrated and confused when one block has controls and another doesn’t. 
  • Block themes truly is a better experience for getting a design into WordPress but the confusion added is a bit sad for the project that it gets a rough reputation.
  • Right now, it feels like more of a communication issue to the end user around what they should actually do and what they can do with consistent communication. Figma does this well.
  • This has come up in DevRel for WP Engine. When you’re talking about the basics of how to do XYZ, this should be on Learn and in docs. When you’re talking about the cool, cutting edge stuff, we need more of that. “Here’s how to learn the basics of creating a block theme but here’s how to take it to the next level.” 
  • We discussed how if we can standardize block settings across all core blocks but allow agencies to turn on/off easily that’ll be huge for the user experience.

Patterns and opening up tooling

  • We spent some time chatting about issues for unifying the pattern modals and patterns as sections work since having consistency in the interfaces for patterns and in the larger editor can really help folks take advantage of what’s possible.
  • In many ways, it feels like users can rely on patterns and/or learn by doing over time as they explore more tools. As a result, exposing those tools doesn’t feel as risky as a pattern can guide the experience and, if they do want to dive in more, they can have access to the tools outright.
  • We discussed how valuable locking is when it comes to patterns as a way to curate and guide the experience more.
  • We went back and forth on the question of “How do we get people excited about what’s possible rather than worrying about folks breaking things?”

Difficulty with terminology

Naming of bock themes and the theme directory

  • We talked about how there have been different names for block themes, like “full site editing theme” or “block-based theme”. This is causing confusion and also differs from what shows up in the Theme Directory.
  • We discussed how difficult it is to find block themes in the directory since the tag you have to use is “full site editing” , which both isn’t intuitive and hard to find.
  • This led to questions around having a separate menu item for themes or improving the filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output..
  • Ellen shared how it’s unattractive to put free themes in the directory – “who clicks on FSE to filter?” Discoverability is so low – it’s not featured enough. She shared that they don’t put any effort into free themes. 
  • We all felt that the entire theme directory was due for an overhaul but were curious about what some quick solutions could be for now to make it more attractive and interesting to add block themes there.
  • Perhaps there could be a block label in the section below:
Image of the theme directory filtering showing the number of themes, a popular, latest, and feature filter label.

Limitations of the pattern directory

  • In talking about the theme directory, we discussed how neat it would be to find patterns associated with different themes, partially as a way to entice people to download that specific block theme and improve the user experience.
  • Ellen brought up how it’s not possible to add patterns to the pattern directory that use third party blocks. This sometimes prevents submissions for block themes who have specific blocks for their theme. 
  • We discussed how the pattern directory is overwhelming for users yet also limited: you can’t use named variables for color palette + can’t use third party blocks + no curation. 
  • The crux of the problem is t hat block themers are creating blocks to fill gaps with core right now which then limits what can be added to the pattern directory.
  • We discussed how there perhaps could be a filter to allow for third party blocks vs Core blocks. For those who want to venture into needing third party blocks, they could then opt in by filtering to show those.
  • @shaunandrews recently shared a post about 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 dependencies so some of that thought/design could likely be re-used there.
  • Nick shared how for the new feature in 6.0 where block themes can feature specific patterns from the directory, it’s still not granular enough. It would be nice to be ale to disable all patterns but then bring in a few from the directory to feature. There’s an issue open for this topic already!
  • We ended the call talking about how these dynamics often fragment the community  – people building premium themes or patterns rather than using the Core pathways. This then moves everything away from Core distribution channels and harms the community/branding/experience of WP.
  • Ellen described it as feeling like you’re building against something.
  • We ended the call talking about how important it is to share feedback, engage in discussions, and help influence the direction of where things go so we can get to where we need to.

#fse-hallway-hangout, #fse-outreach-experiment, #fse-outreach-program

Tonya Mork 6:18 pm on May 31, 2022  

Core Test Stats for WordPress 6.0

This post attempts to summarize testing activities for WordPress 6.0. As currently there’s no established process for tracking testing activities within 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/, the following stats are only from TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets.

Please note, this summary is not a complete account of testing activities, but rather a gathering of what can be tracked within Trac.

Stats

There were 234 Trac tickets closed in 6.0, excluding copy or docs only tickets.

Of these tickets:

Data Gathering Process

This section shares how the data was gathered for the stats.

