Author Archives: Tracy Levesque

Tracy Levesque 6:56 pm on March 10, 2015  

Recap of March 10, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

We had a couple new folks in the chat – awesome! We had a quick intro to who we are and what we do to orient new people. @bethsoderberg came up with the idea of making a short, sweet, and informative introduction for the weekly chats.

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Basic WordPress concepts (@courtneyengle)
    Courtney wondered if exercise are needed for this lesson plan, because this class could be run without needing a WordPress install for every student. Also, the Settings section was wrapping funny. The group decided this will be a demo-only lesson. No exercises will be necessary.

    @bethsoderberg not to worry, Meghan or she will figure it out when they copy edit.

  • Post Formats (@courtneyengle)
    First the group decided that there should be a Post Formats lesson plan in the User track to explain the general concept. Next Courtney wanted to know if she could use a non-coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. theme (_s or Simone) to teach adding support for Post Formats to themes. That led to a short debate over having a policy on using non Twenty* themes in lesson plans. Other Courtney (@courtneydawn) suggested we take the week to think on that. Please post any comments regarding this below.
  • How to find help with WordPress (@abuango)
    Abubakar posted his lesson plan in the #forums Slack channel and got great suggestions from a couple of the folks there. He has gathered all suggestions and will definitely present an updated lesson plan next week.

Other Items

  • Abandoned Plans
    Courtney O and Beth will be revisiting the abandoned lesson plans this Friday
Tracy Levesque 7:53 pm on March 3, 2015
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Recap of March 3, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • How to find help with WordPress (@abuango)
    Abubakar received some feedback from @bethsoderberg and the rest of the group.

Other Items

  • Style Guide (@bethsoderberg)
    Beth added Skitch and Monster 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. to the style guide. She is planning on writing a little Skitch tutorial once I add the new screenshots to @suzettefranck‘s lesson plan. The group discussed adding the XML sample content for themes to the style guide.
  • Profile Badges
    @samuelsidler got us up-to-date on the Training profile badge situation. Meta folks are trying to figure out why the training badge isn’t showing up. There is a ticket for it: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/918We also talked about automating badges. @liljimmi proposed: editing a lesson plan or having a user role of Editor and above earns a badge. People agreed that any edit should earn a badge, but not just having an author user role.

    @juliekuehl mentioned wanting to keep a manual option for folks who test plans.

  • 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. Lancaster was great! 5 folks from Team Training gave a presentation on non-code ways to contribute to WordPress.

#procedures

Tracy Levesque 9:06 pm on February 17, 2015
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Recap of February 17, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

Other Items

  • Style Guide
    We decided to add Skitch for screen shot annotations and the Monster Widget plugin for widget placeholders to the Style Guide.We would like feedback from folks on a preferred XML file for sample content https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Unit_Test or http://wptest.io/

#procedures

Tracy Levesque 9:35 pm on February 10, 2015
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Recap of February 10, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Today we had a full house – glad so many people could attend!

News Lesson Plans!

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Choosing and Installing Plugins (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette had a style question re: callouts and arrows. There should be examples of callouts. @bethsoderberg said you she would think about that and come back next week with a solution, because the style guide was unclear about what specific callouts should look like.
  • Managing Media (@mikemueller)
    Mike: “I would love someone to look over the managing media and let me know what I am missing” @courtneydawn and @suzettefranck volunteered to look it over.

Other Items

  • Abandoned Plans
    We came up with a policy for contacting MIA lesson plan authors before a plan is considered abandoned and up for grabs. After 3 unanswered contacts and 3 meetings have been missed it will go back into the pool.
  • Spreadsheet
    Our Google Spreadsheet is woefully out of date. We want to open it up for more folks to edit. We decided to open it up to folks who are lesson plan authors and have regularly attended at least 3 meetings.
  • Supportflow
    We are up and running with Supportflow! Thank you, @iandunn
  • NUX
    Team Training is strongly encouraged to join the New User Experience Working Group. More info: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/02/05/4-2-community-initiative-nux-working-group/
  • 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. Lancaster – Feb 28 (@courtneyengle, @courtneydawn, @liljimmi, @bethsoderberg and @juliekuehl)
    Sildes are due 2/18. We can regroup here for that throughout the week. Just tag each other.

#procedures

Tracy Levesque 8:10 pm on January 20, 2015  

Recap of January 20, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Managing Media (@mikemueller)
    Mike is almost done with Media Manager: “I have the document, image, and sound done, just need to do the video aspect and then the questions.””
  • Choosing and Installing Plugins (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette: “I have added screenshots and finalized the lesson, and it is ready for copy-editing.”

Testing lesson plans

  • Intro to CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. (@kdrewien)
    Kathy reported back on testing Into to CSS at a MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area.: “Feedback from my colleagues afterward suggested a more thorough description of what CSS is before the walkthrough. The walkthrough took a lot longer than I anticipated even after eliminating one of the exercises. It took 45 minutes to get everyone logged in to 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.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. Practice Site Demo and 2 hours for exercises”
  • General
    We will make a column for time on the spread sheet and enter in the time it took based on live testing.

Other Items

  • Copyediting (@bethsoderberg)
    Beth recruited a potential new copyeditor, Rob. She will coordinate with him.
  • 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. Lancaster – Feb 28 (@courtneyengle, @courtneydawn, @liljimmi, @bethsoderberg and @juliekuehl)
    Courtney set a deadline date of a week before WCLanc to get slide content done. Tracy is going to create a repo on 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/ of a base reveal.js deck and make Courtney, Beth, Julie and Courtney contributors. We can all work on it that way.
Tracy Levesque 6:40 pm on January 13, 2015
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Recap of January 13, 2015 Meeting

Recap of January 13, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Choosing and Installing Plugins (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette needs another week to get the screen shots in.

