The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.
If you’d like to help test Full Site Editing, please join the FSE Outreach Program. You can find current calls for testing for this program here and you can join the fun in #fse-outreach-experiment.
Similar to my last post, I wanted to share the upcoming schedule for the FSE Outreach Program for June and July in order to ideally help people participate more in what’s to come and to know what to expect. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask here or to DM me in 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/. (@annezazu).
Outside of the work above, there will continue to be live streams, hallway hangouts, important posts flagged, etc.
| Date | CfT #7 | Theme.json CfT | 5.8 RC CfT |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 9 | |||
| June 16 | End | ||
| June 23 | Start | ||
| June 30 | Start | ||
| July 7 | |||
| July 14 | End | ||
| July 21 | End |
This program has many pieces to it and there are tons of ways to get involved. At a high level, here are ways to help:
For any of the items that involve working with me directly, please comment on this post or message me directly (@annezazu) so I know you’re interested and we can talk through what helping out might mean. To those of you already doing this work, thank you so much! It all truly helps.
#fse-outreach-program, #full-site-editing
Here is the agenda for the upcoming Test Team meeting scheduled for 2021-06-08 13:00.
This meeting is held in the #core-test channel in the Making WordPress 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/..
The following posts are calls for testing (CfT):
Do you have something to propose for the agenda? Please leave a comment below.
Can’t make the meeting? Share anything relevant for the discussion in a comment below.
The following is a summary of the bi-weekly Test Team triage meeting that occurred on 2021-06-01 13:00. A full transcript can be found here in the #core-test channel in the Make WordPress Slack. Meeting was moderated by @hellofromtonya.
Triage meetings are held every other Tuesday at 13:00 UTC. Reference to triage meetings announcement.
Following links were shared:
@hellofromtonya shared tickets #34012 and #16773 are scheduled for testing.
@francina shared that she didn’t work on #39827 but it’s still in her queue. @boniu91 to send a copy of the premium 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 license for testing.
<!--more--> is still relevant@francina and @justinahinon raised creating a P2 to announce adoption of Jest + Puppeteer as the e2e setup for Core and need for handbook updates. This is a follow-up to a previous P2 by @francina.
Action: Create a draft for team review
@francina raised suggestion to restart the team’s meetings.
Team agreed to do these meetings same day and time but on alternating Tuesdays starting next week.
Action: @hellofromtonya to add to meetings calendar. Done ✅
Action: @hellofromtonya to gather topics from team and create agenda for 1st team meeting
This post is a summary of the sixth call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! Special thanks to @piermario for translating the call for testing into Italian once more. Translations are such a big help as they really help bring the wider community along.
As a reminder, the seventh call for testing is currently underway and you’re welcome to join!
How far can one go?
Once more, I’m excited to share @greenshady’s creative take on this call for testing that utilizes some awesome custom colors and reuses a logo from the WC Birmingham team:
High Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that’s helpful to keep in mind as it’s easy to get into the themes or details without seeing the big picture of how using template editing mode felt. For most, they felt it was smoother than expected but that the outcome still was lacking in terms of creating a truly refined template.
It was fun! I liked testing the new features and feeling like I was contributing to WP. I didn’t realize you could drag and drop blocks! What a cool idea to place the Page Title in the Cover 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.! Always learning new things.
@askdesign in this comment.
In the very broadest sense, yes. Someone in an earlier call-for-testing made a simple but eloquent comment where they described the overall output of the editor as a “website-shaped object”. I’m not sure what this means in terms of specific missing features, but, without an awful amount of work on the part of both theme developer and content editor, this still best sums up the resulting output for me.
@chthnc in this comment.
The problem is that custom templates are tied to the theme. I see the logic in this. Certain aspects could be specific to the active theme (colors, fonts, etc.), and it is always how custom templates have worked. However, the block template system is different. From a user viewpoint, I feel like my custom-created templates belong to me rather than the theme. I can see a user switching themes after a couple of years and building a dozen or so templates having a poor experience in this situation. If the feature remains the same, there should be more clarity.
@greenshady in this post.
