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The new editing overlay and interaction – shown here on a reusable block.
When the block is not selected, hovering the block results in a blue overlay, whilst clicking anywhere inside the block will act to select the block itself, preventing its children from being selected before the parent.
This mechanic aims to address feedback from users who were surprised at the lack of friction when editing these reusable symbols, which resulted in a frustrating experience.
The new workflow is an improvement that streamlines the experience of working with these powerful blocks.
Support for CSS shorthand properties in theme.json and block attributes
Theme JSON is becoming a powerful way of defining reusable CSS rules across Themes. As usage of this feature grows, it’s important to support common ways of setting style properties.
Fix eslint-import resolver with extraneous dependencies. (32906)
Scripts: Update lint-md-docs script to use ignore-path. (32633)
Workflows:
Recursively clear node modules when building for ci. (32856)
Allow point releases after a new RC is out. (32560)
Performance
Add in memory cache for rich link previews data. (32741)
Experiments
Navigation Block and Editor:
Update the function name and correct the comment. (32918)
Correct the case of navigation __unstableLocation. (32783
Navigation block: Add an unstable location attribute. (32491)
Avoid double encoding of URLs in Navigation Link block. (32840)
Site Editor:
Fix logic error on site editor useSetting. (32793)
Fix oEmbeds not working in block template parts. (32331)
Performance Benchmark
Due to an ongoing issue with the benchmark tests details on the performance of Gutenberg 11.0 are currently delayed. They will be published here as soon as they become available.
The following benchmark compares performance for a particularly sizeable post (~36,000 words, ~1,000 blocks) over the last releases. Such a large post isn’t representative of the average editing experience but is adequate for spotting variations in performance.
Version
Loading Time
KeyPress Event (typing)
Gutenberg 11.0
4.82s
29.82ms
Gutenberg 10.9
4.69s
29.54ms
WordPress 5.7
5.51s
29.79ms
Kudos to all the contributors that helped with the release! 👏
As it happens, @desrosj reported in and said the release is in great shape:
The milestone only has three bug tickets remaining that may require changes (excluding release related task tickets and two tickets needing only to be backported). We are in great shape heading into RC3 and final release.
The 5.8 Field Guide is out. Docs lead @milana_cap has done a masterful job of pulling it all together. So if you’re getting a theme or a plugin ready for 5.8, the Guide is your most reliable source of timely, topical information on the changes that will affect your products and the processes you use to get them out the door.
And @audrasjb is back with another Week in Core, celebrating 52 contributors (five who are brand-new!) and nine committers who got things going this week.
@jeffpaul thanked the authors and everyone who commented or otherwise helped share news or knowledge this past week and shared this reminder:
We are now in the RC period. That means we’re in a hard string freeze, and the final planned release candidate, RC 3, is now just FIVE days away, on July 13. The 5.8 release is TWELVE days away, on July 20.
@sergeybiryukov reported in on Build/Test Tools. Referring the community to this ticket on PHPUnit 8.x, he described the challenges that come with adding support for PHPUnit 8.x and 9.x, since they’re not compatible with versions of PHP older than 7.1.
@marybaum commented that Help/About is looking good and then took a minute to thank all the people involved with the About page.
Open Floor
Pivoting from @sergeybiryukov‘s discussion of PHPUnit 8.x and 9.x, @azaozz opened a discussion of when WordPress might stop supporting PHP versions earlier than 7.1. The upshot, according to @sergeybiryukov: WordPress ends support for a PHP version when it’s running fewer than 5% of sites. At the moment, 8.83% of WordPress sites run PHP 5.6, and 5.23% are running on PHP 7.0.
Marketing Rep and Help/About co-maintainer @webcommsat would like to know what your favorite 5.8 feature is, so the Marketing team can write some social-media posts about it. You can share your favorites with her or @marybaum directly or in threads on this week’s marketing meeting, which run asynchronously through Friday.
This post summarizes the top pieces of feedback of the current experience to help inform ongoing efforts after the 5.8 release and as a follow up to a similar post from March. You might notice that some areas of feedback match the original post but that the specifics are different. This is to be expected due to efforts being consolidated around 5.8, causing some feedback to fall in priority.
