This post summarises the weekly editor chat meeting (agenda here) held on 2021-05-05 14:00 UTC in Slack. Moderated by @get_dave.

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/ 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 release

• At the time of the meeting the latest release was 10.5.4.
• @get_dave noted 10.6 RC is due today (May 5th) with the stable release on May 12th.
• Riad asked for volunteers to release the RC for 10.6 – this was completed post-meeting by @vdwijngaert.

WordPress 5.8

• Feature freeze for Gutenberg for WordPress 5.8 is May 19th (10.7 RC).
• The release schedule for WP 5.8 is available.
• Riad noted that to follow the progress, we have these two things:
  • A project to see all the different mandatory tasks for this release.
  • A merge issue to track the progress of the integration of the Gutenberg updates into trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. before feature freeze date.
• Riad asked for folks to review and help with the experimental APIs in this Issue.
• @gziolo is already working on bringing Gutenberg 10.5 into WordPress trunk.
• @youknowriad is the Editor Tech lead for 5.8.

Full Site Editing Next Steps

• Reminder about Hector Prieto’s Full Site Editing Go/No Go: Next steps post which summarizes scope for Gutenberg in WordPress 5.8.
• To summarise, the scope is roughly:
  • 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. theme building
  • Theme blocks (eg: Query, Navigation, Site Logo…etc) 
  • Template editing within the post editor
  • Widgets Editor & Block Widgets in the CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings. 
  • Persistent List view in the post editor
  • Duotone design tool 
  • Gallery block refactor
• Riad said we’re already in a good state as everything is developed but we may still have to do some calls about whether to keep everything or reconsider some parts of it.

What’s new in Gutenberg

@ajitbohra posted What’s New In Gutenberg for the end of April.

Highlight’s included:

• New block patterns and pattern transformations
• “Template Editing Mode” – enables editing templates without leaving the Post Editor.
• File Block now supports embedding PDFs in most major browser
• Block widgets in the Customizer now have media upload and richtext formats.
• Fix autoscrolling when selecting partially “off screen” blocks.

Key Project updates

Updates were requested for the key projects.

Global Styles

@nosolosw provided an update async via a Github Issue. I have omitted it here for brevity.

@youknowriad also provided us with a summary update:

• the new 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. format merged
• we’re making theme.json stable (no more experimental-theme.json ) in 10.6.

Block based 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. Editor and Customizer.

@andraganescu provided the update.

• The widgets editor has gone through an amazing round of polish.
• Grouped up only late last week, this week all the major testing blockers have had their fixes merged in time for the new Gutenberg release.
• The aim is to have a call for testing as soon as possible to collect feedback on the state and progress of the project.

Navigation Block

@joen provided an async update:

• Still primarily focused on navigation block, and to enable patterns.
• Hoping to help land the hamburger menu PR, which I’d appreciate your eyes on: github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/30047

@mkaz also provided:

• Responsive hamburger menu aiming for GB 10.7 PR-30047 eyes welcome
• Dynamic Home URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org is the last must-have for 5.8 in progress and looking good  PR-30926
• Refining placeholder and design

Navigation Editor screen

@get_dave provided an update:

• The Nav editor continues to see steady progress.
• We now have all entity (post, page, tagtag A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses tags to store a single snapshot of a version (3.6, 3.6.1, etc.), the common convention of tags in version control systems. (Not to be confused with post tags.)…etc) block variations serialising to/parsing from their respective nav_menu_items. So when you add a Post link it stays synced to that Post.
• We also have lots of work going on regarding notifying users about unsaved changes.
• Both nav block and editor features have also seen background improvements to stability and test coverage.

Full Site Editing

The meeting agreed this was mostly covered by the above items.

@paaljoachim did ask if someone could provide an async update on the Page templates.

Feel free to leave an update in the comments if you have one.

Mobile Team

• Shipped:
  • Block Editor Settings Endpoint ( https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/29969)
  • Added a fix for the Press action on sliders (https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/gutenberg-mobile/pull/3404),
  • Started work on iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. share extension
• In Progress:
  • Gallery Block Refactor ( https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/26823)
  • Editor Onboarding
  • Global Style Support – Colors
  • Reusable blocks
  • Adding search to the block inserter
  • Embed block
  • Slash inserter ( https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/29772 )

Task Coordination

@annezazu:

• the usual grinding away for the FSE Outreach Program!
• starting to answer round two of questions (submit by May 12th).
• ran a hallway hangout to chat about FSE items.
• updated documentation to include how to run group testing.
• winding down the fifth call for testing.
• Summary post for the fifth call for testing should be shipped this week.

