Tickets and contributions
The Performance Team works on performance-related tickets in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and holds a fortnightly Bug Scrub on Wednesdays; check https://make.wordpress.org/meetings/ for current time.
The large focus of the Performance Team for June was on closing out TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets for the WordPress 6.3 release and performance benchmarking against 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., RC1, and RC2. Based on these benchmarks, the WordPress performance team has successfully committed a series of issues that have contributed to 28% improvement for 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 19% improvement for classic themes, compared to WordPress 6.2 [see spreadsheet]. This is a major achievement in terms of performance . A blog post will be published following the release of WordPress 6.3 to highlight the specific performance improvements.
A few notable inclusions here are client-side performance improvements from adding support for the fetchpriority=”high” attribute and improving the way WordPress applies native lazy-loading to images (please refer to the 6.3 dev note on image performance improvements). Additionally, the introduction of script loading strategies which allow loading scripts with defer or async. This is a major milestone for performance in general (Please read the 6.3 dev note on registering scripts with async and defer to learn more on how you can leverage the APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. as a developer). Database performance improvements were made to lazy-loading metadata, outlined in the 6.3 dev note post on metadata API improvements.
The Performance Team are now looking ahead to the 6.4 release, where a good portion of the focus will be on follow-up enhancements based on the 6.3 launches. The team is also commencing work on some larger pieces from our 2023 performance roadmap including i18n performance analysis (feedback kindly requested on this post), optimizing autoloaded options, automating performance benchmarking and improving template loading.
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 Checker
The Performance Team has successfully completed the QA testing phase and everything is working as expected. The technical documentation for the Plugin Checker tool is now complete and merged. With the documentation in place, it’s now possible to gain a deeper understanding of the tool’s functionality and how it works. For detailed context and information, please refer to the following link: https://github.com/10up/plugin-check/tree/trunk/docs
Team headlines and updates
This month saw the second Performance Hallway Hangout on Thursday July 27 where an overview of the 6.3 performance improvements were discussed, along with a deep dive into the data. The idea of a mid-point merge for 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. https://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php. backports and a more formal workflow for both Core and 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/ teams was also discussed. The notes from the Hallway Hangout can be found here https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/29/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-3/ along with the recording.
The team is looking forward to 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. US which happens in August. For those interested in joining the Performance table at Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/., please reach out to @flixos90 or @clarkeemily to discuss.
Performance Lab Plugin
Performance Lab plugin updates are released monthly on the third Monday of the month.
June’s release 2.5.0 includes further enhancements to creating stand-alone plugins and infrastructure, as well as some small bug fixes. The team is also waiting for the next standalone plugin, Dominant Color Images, to be approved by the plugin review team. Additionally, work has commenced on the next set of enhancements around uncoupling the plugin features from the Performance Lab plugin.
The Performance Lab plugin has also reached 90k active installations this month!