Keep in mind that this post is simply a snapshot in time and is inherently going to leave out aspects of the experience that haven’t been the subject of calls for testing yet, for example, Global Styles. It’s also not going to go into great detail about all of the hard work that has gone into addressing these items already, whether through PRs or sharing designs that offer solutions.
This section pulls together everything from feature requests for additional options for different blocks, desire for more control over spacing especially for the Column and Query loop blocks, general confusion around why certain settings exist in one place and not another (example with the Query loop block, with Color settings, and Columns block), and how to navigate the complexity of settings with more powerful blocks. As a specific example tying in these various items, let’s say you want the Query loop block to display 3 posts from a certain category and you want to set various colors for different parts of the set of posts. To accomplish that, you would have to interact with the block sidebar settings first to set the category before using the block toolbar to select the number of visible posts. To set various colors, you’d have to use List View or navigate through the nested blocks before opening up the block sidebar settings once more to make sure you’re styling what you want.
Make editing modes distinct (Site, Template, Query Loop block, etc)
Since the calls for testing began to focus on items related to 5.8 in the last couple of months, understanding how best to navigate template editing mode and the Query Loop block became major focuses of feedback. For example, this partially led to the decision to make the Query Loop block’s post content blocks view only. However, while lots of work has been done to provide clarity around what one is editing and adding the right amount of friction, this was still repeated feedback in nearly every test as an area that needs refinement considering how new this functionality is. For example, sharing information in the sidebar upon entering the template editing experience could go a long way in getting a user acquainted with this new experience.
Refine Placeholders & Initial Configuration Steps
With new blocks and new features, the initial placeholders and configuration steps become key to get right in both setting expectations and guiding a person to create what they want. This cuts across many aspects of the full site editing project including template editing mode, the Query Loop block, Navigation block, integrated patterns, and more. For example, if one is adding the Query Loop block with the intent to show a collection of posts, it makes sense to display multiple posts at default rather than just one with the latest implementation. Currently, feedback points to work needing to be done to standardize approaches where it makes sense and to improve each experience overall.
Ensure reliability and robustness of the the saving process
Because multi-entity saving (saving multiple aspects at once) is a new WordPress concept and one that underpins many interactions in the site editing experience, this is a key area of feedback to address, especially since the act of saving is so crucial to trust. Generally speaking, feedback falls into the following areas: inconsistent behavior, desire for more functionality, and enhancements to make it clearer what is being saved.
Expand abilities of theme blocks
Since many of the tests relied on interacting with the new theme blocks, numerous enhancement requests were raised to improve the experience of using each. Rather than listing this under improving the settings experience, this felt worthy of a separate call out as leveling up these individual theme blocks will unlock more creative power in using these new features. Whether folks wanted more styling options in the Post Title block or to easily add pages in bulk to the Navigation block, people are already looking forward to the next version of these various blocks.
Increase usability of overall experience
This is a “catch-all” category but an important one nonetheless, as it will help various parts of the site editing experience become more intuitive and streamlined. Similar to last time, what follows is a sampling of items both to get a sense of the kinds of issues raised and the spread:
The latest call for testing is out: FSE Program Testing Call #8: Thrive with Theme.json. As noted in the post, this round of testing targets developer-centric users in order to bring high impact feedback for theme.json, a new tool for extenders. Feedback is requested by 14 July.
Widgets Editor
See the full Block-based Widgets Editor dev note for a overview description of the new feature.
The current focus is polishing the theme.json experience by finding and fixing bugs that are back ported to the Betas/RC. Two things left are:
5779 Extract strings provided via theme.json for translation in translate.wordpress.org. This depends on a new wp-cli release that includes this PR and then updating the meta infrastructure.
53494 The global styles need to be enqueued in the footer for classic themes that opt-in into per-block asset loading.
Making a little progress on nav block menu item setup states, with a little summary here. Otherwise making PRs for a variety of small issues, in fact some of them just need your green checkmarks!
Mainly doing FSE Outreach Program wrangling in the form of shipping the theme.json call for testing post with two lovely collaborators (join in on the fun!) and a “How to Test FSE items for 5.8” post shipping today. I plan to turn my attention towards user docs starting at the end of this week through to the release to help out there alongside responding to feedback that comes in. I also want to spend more time in the land of GitHub triaging.