  • Tickets with testing instructions were identified using the Trac keyword has-testing-info. This keyword is manually added during triage when step-by-step instructions (written or video / gif) are present within the ticket.
    • Disclaimer: Other tickets may have instructions, but were not flagged with the keyword.
  • Tickets with automated tests (PHPUnit, integration, and e2e tests) were identified using Trac’s has-unit-tests keyword.
  • Test Reports were gathered by manually scanning each closed 6.0 Trac ticket for the phrase Test Report and then verifying the presence of an actual test report.
    • Disclaimer: Some tickets may have a non-formal test report such as sharing a gif or screenshot to show before and after state / behavior.
annezazu 9:38 pm on May 30, 2022
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FSE Program Rallying Recipe Reviewers Summary

This post is a summary of the fourteenth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. As always, I want to highlight those who helped to bring others along with them in this latest effort: 

Shout out to @alixnotes for being the sole first-time contributor for this call for testing. Get excited – you will soon have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!

High-level summary

Across many of the responses to this call for testing, it was quickly clear that folks found the Template Editor via the Post Editor uniquely confusing, especially after growing used to the Site Editor. Because of how the Template Editor interacts or doesn’t with the Post Editor, a few folks struggled to understand when they were editing the template vs the post itself. In terms of the next editions of the List and Quote 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., there was general excitement around the new capabilities, especially once some refinements and bugs are addressed around keyboard controls for the List block.

To help ground the following feedback, here are some quotes about the overall experience to keep in mind: 

The new Quote block worked well. It is now possible to add nested blocks inside it, one of the features I have long needed as a writer here at the Tavern when quoting from third-party resources…Overall, I am eager to see the finalized versions of these blocks. They will bring back some of the missing functionality from the classic editor and give users the flexibility to do even more.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post. 

I only got halfway through the FSE #14 because I got too frustrated with the comments part of the challenge. I spent 40 minutes on it, and here’s my biggest takeaway. The slightly different variations of the template editing screen were just too confusing for me. As someone who has been trying to work in the FSE for a few months now, I was completely thrown off by the slightly different screen you got when you launch the template editor directly from a post vs the template editor you get when you go to edit site, and then select a template to edit.

@​​beckej in this comment.

I really prefer not to use the Post Editor template system and instead keep all templates in the Site Editor. As it creates a consistency in how templates are created. The Post Editor template system is very different compared to the Site Editor template system. It creates a confusion in how templates are created. I look forward to being able to create multiple Post and Page templates in the Site Editor and have a simple system to where I can choose which posts and pages to attach any template to.

@paaljoachim  in this comment.

For any designers and developers who want to see someone walk through the experience, I want to also mention the following videos to check out and skip around to see the call for testing in action:

Here’s an example of what was created from @greenshady for this call for testing (he went above and beyond per usual): 

Page showing a simple recipe on spaghetti tacos with tips from readers.

Here’s another example of what was created with a lovely color palette by @alixnotes:

Page showing a simple recipe with an image of macaroni

Confirmed Bugs

One of the testers for @courane01’s session experienced the editor crash when testing list view and attempting to modify a color but I was unable to replicate this across a few different attempts. Outside of that, the following bugs were found:

When I added a sibling list item, the cursor was not in the item to start typing; I had to manually place the cursor in the list item.

@antigone7 in this comment.

Feature Requests 

Since this test explored two experimental iterations of current blocks (List and Quote), much of the feature requests centered on these items. 

It would be nice if I could copy and paste a list and have it automatically detect that and make it a list.

@courane01 in this comment.

I assumed that the Add citation would be an inner block. I also assumed that I would be able to add padding/margin to the block. Both things are missing. 

@paaljoachim  in this comment.

A new template can only be created by going to a post and clicking on “New” in the settings under Template on the right. It would be much more intuitive if you could create a new template directly in the editor.

@hage in this comment.

Markdown-based lists are also not transformed into a List block when pasted into the editor. The formatting is lost, and each item gets absorbed into a Paragraph block.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post. 

