Benachi 9:39 am on January 12, 2022
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Themes Team Meeting Notes – January 11, 2022

Hello everyone. These are the meeting notes from the themes team discussion on January 11, 2022. The themes team meets second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 15:00 UTC.

This week’s meeting agendas can be found here. Thank you @kafleg for preparing the agenda. The meeting was facilitated by @kafleg. The note was taken by @Benachi. You can read the full transcript on our #themereview channel. 

1. Weekly updates

The themes team published weekly updates about tickets and HelpScout emails. See this week’s updates here in the past 7 days,

  • 357 tickets were opened
  • 351 tickets were closed:
    • 342 tickets were made live.
      • 23 new Themes were made live.
      • 319 Theme updates were made live.
      • 0 more were approved but are waiting to be made live.
    • 9 tickets were not-approved.
    • 0 tickets were closed-newer-version-uploaded.

Number of reviewers: 4

2. Noteworthy update

The themes team has been updating the Theme Handbook to reflect the upcoming release of WordPress 5.9. Some of the updates include

  • Theme handbook main page is updated with brief information about 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. theme and the link to the Block Editor Handbook. 
  • Updating your theme page is newly created. This page explains how to upload using SVNSVN Apache Subversion (often abbreviated SVN, after its command name svn) is a software versioning and revision control system. Software developers use Subversion to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS). WordPress core and the wordpress.org released code are all centrally managed through SVN. https://subversion.apache.org/..
  • New Block themes and Classic themes links were added to the side menu.

3. Child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. submission

We discussed the concern over the number of the child theme submission. Unfortunately, we could not come up with a definitive solution at this time. We hope the flag/badges system could bring a positive impact on this issue. 

You can find more detail about the Next Steps on Themes and Reviews, including the flag and badges system at this link. 

4. Open floor

No questions or comments were brought during the open floor. 

#meeting-notes, #themes-team

KafleG 11:18 am on January 10, 2022
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Themes team meeting agenda for January 11

Channel: #themereview | Time: Tuesday, January 11 2022, 15:00 UTC

The themes team conducts a meeting on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month.
The meeting takes place in the #themereview channel on the 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/. and you need an account to participate.

Along with the fixed agendas, we have an open floor at the end where you can ask or share anything related to themes.

We encourage all members and anyone interested to attend.

Meeting agenda

  1. Weekly updates
  2. Noteworthy Update
  3. Child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. submission
  4. Open floor

1. Weekly Updates

Current statistics can be found on: https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ 

Themes TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket graph: https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticketgraph

Check regular weekly updates here.

Also check,

2. Noteworthy Update

We will share some important updates of WordPress and themes related things in this section. Attend the meeting or wait for the meeting notes for the detailed information.

3. Child theme submission

There was a question raised about the number of submission for child theme in the last meeting. It was the first meeting in 2022 and there were not enough participants to discuss for it. So, we postpone that agenda for this meeting.

A large number of similar child themes are causing a lack of variation in designs on the theme directory. I noticed that there is 26 child theme of single parent theme. And those tickets are on-hold for the review.

Reference tickets:

Note: These are just an example tickets.

4. Open floor

We will discuss everything related to themes. Attendees can ask or share themes-related things.

Please comment in the comment box below if you have anything to bring up during the open floor.

#meeting-agenda, #themes-team

Stephen Bernhardt 7:25 pm on January 7, 2022
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X-post: Theme-focused changes and filters in WordPress 5.9

X-comment from +make.wordpress.org/core: Comment on Theme-focused changes and filters in WordPress 5.9

Sarah Norris 5:40 pm on January 5, 2022
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Block-based Themes Meeting Notes: January 5, 2022

These are the meeting notes from 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.-based themes meeting on January 5, 2022. 

The meeting agenda can be found here. Thank you @jeffikus for preparing the agenda. The meeting was facilitated by @danieldudzic, and the notes were taken by @mikachan. You can read the full transcript on our #themereview channel.

Block-based themes issues for WordPress 5.9

There are no critical issues remaining relating to block themes for WordPress 5.9. Here’s a link to the WordPress 5.9 Must-Haves.