In preparation for the next months after 5.8, we are refining the Site Editing scope, closing issues that have been completed for the most part, and creating new overview issues with the upcoming work.
I am a one person mechanical end to end test runner for the block based widgets editor
Open Floor
What’s the status of FSE in 5.8?
@ironwiller Will there going to be a change at WP 5.8 and have an actual FSE or this one is an ongoing project till the end of the year or even beyond?
@mamaduka Template Mode is on for themes that provide theme.json` file or have special support flag.
@annezazu You can think of full site editing as a collection of features that brings the familiar experience of blocks to all parts of your site. Because it’s a collection of features, it means there’s the option to only release what’s stable and ready in a more gradual way rather than all at once! So… think of it less as an “on/off switch” approach for releasing FSE and more as a steady drip of features being released. In terms of what’s coming, check out this post or you can watch this recent video from another community member that goes over the major features planned. While some items related to FSE are going to be released, like Query Loop Block or Template Editing Mode for classic themes that opt in, this work will be ongoing and is expected to continue beyond this year (my best guess).
Embeds in iFrames Issue
@mrMark Bump to have Embeds looked at e.g. this issue. I added a comment on about embeds being cut off because the iframe isn’t expanding for the content.
Replace white screen on home page
@colorful-tones Is there a means to refrain from seeing white screen on home page if a theme just has a theme.json in it? I’ve tested with TwentySomething themes and does not seem to happen, therefore wondering if there is a deprecation jig in place for TwentySomething themes only to gracefully fail. Query Monitor shows wp-content/plugins/gutenberg/lib/template-canvas.php being loaded as template on home page. This is with WP 5.8 RC1-51270 and Gutenberg 10.9.1 active. It looks like an issue needs to be created for this topic for general review.
RC 1 released last week and RC 2 yesterday, now under hard string freeze
Working on Field Guide email to plugin/theme authors
No further bug scrubs scheduled, so please highlight issues of concern directly in #core
RC 3 in 6 days on Tuesday, July 13th
5.8 release in 13 days on Tuesday, July 20th
Components check-in and status updates
5.8 plans and help needed
Check-in with each component for status updates.
Poll for components that need assistance.
Open Floor
Do you have something to propose for the agenda, or a specific item relevant to the usual agenda items above?
Please leave a comment, and say whether or not you’ll be in the chat, so the group can either give you the floor or bring up your topic for you accordingly.
This meeting happens in the #core channel. To join the meeting, you’ll need an account on the Making WordPress Slack.
Welcome back to a new issue of Week in Core. Let’s take a look at what changed on Trac between June 28 and July 5, 2021.
64 commits
52 contributors
65 tickets created
16 tickets reopened
67 tickets closed
Please note that the WordPress Core team released WordPress 5.8 RC 1 last week. Everyone is welcome to help testing the next major release of WordPress 🌟
Ticket numbers are based on the Trac timeline for the period above. The following is a summary of commits, organized by component and/or focus.
Code changes
Build/Test Tools
Add the 5.8 branch to the workflow for testing branches
Add the artifacts directory to svn-ignore and .gitignore – #53549
Replace assertInternalType() usage in unit tests – #53491, #46149
I’d like to talk about e2e testing and what can be done collectively to improve the reliability of these tests. I’ve repeatedly seen e2e tests brought up as a major pain point over time. I’d love to hear what ideas folks have but, for now, I think it might be neat to try having dedicated time to discuss e2e tests during meetings. It doesn’t need to be a huge chunk of time but I do think rallying efforts each week around address any odd failures would help over time.
Open Floor
Can we add a comment to the PR template that mentions for the PR author to add a comment to the associated issue that a PR has been created? Making it possible for anyone who has posted in the issue to get a ping about the PR. As it is today issue commenters will not know that the PR exists before manually checking the issue and noticing the linked PR.
Whether you are a WordPress website user, builder, or developer, WordPress 5.8 brings exciting changes and a hint of even more goodies coming in WordPress 5.9. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; let us take a look at what to expect in when 5.8 is released.
In this Field Guide, you will notice what is relevant to you and your users among the many improvements coming in 5.8.