Repeated Feedback: Settings Improvement and switching between editing modes (template vs page/post)
This section is dedicated to repeated items from previous calls for testing and solely focuses on new items that have come up in these same groupings. As has been noted across various tests, the placement of settings is not always intuitive with some options feeling hidden in the Block Settings under “Advanced” sections and others named/placed in a way that makes it hard to know what the option controls.
While lots of work has been done to improve the experience of switching between modes, this was still mentioned a few times as an experience that remains a bit confusing. As noted here, there are three ways that visually help indicate when you’ve switched into template editing mode:
At this point though, work remains to make the experience more seamless, including some updates to the Welcome Guide and some explorations around being able to view a template while editing content.
The “settings cog” is not actually a settings cog, it’s the show/hide for the main editor details side bar. The main Side-bar holds the very important Block and Page controls, including “publish”. These controls are not really the “cog type” broad ranging “settings” we might see in the main Settings section of WP-admin we see true settings. The 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. contents are more like “Edit controls” and we might more usually expect a pen icon, or a sidebar show./hide icon for this sidebar show/hide. The actual “settings” for the 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/ editor are under 3 vertical dots. Titled (invisibly) “Options”. This terminology and labelling or lack of it is confusing.
@steve-pheriche in this comment.
When I’m in “Template Editing Mode” there’s this large black space around the canvas area of the editor. I think this is supposed to help me understand that I’m not editing a single document, but rather that I’m editing something more.
@shaunandrews in this post.
After taking care of the Advanced section, it took me several minutes to find the “Layout” area. I think it would be better to begin with the Layout and work our way down to the Advanced settings. With something as important as Title and Area, why don’t we move those 2 items up to the top of the Block section?
@askdesign in this comment.
It took me a while to find out where the Full Width settings were. I forgot it was under “Change alignment”, next to the block icon, but I didn’t even open it as I thought it had to do with text alignment (Left, Center, Right). This seems weird, is that the best button label we can have?
@piermario in this comment.
Crash Reports
There were multiple crashing reports including one due to an issue with Duotone, which has already been reported and fixed. For the other crashing reports, they were difficult to replicate and issues were not created but it’s worth noting that four people reported various crashes, the most of any call for testing.
Not until the very end, after I was finished. I went back to edit the template and got this error message a couple of times: “The editor has encountered an unexpected error.”
@askdesign in this comment.
Trying again I was not able to trigger the crash. So that suggests there needs to be some very specific order of events, or item selected. My main browser which I experienced the crash on is the FF Developer Browser, 89.0b13.
@steve-pheriche in this comment.
Initial Template Setup Improvements
Because this test involved setting up a brand new template rather than editing an existing one, there were a few items of feedback around the experience, including around just how “blank” the blank template is. The intention is for it to be fairly empty with basic blocks in place so a user can both get a sense of what can be done there and can easily make it their own without having to delete too many items. In time, this is where Patterns should be very advantageous to quickly build up desired content in a template.
When I first created a new custom template I was surprised by its content. I’d become used to the Site editor copying the index template.
@bobbingwide in this comment.
Usability feedback
Outside of the new items listed below, it’s important to note that having consistent dimension controls was mentioned repeatedly for a variety of blocks including the Columns Block and Template Part Block. The work to bring these controls is thankfully underway!
If you want to add a paragraph block to the Cover and that block includes a longer text, there seems to be no way to make that block of text narrow.
@agabu in this comment.
Confusing: adding the pages to Navigation. I wouldn’t have known I needed to use the Page Link block if you hadn’t instructed me to do so.
@agabu in this comment.
I think it would be good to add padding and margin options to the columns block.
@askdesign in this comment.
My initial impulse when attempting to rename the template part was to click on the block heading text “Untitled Template Part”. Instead of making the title editable, I was offered the option to transform the block.
@chthnc in this comment.
One part that was somewhat unclear is the alignment options aren’t reflected in the editor vs how they display on the site. Specifically for the custom footer section, when selecting full width I see it is applied when I view on the front-end, but in editor it was not full-width. I figured out that I needed to set the footer to full width as well as the columns within to full width to see it reflected in editor.
@circlecube in this comment.
