Editor chat summary: Wednesday, 4 May 2022

This post summarizes the weekly editor chat meeting on Wednesday, 4 May 2022, 14:00 UTC held in Slack.

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/ 13.2 RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta).

George Hotelling is going to release Gutenberg 13.2 RC. The PR’s part of the release are available at https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/milestone/177. The release contains 154 PRs.

WordPress 6.0 Project board & WordPress 6.0 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. 4 & WordPress 6.0 RC 1

WordPress 6.0 RC was released on the 3 of May. Everything is going according to the plan no critical or blocking issue has been found. There are still some tasks on the 6.0 board https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/27, these tasks will probably be part of 6.0.1.

Help Wanted: Test WordPress 6.0

Any help testing the latest version and making sure there are no issues there can have a great impact. Please try your development website with the last RC. And in case you find any issue please report it so the team can fix it.

Key projects updates

Patterns & Styles

@jorgefilipecosta share the updates for patterns and styles as follows:

Right now, we have a style object on the blocks that follow a similar shape to the 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. styles, but they are not equivalent, and also, not everything theme.json supports is supported there. The idea is to have blocks support local settings and style objects @oandregal started the work on the settings part. On the styles front we had tremendous progress that makes the style theme.json object color and typography keys be supported https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/40332. Thank you @ramonopoly!

In order to have settings with semantic meaning, a 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. instance needs to have a name and probably information related to the type of section keywords, etc. @jorgefilipecosta started and iterated on the work to implement the metadata infrastructure for these sections https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/40393.

Comments

@santosguillamot said regarding comments he just published an update on the tracking issue of the PRs that have been merged and included later in the RC.

Task coordination

@jorgefilipecosta

Plans:

  • To merge the section’s metadata PR.
  • Help the exploded view PR get merged and the refactors it involved including the popover.
  •  Finish some tasks I have pending related to the list v2 block.

@paaljoachim

Has earlier been giving feedback through issues to various Comments block features and Going forward plans on testing WP 6.0 Beta/RC releases.

@mamaduka

Has worked on performance improvements for Navigation blocks and a few more last-minute fixes for the WordPress 6.0 release.

Open floor

UIUI User interface to create a single template

@jessica asked if there is a specific reason we can’t add single templates in the site editor?

@jorgefilipecosta said he thinks that the task is available for someone to pick.

@jessica submitted a PR fixing the issue after https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/40830.

Wide alignments on nested blocks

@cbirdsong asked why when theme.json is enabled one can not use wide/full alignments on nested blocks liking to the issue https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33374. Adding that, This is the core reason my custom theme builds don’t use theme.json, and as more features are gated behind using it, he was wondering if there is any chance of some re-evaluation of disallowing nested wide/full alignments.

The team discussed this issue and concluded the issue could be divided into two parts:

  • First, the cover block is missing a layout panel.
  • The default for blocks is not “inherit default layout”.

@cbirdsong will follow up and create the two issues.

#agenda, #core-editor, #editor, #summary

Block Locking Settings in WordPress 6.0

WordPress 6.0 makes it easier to lock blocks using the new controls modal. The release also includes two new settings to choose who can access this option and when.

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. Editor

The new canLockBlocks setting can disable the feature globally or conditionally. Example:

add_filter(
	'block_editor_settings_all',
	function( $settings, $context ) {
		// Allow for the Editor role and above - https://wordpress.org/support/article/roles-and-capabilities/.
		$settings['canLockBlocks'] = current_user_can( 'delete_others_posts' );

		// Only enable for specific user(s).
		$user = wp_get_current_user();
		if ( in_array( $user->user_email, [ 'user@example.com' ], true ) ) {
			$settings['canLockBlocks'] = false;
		}

		// Disable for posts/pages.
		if ( $context->post && $context->post->post_type === 'page' ) {
			$settings['canLockBlocks'] = false;
		}

		return $settings;
	},
	10,
	2
);

Blocks

The lock property allows hide controls on a block type level. Example:

{
	"apiVersion": 2,
	"supports": {
		"lock": false
	}
}

For more info see #39183.

#6-0, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-0

Updates to the @wordpress/create-block templating system

A powerful feature of the @wordpress/create-block package is the ability to create templates to allow customization of how a 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. is structured.

WordPress 6.0 introduces some new template variables to allow even more customization. Templates can now use the customScripts variable to create new entries in the scripts property of the package.json file and while it was already possible to define dependencies, it is now also possible to defined a list of development dependencies using the npmDevDependencies variable. In addition to these new template variables, the @wordpres/env package will automatically be added to the list of devDependences when the template uses the wpEnv template variable or if the —wp-env flag is passed as a command line argument.