Block Editor
The block editor moves onward with regular releases. Gutenberg version 10.7 is bundled with WordPress 5.8; that totals eight Gutenberg releases (versions 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7) all merged into this WordPress release (as the related Gutenberg handbook page makes clear)! Bug fixes and performance improvements from Gutenberg versions 10.8 and 10.9 are also part of 5.8.
As well, those recommendations integrate with the Pattern Directory on WordPress.org, template editor, theme.json, and blocks in widget areas among other changes.
In the block editor-related dev notes below are important details on how theme.json delivers editor style control and associated Global Settings and Global Styles, plus:
Blocks in widget areas
block.json as canonical way to register block styles
deprecation of filters and introduction of context-aware replacements
Removal of previously deprecated EditorGlobalKeyboardShortcuts component, hasUploadPermissions selector, and hidden Subheading block
The iframed template editor portion of Full Site Editing
Amongst all Media changes, the highlight is support for the WebP image format. Accompanied by new image_editor_output_formatfilter (see #52867), it will set foundation for a real performance boost. You will also notice some UI improvements, such as replacing infinite scroll with AJAX response (#50105 and #40330) and copy-link button on media upload screen (#51754).
Changes in the Plugins component aim to make plugin developers lives easier. From better docs search (#50734) and standardizing hooks terminology (#50531) to ability to mark plugins as unmanaged (#32101) and avoid overwriting plugin files caused by update conflicts.
REST API changes are mainly focused on Widgets and sidebars but there is also a new operator for taxonomy queries within post collections, support for the eagerly awaited AND comparison, which allows posts meeting all passed criteria are matched (#41287).
Amongst the UI fixes, Site Health changes bring new actions for extending the navigation in the Site Health screen (#47225). You will also find new info provided by Site Health via a list of the supported file types for the active image editor (#53022).
Across the Themes changes you will find two new action hooks, delete_theme and deleted_theme (#16401), a few UI improvements such as clearly showing if a theme is a child theme (#30240), update counter in admin menu item (#43697), and removal of “Featured” tab in Add Themes screen (#49487).
Also, older bundled themes are refreshed with some really nice block patterns for your pleasure and inspiration.
There are even more goodies in 5.8! Read through the dev notes below to see details on how Internet Explorer 11 support is being dropped as well as assorted changes to the Bootstrap/Load, Build/Test Tools, Formatting, General, Media, Posts/Post Types, Revisions, Themes, and Users components.
Alongside the dev notes below, also worth noting is that work has continued during the 5.8 release cycle to increase the compatibility with PHP8 and its new features. Please continue to test your code against PHP8 as we all work towards raising the entire WordPress ecosystem compatibility with PHP8, thank you!
Build/Test Tools: Remove @babel/polyfill in favor of core-js/stable, requires explicit addition of regenerator-runtime as script dependency if IE11 support is still required (#52941).
Open Floor Topic
I’d like to talk about e2e testing and what can be done collectively to improve the reliability of these tests. I’ve repeatedly seen e2e tests brought up as a major pain point over time. I’d love to hear what ideas folks have but, for now, I think it might be neat to try having dedicated time to discuss e2e tests during meetings. It doesn’t need to be a huge chunk of time but I do think rallying efforts each week around address any odd failures would help over time.
Project Update for the Widgets editor
From @noisysocks Robert.
I put together a little overview of post-5.8 widgets work http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210711145505/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33242
Open Floor
Can we add a comment to the PR template that mentions for the PR author to add a comment to the associated issue that a PR has been created? Making it possible for anyone who has posted in the issue to get a ping about the PR. As it is today issue commenters will not know that the PR exists before manually checking the issue and noticing the linked PR.
:wave: For the global styles key project, the focus continues to look out for fixing bugs that are backported to the Betas/RC. The only major thing left at this point is being able to translate strings coming from
theme.jsonat translate.wordpress.org. Trac ticket at http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210711145505/https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5779Open Floor Topic
I’ve seen that we’re scoping the next steps and key projects at http://wayback.fauppsala.se:80/wayback/20210711145505/https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33094 I think it’d be good to re-align the editor agenda topics (key project updates), the monthly priorities post, and this work in the coming weeks.