General Usability

As lightly mentioned in the high level overview, much of the feedback fell into this categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. with folks confused by the Template editor via the Post Editor, unsure of when they were editing the post vs template, and struggling to get layouts to cooperate (especially when it came to width controls). Sometimes these issues all combined with folks editing post content rather than the template and unable to adjust the width as they wanted as a result. Additional quotes are added below to better provide context:

For this final item, here’s a quick video demonstrating the problem so folks can better understand this specific pain pointPain point Pain points are “places where you know from research or analytics that users are currently getting hung up and have to ask questions, or are likely to abandon the site or app.” — Design for Real Life in the template creation process:

I also had difficulty making the Comments section the same width as the Content Group. If I used a Group Block to contain the Comment 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., then the comments themselves could be reduced in width (using the Inherit Layout option) , but the borders were still the full width.

@antigone7 in this comment.

Still trying to get “edge space” – ie margin from edge to orange borders I tried toggling on the “inherit default layout” This didnt make any different to the margin. It just changed the padding. I also added a zero to the block spacing field. Nothing changed. I tried changing the layout toggle to 80 % wide. This changed the internal padding of the block and didnt move the block away from the edges…Why are some settings in the block toolbar and some in the inspector? Why arn’t the same settings (where appropriate) in all similar blocks – ie padding, margins, width available in both groups, and columns?

@alixnotes in this comment.

Still in the template editor I went to view the post. Then trying to get back to the template editor I got the page editor which informed me that there was a saved version that contained changes. (I have been caught by this before – on my own site when making changes in the templates and then going to the page editor, if I had clicked on the revert to saved I potentially might have lost all the changes that I had just tried to make. This is confusing!).

@alixnotes in this comment.

The slightly different variations of the template editing screen were just too confusing for me. As someone who has been trying to work in the FSE for a few months now, I was completely thrown off by the slightly different screen you got when you launch the template editor directly from a post vs the template editor you get when you go to edit site, and then select a template to edit.

@beckej in this comment.

The different controls for different blocks makes it really hard to make something that is consistent and nice. I decided it would be cool to make the user pictures a little bit bigger, like that might make the comments more inviting. Since I made the commenters pictures so big, I said, let’s add in a Post Author block so that the post author’s picture will be shown too! Wait, the Avatar block in the Comments Query loop and the Post Author have completely different control? I can make the avatar any size, but the post author I have a dropdown with 3 choices? I can but a border radius on the avatar block, but not the post author block? If it’s a picture, I should have all the same tools available to me as any other block that uses a picture.

@beckej in this comment.

#fse-outreach-program, #fse-testing-summary

annezazu 5:53 pm on May 25, 2022
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Hallway Hangout: Discussion on Full Site Editing Issues/PRs/Designs (25 May)

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:

@ndiego @karmatosed @shaunandrews @beckej @fabiankaegy @dhansondesigns @codemanas Colin Duwe

Video Recording:

Topics

Style variations

  • Started off checking in on the new Global styles ongoing roadmap overview issue.
  • Ed discussed how he wishes there were options to pick and choose only certain parts of style variations rather than whole variation.
  • In order for that to be an option, there needs to be a combination of improvements/changes including more granularity with saving, the ability to partially switch styles, and exposing more style options. This is somewhat touched on here.
  • Overall, the resounding question was “How can we make it less overwhelming for users?” especially if they might want to take advantage of aspects of the style variations without switching entirely.
  • Right now, there are two extremes without much ease for middle ground options: all the options to customize in Styles vs wholesale full switching between styles (with variations). 
  • What could we offer for theme developers? If we can extend this for themers, they can manage more granular options for their users rather than CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. 

How can we curate the experience? 

  • Colin brought up a very important topic around curating the experience for folks, especially clients. He asked whether there was an issue that summarized the various approaches being taken (there is not and I followed up after around perhaps creating a Discussion issue).
  • This led to a conversation around various curation options through theme.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., template locking, and 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. locking, including being able to control who can do block locking with filters.
  • The question of “How can you build a theme and lock things down/curate for clients?” at the same time came up.
  • For example, clients need to be able to edit the navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. and 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. but don’t touch the logo on the left! You could lock various items down to ensure things aren’t deleted. 
  • In general, there was agreement that the power lies between theme.json and locking options. 
  • During this conversation, a few folks from the agency world mentioned how theme.json is only useful if it works in tooling for existing agencies and design systems. For example, people are struggling a bit switching to theme.json from CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site.. 
  • While, in time, folks should be able to rely on the site editor to build a theme, it’s a big workflow change regardless and not everyone is going to build from there. This is where the power of import/export functionality will be key.
  • Trying to push towards doing these things in theme.json but the amount of uncertainty around even just simply adding a theme.json feels nerve wracking. 