@kjellr confirmed that just about all of the critical issues Twenty Twenty-Two encountered have made it in already.

There was one issue around site padding that we were unable to find a good solution for in 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/, but for now, we have included a solution in the theme that works pretty well until we find a way to handle it in Gutenberg.

This issue is still a little up in the air and is a common issue to all block themes. If folks have any thoughts on that, it would be great to get some perspective on the issue. Please join in the discussion over on 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/.

The future of block theming

There have been a lot of discussions happening around the topic of theme developers and the next stage of block theming.

We discussed the future of block theming, covering the following ideas, thoughts, and questions:

  • What would a premium block theme look like? The biggest value from the premium space is in custom patterns, global style variations, block styles, templates, and support.
  • Themes are going back to being just ‘themes’, i.e. only incorporating the styling, rather than needing to include further functionality that should really be provided by 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. 
  • Themes will be easier to switch between, as there will be less to configure, move, or potentially lose during the switching process.
  • If a theme only includes styling, does the word ‘theme’ cause any legacy problems?
  • Are base theme files still important if they are becoming more and more similar?
  • The next stage of block theming involves figuring out ways to improve the integration process of themes into Gutenberg coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and developing tools that allow for better management of this process.

We don’t have many answers yet, but it’s great to start thinking about these things now. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion!

#block-based-meeting, #block-based-themes

Benachi 10:02 am on January 5, 2022
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Themes Team Meeting Notes – January 4, 2022.

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a great holiday! 
This is the meeting notes from the themes review team discussion on January 4, 2022. This is a rescheduled meeting from 12/28/21. The themes team regularly meets second and fourth Tuesday of every month at 15:00 UTC. 

You can read the full transcript on our #themereview channel. 

1. A Year in the themes  – 2021

In 2021, 1,227 new themes were added to the theme directory. Among them, 29 themes are block themes. Thanks to  all the theme authors who contributed. 

  • 16,816 tickets were opened
  • 17,053 tickets were closed:
    • 16,111 tickets were made live.
      • 1,227 new Themes were made live.
      • 14,884 Theme updates were made live.
      • 0 more were approved but are waiting to be made live.
    • 902 tickets were not-approved.
    • 40 tickets were closed-newer-version-uploaded.

2. Weekly updates

The themes team published weekly updates about tickets and HelpScout emails. See this week’s updates here in the past 7 days,

  • 263 tickets were opened
  • 266 tickets were closed:
    • 256 tickets were made live.
      • 28 new Themes were made live.
      • 228 Theme updates were made live.
      • 0 more were approved but are waiting to be made live.
    • 10 tickets were not-approved.
    • 0 tickets were closed-newer-version-uploaded.

Number of reviewers: 6

3. Encouraging theme authors for more 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

During the meeting, the themes team discussed how we can encourage the theme authors to start building block themes. @acosmin suggested creating a special tab on the theme directory. 

We also discussed limiting the number of child themeChild theme A Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. submissions per author. Although we have not received any feedback from users, a large number of similar child themes are causing a lack of variation in designs on the theme directory. @peona addressed that once the new theme review automation is implemented, the theme review will move away from manual review to user-oriented flags/badges system. As a result, the “flooding” of child themes will become irrelevant.

We will continue with the discussion on the next meeting on January 11, 2022.  

4. Open floor 

Theme Handbook Update:
We are working on updating the Theme Handbook. Releasing Your Theme and Required Theme Files have been updated so far. We will be adding references and links to the Block theme throughout the Theme Handbook to promote block themes.


Noteworthy Update: 

WordPress 5.9 will officially introduce the first block theme, Twenty Twenty-Two. Twenty Twenty-Two can be a great resource If you are interested in building a block theme. Explore GitHub Twenty Twenty-Two repo to find out how the block theme is built. If you are looking for a boilerplate for your first block theme, you can find a starter block theme, Empty Theme in the theme-experiments bundle.

Find more information about building block themes at the following links.

#meeting-notes, #themereview, #themes-team