Testing lesson plans

  • Intro to CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. (@chanthaboune)
    Josepha reported back on testing Into to CSS at a MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area.: “our biggest problem was not having slides (I know this is a trouble spot for us). But we got overwhelmingly positive feedback on the content and the structure of the lesson. There were some nitpicky things people mentioned which I am still compiling and there were some presenter pain points as well.”

Other Items

  • Slides (@bethsoderberg)
    Beth will work on a 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. mockup of slides and then we will find 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 developer to help us turn it into a plugin we can submit to the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team.
  • 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. Lancaster – Feb 28
    @courtneyengle submitted a speaker submission to present on non-code ways to contribute to WordPress.

#slides

Tracy Levesque 7:40 pm on January 6, 2015
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Recap of January 6, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Choosing and Installing Plugins (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette is done a first draft and got feedback from the group – it looks great! She is going to work on it more and have it ready for copyediting next week.

New lesson plans!

Other Items

  • Slides (@bethsoderberg)
    Beth and Jan are working on Slides
  • Supportflow (@liljimmi)
    @iandunn says he’s waiting on @nacin to create our account. We gave him a gentle reminder.
  • 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. Lancaster – Feb 28
    A bunch of us from Team Training will be there and are putting in a speaker submission to present on non-code ways to contribute to WordPress.

#procedures, #slides

Tracy Levesque 7:17 pm on December 16, 2014
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Recap of December 16, 2014 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Managing Media (@mikemueller)
    Mike shrank the video down to 4mb and was able to upload a mp3. He is all set to finish the lesson plan.

Other Items

  • Content Audit 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 (@juliekuehl)
    Julie did a blog entry on requesting the Content Audit Plugin https://make.wordpress.org/training/2014/11/08/request-for-the-content-audit-plugin/ She will also ask about it on the meta channel.
  • Profile icons (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette gave us an update. The automatic icon system is broken, so icons have to be entered in manually. They are working on fixing it.
  • Supportflow (@liljimmi)
    Tracy chatted with @iandunn at the Community meeting and he is going to help get us up and running with Supportflow.

#content-audit, #procedures

Tracy Levesque 5:39 pm on December 16, 2014  

Agenda for December 16, 2014

Agenda:

  • New people in the training chat
  • Status of lesson plans in progress
    • Lesson Plan, status (done/copyedited/etc), issues
  • New lesson plan assignments
    • Do you need a new/first assignment?
  • Other Items
    • Copy Editor update
    • Style Guide Update
Tracy Levesque 7:21 pm on December 9, 2014
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Recap of December 9, 2014 Meeting

Slack log (Requires 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/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Choosing and Installing Plugins (@suzettefranck)
    In progress. Suzette expects to have more time to work on it after WCLV this weekend
  • Managing Media (@mikemueller)
    Mike ran into a stumble on the media part. He created the video and sound files, but can’t upload them due to file size limitation issues. Mike is going to edit the video down to make the filesize under the 8mb maximum.
  • High Level Overview (@GregF)
    It is complete and ready to be copy edited

New lesson plans!

Other Items

  • Copy editing/Style Guide (@meaganhanes and @bethsoderberg)
    Beth: I went through all of the in progress lesson plans and did some basic formatting standardization to sync everyone up with all of the style guide changes that have happened in the last month or so. This was mostly removing a lot of extraneous horizontal rules, taking away the h4 tags, and fixing lots of quiz formatting. Obviously everything still needs to be copy edited once done, but hopefully this will fix some of the totally random formatting inconsistencies we’ve seen. I also replaced all of the starter text that Julie had added to lots of the Theme lesson plans to make the h4/quiz format changes there, but I’m not sure where she stored the original template and so I haven’t replaced that one.
  • Slides
    @bethsoderberg: I chatted with Jan a bit about the slides and so she is getting started on that project. I’ll check in with her sometime this week. Basically, the requirements I conveyed are as follows:
    • sample slides to work from are yours for the child themes lesson plan
    • goal is to compliment the lesson plan and go between live demos
    • basic templates needed for slides with a headline and text, just text, a headline and an image, slides to handle the quizzes that we have at the end of each lesson, and anything else Jan sees as a common pattern
    • format in 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./CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. – I offered to code them if that’s useful
    • need a print stylesheet
    • font stack that has presentable options for all computers
    • compatibility with existing style guide/need to document design patterns, etc. for the slides in that documentation

    Also, could we use something like Jenn Schiffer’s SimpleSildes to house them on our .org site and present them at workshops.

  • Copy editing/Style Guide (@meaganhanes and @bethsoderberg)
    Beth: I went through all of the in progress lesson plans and did some basic formatting standardization to sync everyone up with all of the style guide changes that have happened in the last month or so. This was mostly removing a lot of extraneous horizontal rules, taking away the h4 tags, and fixing lots of quiz formatting. Obviously everything still needs to be copy edited once done, but hopefully this will fix some of the totally random formatting inconsistencies we’ve seen. I also replaced all of the starter text that Julie had added to lots of the Theme lesson plans to make the h4/quiz format changes there, but I’m not sure where she stored the original template and so I haven’t replaced that one.
  • Proposed Lesson Plans (@liljimmi)
    Tracy entered all Proposed User Track lessons into the handbook that have not yet been added. She also descriptions to Proposed lesson plan lists and links to the plans themselves
  • Outstanding Issues
    • Supportflow? – Supportflow is showing up in the admin, but it is not hooked up to anything. We need a way to answer contact forms. Help, please!
    • Profile icons – Can we get the training icon on team training member profiles? @jenmylo

#copyedit, #procedures, #slides