Explore options for standardizing and extending theme.json design tokens for spacing

  • We touched on the desire to standardize spacing options and have the same t-shirt sizing/spacing scale that is being done with typography controls. This will help guide the user while also give them flexibility to choose from some presets.
  • By having standardization, it’ll be easier to have content portability/theme switching/etc.
  • This conversation led to a discussion around how inconsistent the dimension controls are across blocks. It’s hard to know why one option is available in X block but not Y. There’s a sense they should all be available.

Split block tools between “settings” and “appearance” 

  • The initial reaction from two folks was “Ahhh two sets of tabs!” when first seeing some of the designs.
  • When thinking about the various tools, this brought up the question of “What’s a primary or secondary tool for each block?”. It seems wise for an audit of some sort to occur.
  • These pain points relate to both blocks not all having the same controls + understanding what’s in block toolbar vs 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..
  • For folks in the agency world, there’s also an element of how different people need to look at each set of tooling (visual vs content focus) depending on what they are doing (are they a designer or a copy person?).
  • Keynote was shared as an example of an application that manages this experience quite well.
  • We went through 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 as an example of current pain points.

Rows/stacks/group: variations or new blocks?!

  • Right now, the transformation is in sidebar rather than transform menu. There’s an issue open to add the variations to the transform menu.
  • We briefly talked about when does it make sense to have as a standalone block with different controls being exposed rather than variations that comes with inherent limitations? 

New Blocks Adoption label

  • We ended by briefly touching on a new label for items that block adoption for these features.
  • If folks have any they want with that label, please do just let me know and I can add it in!

#fse-hallway-hangout, #fse-outreach-program

ironprogrammer 12:57 pm on May 24, 2022
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Week in Test – 24 May 2022

Hello again! Welcome to a new edition of Week in Test, where contributors of any skill level can find a handy list of links and opportunities to start testing WordPress. Join the Test Team in #core-test for thoughtful discussion, and occassional 🥛 & 🍪.

Did you know that contributions with the Test Team are also a fantastic way to level up your WordPress knowledge and skill? Dive in to contribute, and gain coveted props 😎 for a coming release.

🙋‍♀️ 🙋 Hi, Contributors! Let’s get rolling…

Reproduction Testing 🔁

Who? Any contributor.
Why? It is helpful to show an issue exists for other users in order to move a ticket forward for patching.

The following new tickets are awaiting review, and need testers to attempt to reproduce the reported issue (aka “repro”), and then provide a reproduction test report with the results:

  • #55783: Word break/wrap in button text does not work as expected on frontend (Twenty Seventeen theme).
  • #55751: Filters for next_posts_link_attributes and previous_posts_link_attributes are applying to the opposite links than the filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. names suggest.
  • #55755: Enabling REST APIREST API The REST API is an acronym for the RESTful Application Program Interface (API) that uses HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data. It is how the front end of an application (think “phone app” or “website”) can communicate with the data store (think “database” or “file system”) https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/. on 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. disables 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. (thumbnail) support.

Patch Testing 🩹

Who? All contributors (not just developers) who can set up a local testing environment.
Why? It is necessary to apply proposed patches and test per the testing instructions in order to validate that a patch fixes the issue.

The following tickets have been reviewed and a patch provided, and need testers to apply the patch and manually test, then provide feedback through a patch test report:

  • #52992: Avoid unnecessary overhead when preparing REST API links.
  • #55691: Editor unable to find homepage template when WP_HOME differs from WP_SITEURL (Bedrock and Docker).
  • #17025: Make wp_list_authors() filterable.

PHPUnit Tests 🛟

Who? Any QA or PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. developer contributors who can (or are interested in learning how to) build automated PHPUnit tests.
Why? Automated tests improve the software development 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. for quality and backward compatibility.

The following tickets need PHPUnit tests built to accompany their respective patches:

  • #27048: Allow selection of post types during export.
  • #51986: Resolve PHP warning when not registering endpoint args as array of arrays. Also see unit test suggestion hints in this comment.
  • #54488:  wp_filter_nohtml_kses() does not remove 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. comments.