Collection of Miscellaneous Bugs & Enhancements
As with every call for testing, it’s not just for finding bugs! It’s also important to hear about features that people reach for and find are missing. This section is a “catch-all” to cover all additional features and bugs that were reported that didn’t nicely correspond with a particular block or categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging..
When viewing the page on the front-end, it would be great to have the ability to open its template directly from the top admin bar.
@agabu in this comment.
While performing this test I thought, “Why can’t I pick the template upon which my new template should be modelled?” It makes sense to be able to use a template as a template. This would be a nice feature.
@bobbingwide in this comment.
Choosing the pages in the nav was strange. The search is essential of course but it feels it could have a scroll to show all the pages (lazyload if many?)
@ridesirat in this comment.
The following is a summary of the bi-weekly Test Team triage meeting that occurred on 2021-05-28 13:00. A full transcript can be found here in the #core-test channel in the Make WordPress Slack. Meeting was moderated by @hellofromtonya.
Triage meetings are held every other Tuesday at 13:00 UTC. Reference to triage meetings announcement.
Following links were shared:
Started triage session using this ticket query report. During the meeting, this report was refined to this report.
needs-testing-info keyword. Done ✅Trac link https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/50924
needs-testing keyword be removed?dev-feedback keywordThis is the seventh call for testing as part of the Full Site Editing Outreach Program! As mentioned in the sixth testing call, if you haven’t been able to participate yet, now is a great time to do so leading up to 5.8.
For more information about this outreach program, please review this FAQ for helpful details. To properly join the fun, please head to #fse-outreach-experiment in Make Slack for future testing announcements, helpful posts, and more.
As a reminder, Template Editing Mode is the feature of Full Site Editing that unlocks the ability to switch between editing an individual’s post/page content and the template that an individual post/page uses. With this feature, you can create a new template, edit current ones, and select which template you want to use for pages/posts. You can learn more about this feature in the following video:
To ground this test in a real-world example, we’re going to build out a portfolio page showcasing your hypothetically amazing work. If you use the demo content, you’ll embrace your inner architect and show off visuals of pretend locations, like 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. 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 Harbor 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/ Parkour Space. Please share a screenshot in your comment so we can celebrate what you’ve made. For inspiration, here’s my example and here are a few high end example from some designers using Gutenberg.
Note: Compared to the sixth call for testing, this is an intentionally more open-ended call for testing setup to have you, the tester, push this feature to its limits. Have fun with it!
While there’s more information below to ensure you get everything set up properly, here are the key aspects to have in place with your testing environment:
Generally speaking, please use the latest versions of each part of the setup and keep in mind that versions might have changed since this post was shared.
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
While this call for testing is focused on testing a specific feature, you’ll likely find other bugs in the process of testing with such a 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. feature! Please know any bugs you find are welcome in your report for testing, even if they aren’t directly applicable to the tested feature.
Known issues:
While creating this call for testing, a few issues popped up that you, too, might experience as you go through this. Rest assured they have been reported. Here’s a nonexhaustive list of the most serious items:
Known issues are expected to be found at this stage in development for something that’s so actively being iterated upon.
Setup Instructions:
Setting up your portfolio page
Creating and customizing a new template
Customization Instructions/Ideas:
While the last test was meant to guide you through the specifics of creating a customized template, this test is meant to allow you to explore what customization might look like for you. This makes for a more open-ended and expansive test that should help you explore the edges of the experience and, ideally, find both bugs and enhancement requests! Because there are two points of customizations in this test, the following instructions/ideas are broken down to cover each. Remember that what’s shared below is just the beginning of the customization you can try out!
Portfolio Page ideas:
Portfolio Template ideas:
What to notice:
Remember to share a screenshot of what you created if you’re up for it!
Please leave feedback in the comments of this post. If you’d prefer, you’re always welcome to create issues in this GitHub repo directly for Gutenberg and in this GitHub repo for TT1 Blocks. If you leave feedback in 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/, please do still comment below with the link. If you see that someone else has already reported a problem, please still note your experience with it below, as it’ll help give those working on this experience more well-rounded insight into what to improve.
Note: Originally feedback was set to be due by June 9th but this has been updated to June 16th to give more time for feedback.