@aristath:

• Last week was Greek/Orthodox Easter so it was a half working week here:
• Continued working on PR to autogenerate anchors for headings – #30825. Could use a review after today’s updates.
• Font-sizes can now use non-px values – #31314
• WIP – Worked on splitting the theme.css file to conditionally load parts for rendered blocks only – #31239 (same as what we previously did for the style.css file).
• This week & next week I plan to continue working on 5.8 tickets, converting the quote block to nested blocks, and improving the sustainability of block themes. Hopefully I won’t need to continue working on the autogenerate-anchors PR ’cause it will be merged.

@mamaduka:

• Primarily focused on the new Navigation Editor.
• I pushed another update for the “Most used terms” feature and based on the latest feedback. I think it’s in a good place to merge into the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
• There’s also a new PR Site/Template editor welcome guide if anyone wants to test and provide feedback.

@paaljoachim:

• highlighting these issue that need feedback:
• Improving multi-entity saving UIUI User interface method https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/31456 
• Move post/page title to the top bar. (As the Post Title block will be included in WP 5.8. The following issue would be helpful to have a very first iteration in place.) https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27093

@get_dave:

• I’ve been working mostly on the Navigation editor. Focused primarily on fixing serialization and parsing:https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/31004
• Also iterating on a longstanding idea to add “rich” metadata to links to direct URLs in the link UI. We have a 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/. endpoint and I have a POC implementation which will need design and technical refinement.

@ntsekouras:

• Add semantic wrapper element in Query block(https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/31421)
• Fix redo/undo icons for RTL languages(https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/31219)

@vdwijngaert:

• Working on an accessible (and reusable) way of describing a path (eg: go to Settings > Reading) to follow, came up in 31122
• Resuming work on the first step of duplicating post/page title to the top toolbar (issue: 27093, PR: 31288 )
• Tweaking the ImageResizeControl behavior, now it returns NaN when empty or invalidinvalid A resolution on the bug tracker (and generally common in software development, sometimes also notabug) that indicates the ticket is not a bug, is a support request, or is generally invalid. 31355
• Gave a go at fixing block conversion for <!–more–> tag in the middle of a paragraph 31374, could use a review.

@desrosj

• related to the wrapper element selectors that we’ve been adding, I did open up https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/31502 to address a few concerns I thought of there.
• Feedback is welcome!

@jorgefilipecosta:

• Helping the merge of the theme.json shape changes (with reviews suggestions etc).
• I also made some PR reviews not related to global styles.
• I added some PR’s removing unused code 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.’s and stabilising other API’s.
• Changed the way the global styles cpt is associated to a theme to use a taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. like the other FSE post types do.
• Finishing a refactoring to the link color to use an elements + the same mechanism as duotone/layout instead of css variables.
• I will work on moving theme.json to core and the code changes required to be core first code.
• I plan on fixing some old issues/tasks where I have been pinged and have some insights.
• And if time allows I plan on starting the work on dashboard that shows the performance metrics on each commit merged to trunk.

Open Floor

Note for task coordination purposes: Automattic will be on remote virutal 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. next week.

@annezazu noted for task coordination purposes that much of Automattic that focuses on the editor space is going to be on a remote, virtual  meetup next week (12th & 13th). It might mean less of us coming to the core editor chat or slightly less responsiveness during those days but it’ll probably depend on the person.

Please reconnect your 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/ and WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ accounts.

• @desrosj flagged issue with some GitHub and WordPress.org connections where tokens expired for some users.
• If you have previously connected your GitHub account to your WordPress.org account, please head over and verify the connection is still active!
• If you have never connected your accounts, please do! This is a huge help for the release squads when they compile the list of props for a given release.
• We always want everyone to receive proper recognition for their contributions, and this is a huge help with matching contributions to Gutenberg on GitHub to a .org profile. 
• More info on connecting your Github profile to your WordPress.org account.

Opt out Plugin to be used to disable the block based Widgets editor.

@paaljoachim wanted to highlight this issue: Add a plugin to disable the block based Widgets editor.

As a plugin has been added if/when a user wants to go back to using the Classic Widget screen. I am hesitant. As it should be easier to jump between old <-> new.

@andraganescu responded:

“Easier” is complex. Adding buttons to switch in and out may sound easier, but using the same system that has been used for years via plugins can be easier as well. Opening that issue, I did think about the option to add an “opt out” button. But that would mean adding an opt in button as well. And that would mean adding a user setting. And, if not a user setting then a way to store the opt in state. This, as the welcome screen in the Guteneberg editor has shown us, is not a reliable way.

@andraganescu indicated there would be a “Welcome screen” on first use of the new Widget editor with clear information about how to install the Plugin to easily opt out.

@andraganescu also confirmed there will be multiple touch points:

• Post install page.
• Welcome screen.
• Make post with more information.

Wrap up

Due to the meeting taking longer than usual @get_dave wrapped up by encouraging any further open floor questions to be left async as a comments (below).

Thanks to everyone who attended.

#core-editor, #core-editor-summary, #meeting-notes, #summary