Read/Watch 📖

Meetings This Week 🗓

  • 24 May 2022 @ 13:00 UTC: <test-chat> in #core-test .
  • 27 May 2022 @ 13:15 UTC: <test-scrub> in #core-test.
  • And don’t forget to provide feedback on the proposal to move weekly <test-chat>/<test-triage> sessions from 13:00 to 16:00 or 17:00 UTC. Join the discussion.

Props to @hellofromtonya and @boniu91 for peer review of this post.

#build-test-tools, #core-test

ironprogrammer 8:11 pm on May 18, 2022
Tags: ,   

Week in Test – 17 May 2022

Welcome to a new edition of Week in Test! This post features a curated list of where and how testers can get involved, regardless of skill level. You can find the Test Team in #core-test.

Did you know that contributions with the Test Team are also a fantastic way to level up your WordPress knowledge and skill? Dive in to contribute, and gain coveted props 😎 for a coming release.

Ready to pitch in? 🙋‍♀️ 🙋 Okay, let’s get started!

Reproduction Testing 🔁

Who? Any contributor.
Why? It is helpful to show an issue exists for other users in order to move a ticket forward for patching.

The following new tickets are awaiting review, and need testers to attempt to reproduce the reported issue (aka “repro”), and then provide a reproduction test report with the results:

  • #55671: A TikTok embed that contains </3 in the description appears to cause a broken anchor tag. This needs testing with additional variations, such as embeds from other sources.
  • #55684: High CPU when publishing a post under PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. 8.1.
  • #55698: Reported that “x” in post content is converted to a double-quote. Refer to the reporter’s notes to attempt to reproduce.
  • #39827: Fix redirect when permalink does not contain trailing slash. This is an old ticket that needs verification that it is still an issue.

Patch Testing 🩹

Who? All contributors (not just developers) who can set up a local testing environment.
Why? It is necessary to apply proposed patches and test per the testing instructions in order to validate that a patch fixes the issue.

The following tickets have been reviewed and a patch provided, and need testers to apply the patch and manually test, then provide feedback through a patch test report:

  • #55721: Use Flexbox to improve Add Plugins screen card alignment.
  • #55448: Prevent empty WP_Widget_Block container when 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. has no output (use 55448.diff).
  • #55290: Apply image edits to all subsizes.

PHPUnit Tests 🛟

Who? Any QA or PHP developer contributors who can (or are interested in learning how to) build automated PHPUnit tests.
Why? Automated tests improve the software development 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. for quality and backward compatibility.

The following tickets need PHPUnit tests built to accompany their respective patches:

  • #55606: Add wp_after_tag_search filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output.. Needs additional feedback for proposed unit test.
  • #54541: Add actions to template loading.
  • #34353: Address missing URI scheme for redirect_canonical().

Read/Watch 📖

Meetings This Week 🗓

  • Proposal for new <test-triage>/<test-chat> time: Join the discussion.
  • 20 May 2022: <test-scrub> starting at 13:15 UTC.

Props to @hellofromtonya for peer review of this post.

#build-test-tools, #core-test

annezazu 12:11 am on April 26, 2022
Tags: ,   

FSE Program Authoring an Author Template Summary

This post is a summary of the thirteenth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. As always, I want to highlight those who helped to bring others along with them in this latest effort: 

Shout out to @hage, @antigone7, @robglidden, @azhiyadev as first-time contributors. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!

High-level summary

To help ground the following feedback, here are some quotes about the overall experience to keep in mind: 

The most frustrating thing to me is still, hands down, the lack of a clear, consistent visual cue or affordance to insert a new 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. on a new parent level after an existing block. Most of the time, when adding a block using the [+] square, the new one is inserted right there, still as a “child” block. List view often comes to the rescue and helps a lot. Without it, everything would be much, much harder to build..This, and the current lack of consistency in styling and spacing options between blocks (some have margins, some don’t, some have colors, some don’t, etc.) is still, in my opinion, one of the main factors keeping users from jumping ship from site builders. 

@piermario in this comment.

Outside of the user-experience issues noted below, everything went well. No editor crashes. No problems saving. And the front-end matched what I was seeing in the editor.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.

Outside of these quotes, a few items proved to be repeatedly mentioned by folks who gave feedback on this test: 

To provide a visual of what this test accomplished, here’s what @greenshady created in his write up for this call for testing:

Author template with a nice header showing a menu, site title, and author description on a light beige background.

