This post summarizes the latest weekly Editor meeting (agenda, slack transcript). This meeting was held in the #core-editor 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/. channel on Wednesday, 17 March, 2021, 10:00 AM EDT and was facilitated by @andraganescu.

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/ 10.3 release 

At the time of the meeting the release process was having some issues, looked at by @gziolo and @bernhard-reiter

WordPress 5.7.1 maintenance release

WP 5.7.1 RC 1 will be on Wednesday 7 April, 2021 around 23:00 UTC and according to @noisysocks  the WordPress 5.7 board is the one to watch for editor updates that will need to land in this release.

Monthly Priorities

The monthly post outlining Gutenberg’s priorities for March 2021 is available.

Global Styles

@nosolosw shared this week’s global styles update:

• Merged a few important things for 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.: add a layout config in theme.json, allow themes to use any style via theme.json whether or not the block supports it, translationtranslation The process (or result) of changing text, words, and display formatting to support another language. Also see localization, internationalization. for custom templates.
• Continue iterating on the 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. supports mechanism: allow skipping the serialization of border.
• Some bugfixes: PR:30088.

Ongoing/Next tasks necessary for MVPMinimum Viable Product "A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development." - WikiPedia:

• theme.json: changes to the format
• block supports: make the button block use the new mechanism
• internationalization: labels for UIUI User interface controlsPR:29155 PR:30075
• extensibility: discussion about the existing filters and how we should enable hooks

And more:

• REST Endpoint for mobile
• Expand border support to color, radius, and width
• Add support for child themes in global styles (not FSE)
• Global Styles label.

Full Site Editing (FSE)

@youknowriad and @vindl shared this week’s update:

• working on making sure the frontend and backend are equivalent for all blocks and themes (as much as we can). The idea being that a user can open the site editor in an unstyled theme, start blank, add blocks bit by bit and having everything look as expected (front and back)

Infrastructure and UI milestone update:

• Fix for template saving issue after switching FSE themes should be merged soon in PR:29842
• Experiments to open browsing 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. to the appropriate template sub-menu landed today (PR:26964, PR:30098)
• Persistent List View now has visual support for multiple selected blocks (PR:29878); its performance has also been improved (PR:29902)
• Block toolbar is no longer overlapping the navigation panel (PR:29918)
• Browsing sidebar will now close after template selection (PR:29956)
• PR for template part block variations in the Inserter was merged (PR:30032), which should unblock the continuation of our work on semantic template parts

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 navigation editor)

@andraganescu and @grzim shared this week’s update:

• the widgets editor progressed a lot by having two PRs landing, one that updated the REST API to work better with widgets and one that added the block inspector as a sliding panel to 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.. Work continues, and the aim is to have blocks in customizer functional in the 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 by the end of the month. Be sure to check things in #feature-widgets-block-editor 

Navigation editor update:

• Minor improvements in styling PR:30168, PR:29832, PR:30129, PR:29975
• Theme location settings moved to sidebar and have more features PR:29458
• Fix of navigation editor toolbar which was disappearing in small screensPR:29967
• Use the interface package for the navigation screen PR:30013
• …and there are also a few other PRs that are nearly completed.

Navigation block

@joen shared this week’s update:

• Layers of CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. has been refactored, dead code removed, inheritance fixed so styles work, and in general from here on out it will just be a great deal easier to manage. At the moment we’re also working on a hamburger menu for better responsive behavior, and it’s looking great already.

Mobile/native

@hypest shared this week’s update:

• Landed various E2E tests related fixes, 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) improvements in UnitControl/StepperCell/RangeCell, removed the cancel button from many settings options on Android, split/merge regressionregression A software bug that breaks or degrades something that previously worked. Regressions are often treated as critical bugs or blockers. Recent regressions may be given higher priorities. A "3.6 regression" would be a bug in 3.6 that worked as intended in 3.5. on Android fixed
• In Progress and Next up: same as previous week’s update

Task Coordination

@annezazu

• FSE Program wrangling (responding to feedback, triaging, figuring out what’s next to test, etc), testing FSE everyday (lots of reported bugs), and some light triagetriage The act of evaluating and sorting bug reports, in order to decide priority, severity, and other factors.!

@ntsekouras

• Keep on explorations with block patterns integrations mostly on Patterns transforms(PR:29890) – could use some feedback/testing there 🙂
• Expose Template part block variations to Inserter
• Code reviews and triaging

@andraganescu

• I have merged a few small PRs, triage and code review mainly for the new block editors (widgets and navigation).

@mamaduka

• Image block now will use image default size from settings. PR:29966
• Added since parameter to the deprecated function. PR:30017
• Added/Updated since versions for deprecated features. PR:30072
• Created PR for Gallery Block pattern to prevent adding all images when adding media. PR:30122

@paaljoachim

• Triaging.
• Focusing on getting more exposure on basic Full Site Editing user issues. Such as the preview drop down, easier save, editing template/post content etc 
• Just made an issue for using a big modal to have a common approach for editing templates/reusable blocks/patterns.

@rafaelgalani

•  I worked on some small PRs to fix some bugs 

Open Floor

@paaljoachim reminded that the new Gallery Block which uses Inner Image blocks has a call for testing. It is a new and awesome way to use the Gallery block, and it has a lot of potential. Go and test it..:)

#chats, #core-editor, #meeting-notes