Agenda written by @estelaris. Dev chat Notes by @webcommsat. Meeting facilitated by @marybaum

Start of the DevChat meeting, in the CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds 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/. channel

Agenda

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. 3

Update from @hellofromtonya
Beta 3 is next week in 6 days, i.e. December 14, 2021. Efforts are focused on fixing bugs identified in the beta cycle. There are some new bugs identified where tickets were reopened or new ones created. Help in testing and fixing is greatly appreciated in:
– Milestone’s report for Core specifically
– List of items for Gutenberg

Overall, progress looks to be on track. Not currently seeing any red flags.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to 5.9.

@mkaz: The list of dev notesdev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include: a description of the change; the decision that led to this change a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. relating to the release is on GitHub rather than as a spreadsheet.

Blogblog (versus network, site) posts to note

WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 fixed 24 bugs reported by contributors and needs testing. If you can help, please report your findings on the announcement post.

The Editor Chat Summary highlights improvements made by the team.

Gutenberg 12.1 RC1 was released.

@audrasjb published the latest issue of A Week in Core (6 December 2021).

And remember that the release schedule has been revised.

WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 – Can you help test the latest software version of WordPress? 5.9 Beta 2 was published on 7 December 2021, please help find any bugs.

Update from Component Maintainers

Build/Test Tools, Date/Time, General, I18Ni18n Internationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill., Permalinks

Update from @sergeybiryukov: no major news this week. 

Help/About

Update from @webcommsat: About Page and related materials.

• Monday 6 December 2021 20:30 UTC collaboration
  • Key areas covered: sections, video options, discussion on the navigation 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..
• Wednesday 8 December 2021, 15:00 UTC plus async
  • Start of the more detailed exploration of key benefits by audience and messaging for social media .
  • Also provided an earlier time for anyone wishing to collaborate than the Monday 20:30 UTC sessions.
• Follow the discussions: Links to all of these sessions are in the TracTrac An open source project by Edgewall Software that serves as a bug tracker and project management tool for WordPress. ticket and in the Marketing Team GitHub card to help people follow along and get involved, especially those less familiar with Trac.
• Next live collaboration session on slack: this will take place on Monday13 December 2021, at 20:30 UTC in core.
• Over the next few days, @marybaum and @webcommsat will continue to bring together the different suggestions. Please do continue to add to the documents and spreadsheet asynchronously or reach out if you have a query. Thanks so much and to everyone from core, marketing, training and documentation that have been contributing.
• Request for input: Dev and extenders insights are particularly needed.
  • You can also contribute to the spreadsheet created by @webcommsat for marcomms. This has different tabs for major audience groups, and information will be broken down by subject in each tab, eg Navigation Block. If you have a suggestion, please add it to the sheet and include the feature area in brackets to help us categorize them. To avoid the problems of internet spamming, @vimes1984 after testing has set the spreadsheet to comment mode. Anyone can add insights by opening the link, and clicking on ‘comment’ in the relevant tab. If anyone has difficulty with using it or has a query, please let us know on Slack (abhanonstopnewsuk). We have options for those who need an alternative format for accessibilityAccessibility 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). A post with more information to help contributors will be published later today and a link added to this post. @hellofromtonya suggested making it available on the core blog too.
  • @marybaum: One question we want to answer now is, think of the times you’ve been working on the front end of a site, going back and forth between your code and the block editor.
  • How does 5.9 make your life easier? For instance, almost every time I do a redesign, I forget I have to rebuild the menus until the last minute. Now the Nav Block means menus stay intact)
  • @costdev: Also another way to think about it for non-dev users:
    • Install 5.8.2 and try to create a site. At what points would you need to install another theme, 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, or hire a developer to make a change?
    • Install 5.9.0 Beta 2. What items are no longer on that list?
    • 5.9 benefits both dev and non-dev users, so this is a great way to highlight where non-dev users get “stuck” without extenders.
  • Further insight on the dev benefits from 5.9 requested. This will be the focus of the session on Monday 13 December 2021, 20:30 UTC in the core slack channel. @costdev hopes to attend and bring a list from testing.

Open Floor

Upgrade issue 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/ 12/1 and 5.9 Beta 2

@nickdiego: Raised a Gutenberg issue that he and @ Brian Gardner found after upgrading to 12.1 and 5.9 Beta 2. They have been exploring the issue and wanted to get visibility for it before raising a Trac ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.. Nick highlighted that the issue has a big impact, and is likely to do with merging code from Gutenberg to Core. He can create a ticket if needed.

@hellofromtonya: A Trac ticket isn’t necessary as once it’s fixed it will get backported with each Monday’s updates. She also highlighted the issue in the core-editor channel for suggestions and adding to the 5.9 project board. She thanked Nick and Brian for testing and identifying the issue.

@jeffpaul: requested view from @oandregal on the ticket.

Plugin upgrader

@costdev: In #core-auto-updates, they have been running through an issue with changes to the plugin upgrader. There’s been a lot of investigation done so far. They will make a decision on Friday about whether we can get this into 5.9 or whether it will need to puntpunt Contributors sometimes use the verb "punt" when talking about a ticket. This means it is being pushed out to a future release. This typically occurs for lower priority tickets near the end of the release cycle that don't "make the cut." In this is colloquial usage of the word, it means to delay or equivocate. (It also describes a play in American football where a team essentially passes up on an opportunity, hoping to put themselves in a better position later to try again.) to 6.0.

Request: additional contributors to join the conversation, particularly if they use VVV or Chassis

@hellofromtonya: The issue so far is impacting Vagrant environments, though wider testing on shared hosts, etc. is also needed. If you can help test or contribute, please join in the #core-auto-updates channel.

@marybaum: Is it okay on Local and the AMPs?

@pbiron: to be more specific: 5.9 beta2 includes a feature that ‘does a backup’ of the currently installed plugin before the update happens. If the update fails, then it ‘rolls back’ the previously installed version. This feature seems to work fine in every environment in which it has been tested except for VVV/Chassis

@costdev: So far, we haven’t been able to reproduce the issue on Local or other Docker environments (right @pbiron?) or in WSL2 (Hyper-V). (edited) 

@pbiron: in VVV/Chassis , the plugin actually gets deleted after the update.

@hellofromtonya:  final comment on 5.9 release: The team is working on identifying and resolving this issue this week before Beta 3. If it can’t be resolved, then a hard decision will need to be made. 5.9 will not be at risk. The team is asking for help to join in the effort.

Target release dates for 2022

Post dev chat announcement from the core slack.

@chanthaboune: I have been in meetings two weeks in a row during core chat time but I have a very important topic, so I’m just going to drop it in here anyway. We’ve got to talk about target release dates for 2022. As I see it we have some options:

1. Four releases, essentially quarterly
2. Three releases, essentially….trimester-ly?
3. Start with Two for the first half and see how we feel about the second half

I have suggested schedules for all of those options (and will post about it to make.wordpress.org/core), but meant to open the discussion here first.

@audrasjb: In my opinion, with the first update on January, we can probably target 4 releases in 2022. I’d say it’s currently a bit difficult to target 4 full release cycles in one year, but since most of the work for 5.9 was done in 2021, I do think it’s realistic to aim for a 4-release year in 2022.

@joyously : I’d vote for as few majors as possible, and focus on bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes.

@pbearne: With the work on performance ramping up will at least one release for that work that will/maybe short on UIUI User interface features

#5-9, #dev-chat