Confirmed bugs

Listed below are confirmed bugs that break expected functionality or the experience of different features. 

Previously reported

New Issues

Feature Requests

Most requests in this section touch on items that would improve the experience of an option (quick inserter prioritizing patterns) or block (No results block) rather than a list of desired new functionality. This reflects the fact that much of what folks wanted to do in this call for testing they could reasonably accomplish compared to prior calls.  

New Issues

Previously Reported:

I did not know about the “No Results block”. That was interesting to learn about. Perhaps it should automatically be added with the default text if there are no author posts to show.

@paaljoachim in this comment. 

The Post ExcerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox. block under 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. doesn’t have an option to adjust the excerpt length. (The Latest Posts block does have this option.)

@piermario in this comment.

Working with the block felt odd at first. Where does it go? After the Post Template? Before?…It was also odd to visually edit a feature that is conditionally displayed. There should be an indicator that its contents may or may not be shown on the front end…Overall, the No Results block is a welcome addition to the theme-blocks toolset. I would like to see 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. fleshed out a bit. Theme authors will likely start using this more when 6.0 lands, and I could see users inadvertently trying to delete it, thinking it is part of the default output.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post.

General Usability Feedback

Once more, this call for testing showed the desire to avoid starting from scratch, more consistency across the experience (especially with what options are available to customize blocks), and more connection points between new options. In particular, the inability to link to the Author Template one customized in this call for testing using the Post Author block was repeated numerous times as a pain pointPain point Pain points are “places where you know from research or analytics that users are currently getting hung up and have to ask questions, or are likely to abandon the site or app.” — Design for Real Life. The missing connection there lowers the impact the new author template could have. While this won’t be available for WordPress 6.0, expect to see the option to do so included when the new Post Author Name block is included in a future WordPress release:

The most immediate issue when creating a new author template is that it was devoid of default blocks. Where was the—at minimum—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. and footer? The empty template would make sense if I was building something from scratch. However, this is not a from-scratch project. It was built from a theme with existing archive.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. and index.html files, ancestors in the template hierarchy…Users will most likely want to make modifications rather than start from scratch. Using an ancestor template as a base means that they are less likely to unnecessarily deviate from the existing layout, especially with more complex designs.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post

I feel that menus were a lot more intuitive and easier to manage with the previous system. I wish there were a way to basically tie back the new blocks to a similar interface, which had become familiar and was easy to use even for non-experts.

@piermario in this comment.

I find it difficult in viewing the author template on the frontend and had to use your advice: yoursiteurl.com/author/[username].

@paaljoachim in this comment. 

I had expected that after locking the group block at the header, the cover block contained in it (for example) could also not be moved. But that was possible without any problems. In my opinion, another option would make sense here: Lock all blocks contained in the block. If a group block contains several other blocks, it would be very time-consuming to lock all of them.

@hage in this comment. 

#fse-outreach-program, #fse-testing-summary

annezazu 2:32 am on April 5, 2022
Tags: ,   

FSE Program Hyping Headers Summary

This post is a summary of the twelfth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. As always, I want to highlight those who helped to bring others along with them in this latest effort: 

Shout out to @itsjustdj as the sole first-time contributor for this call for testing. Get excited – you now have a testing contributor badge on your WordPress profile!

High-level summary

The feedback this time around focused on the edges of the experience, especially in terms of design tools, and on some key problem areas that have repeatedly come up around navigating the entirety of the experience, like knowing what templates are used where. On the whole though, there were no deal breakers, big crashes, or show stopping problems found. Here’s what a few people had to say about the experience that can help frame the following more specific feedback:

On the whole, this went surprisingly well. In a year, the site editor has become far more powerful…Without responsive controls on layout-type containers like the Columns 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., designing anything complex with the site editor can sometimes feel like one giant hack…There are tons of improvements with block design tools in comparison to last year…I hit no spacing-related problems in this experiment. That feels gratifying to say after over a year of testing FSE features. The experience of designing from within the site and template editors feels pretty smooth these days. The holdups are more about missing capabilities than anything.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post. 

The Typography settings are particularly satisfying to play around with. It’s nice to have lots of design options before having to use custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site..

@itsjustdj in this comment.

Most of these things are editable in FSE, but it feels like it is up to the creator to explore and it feels a little like a scavenger hunt. I wish there was a way to surface the most important decisions in a linear way. Some kind of “Start Here” guided walkthrough that pros would ignore, but help casual users understand the capabilities of Full Site Editor.

@beckej in this comment.

The ease of laying out the 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. with rows/columns and dropping in site elements (logo/site title/navigation) was awesome.

@cdils in this comment.

Here’s an example of what @greenshady created in his write up on this call for testing:

Header of a pizza restaurant with three different menus in separate locations over top of a picture of pizza.

Of note, since most feedback fell into the usability and feature request categories, the format of this post breaks down by feature more than recent ones that tend to stick with Bugs, Feature Requests, and General Usability headings to make it easier for those working on specific features to follow.

Potential bug

For the first time in this program’s history, zero bugs were found that could be replicated. However, there was one report that I was unable to replicate or find similar reports for that I’ll share below in case someone else can:

I added a spacer block below the navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. and later went to delete it. It moved the content of my site around and my navigation menu was gone, so I reloaded which lost anything that wasn’t saved. It also crashed when I was adding Header Dark Small to the Blank template.

@courane01 in this comment. Check out the comment for more details.

Templates and template parts

With more options available for templates and template parts, there’s an increasing need for better organization and more clarity in the interface to understand the impact of changes, big or small (adding a new template vs editing a template part). This is compounded by the fact that most folks don’t have a strong grasp on the template hierarchy built into WordPress. With newer modes like the focus template part mode, there was also some confusion around why this should be used. This is partially due to lack of awareness around how it can be used in the future as a gradual adoption pathway and due to those pathways not yet existing visually in the editor.

The subtle differences between the FSE screen and the “Focus Mode” screen are a little confusing. Specifically, I really LOVE the new “Replace” button to choose between an existing template or a Pattern. But I wish I could “Replace” with a Pattern even in focus mode. If I came to this screen to really work on my header, why would I have less options here than I have when looking at the full site?

@beckej in this comment.

I really do not know which template affects which pages/posts. So I assume that a Page template affects all the pages. 

@paaljoachim in this comment.

Trying to select the correct group, row, or block in the layout can be hit or miss. When I think I’ve selected the correct one, I accidentally edit something else.

@itsjustdj in this comment.

Isolated mode. I do not see a purpose why I should use it. As I can instead just edit the template directly in the site editor.

@paaljoachim in this comment.

There was a small dot in an accent color under the “Added by” column on the Template Parts screen that (I think) indicated the original template part had been edited. Something a little more obvious there would be nice (for instance, under “Added by” maybe it says [Theme Name], edited by [user]).

@cdils in this comment.

Design tools

Since this test focused specifically on using the Navigation block, various missing customization options came up, particularly for anyone trying to do anything more complex than the average menu. The feedback here echoed previous rounds and underscores the importance of the work that’s underway to expand what’s currently available. 

The Navigation block may be my least favorite thing about the site editor. I have yet to see how it will offer a universal system that plays well with the 1,000s of design variations that theme authors will want to employ. Classic nav menus are still vastly superior for custom design.

@greenshady in this WP Tavern post. 

Patterns

With patterns being increasingly integrated into the site building experience, new pieces of feedback are arising around pattern management. This includes everything from naming best practices to when options should appear to swap between patterns and more. 

Since I had changed the default color scheme on my site, I was confused at first looking at the pattern names. For example, I had set my primary color as Blue, so “Text-only header with green background” was confusing to me at first because it was blue.

@beckej in this comment.

General Usability Feedback

Cutting across the entire experience, familiar feedback came in that touches on some key pain points in the current version of site editing. All of these items have been previously reported:

Of note, it feels important to call out recent work in progress in the dedicated UI for navigation structure, since this both improves the information architecture by grouping site wide tools and implements a form of browse mode many have asked for to make it easier to see more parts of your site as you create. 

Clicking Header or any template section is somewhat difficult, as it easily selects blocks inside of it.

@paaljoachim in this comment.

I miss some of the common controls that were part of every WordPress Customize screen. I wanted to edit my site to have a static homepage and a blogroll elsewhere. I feel like homepage settings, custom css, menus should be somewhere in the FSE experience.

@beckej in this comment.

#fse-outreach-program, #fse-testing-summary