For more info see #38535#39723, and #38530.

#6-0, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-0

WordPress 6.0 Release Candidate Phase

Now that WordPress 6.0 has entered the Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). phase, the following policies are in place.

These policies mainly cover how and when CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. committers can commit. For non-committing contributors, this post may help explain why a Core committercommitter A developer with commit access. WordPress has five lead developers and four permanent core developers with commit access. Additionally, the project usually has a few guest or component committers - a developer receiving commit access, generally for a single release cycle (sometimes renewed) and/or for a specific component. makes a certain decision.

String Freeze

To allow the Polyglots teamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/. time to get their local language’s translationtranslation The process (or result) of changing text, words, and display formatting to support another language. Also see localization, internationalization. of WordPress ready, no new strings are permitted to be added to the release. Existing strings can be removed and/or duplicated if needed.

Seek guidance from the Polyglots team leadership for any strings reported as buggy. A buggy string is one that can not be translated to all languages in its current form. 

Tickets on the WordPress 6.0 milestone

For the remainder of the cycle, only two types of tickets may be placed on/remain on the 6.0 milestone:

  • Regressions: bugs that have been introduced during the WordPress 6.0 development cycle, either to existing or new features.
  • Test suite expansion: tests can be committed at any time without regard to code or string freezes. This can cover either new or existing features.

Trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision. is now WordPress 6.1-alpha

WordPress 6.0 was recently forked to its own branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch"., trunk is now open for commits for the next version of the software.

Backporting to the 6.0 branch

Backporting commits of production code (that is, anything that ends up in the zip file) now requires double sign-off by two core committers. The dev-feedback keyword should be used to request a second committer’s review, dev-reviewed should be added to indicate a second committer has reviewed and approved the commit to the 6.0 branch.

Commits to the test suite do not require double sign-off.

Dev Chat Agenda, May 4, 2022

This weekly WordPress Developers Chat takes place in the #Core channel of the Make 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/. on Wednesday May 4, 2022 at 20:00 UTC. All welcome.

1. Welcome

Dev Chat summary from the meeting on April 27, 2022 – @webcommsat

2. Announcements

WordPress 6.0 Release Candidate 1 (released on May 3, 2022). This was the hard string freeze for the 6.0 and branchbranch A directory in Subversion. WordPress uses branches to store the latest development code for each major release (3.9, 4.0, etc.). Branches are then updated with code for any minor releases of that branch. Sometimes, a major version of WordPress and its minor versions are collectively referred to as a "branch", such as "the 4.0 branch". for the release.

WordPress 6.0 Beta 4 (released on May 2, 2022).

Early focused meetings will take place on Mondays at a revised time of 18:00 UTC.

What’s New in Gutenberg 13.1 (April 27, 2022).

3. Blogblog (versus network, site) posts of note to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.

Key links for 6.0 and updates from the squad will be in the agenda item 4, after these blog posts.

A Week in Core – May 2, 2022

Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach Program Testing Call 14: Rallying Recipe Reviewers (April 28, 2022). Leave feedback by May 18, 2022

Any others?

4. Upcoming releases

Next major: WordPress 6.0

Updates from Release Co-ordinators and members of the squad.

Useful resources/ calls for testing

5. Open floor

If you have any items for Open Floor, please add them in the comments below.

If you are a component maintainer and wish to raise a ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker. in dev chat or give an update, you can also add information in the comments section.

Could you help with writing the summary from dev chat for a future meeting? Comment below or message core team reps @marybaum and @audrasjb in the Core Slack channel.

Props to: @webcommsat and @marybaum for working on items for the agenda.

#6-0, #agenda, #dev-chat

WordPress 6.0 Field Guide


UPDATE on 5 May 2022: Updates to the @wordpress/create-block templating system and Block Locking Settings in WordPress 6.0 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. were added to 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. Editor section.


With the Release Candidaterelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). 1 officially shipped, it’s time to explore the next major releasemajor release A release, identified by the first two numbers (3.6), which is the focus of a full release cycle and feature development. WordPress uses decimaling count for major release versions, so 2.8, 2.9, 3.0, and 3.1 are sequential and comparable in scope., WordPress 6.0. This release introduces Style variations, the Block Locking UIUI User interface, various writing improvements, more design tools, new hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same., updated external libraries, and more! At a high level, there are 97 enhancements and feature requests131 bug fixes and 13 Gutenberg bug fixes23 other blessed tasks, which brings us to 251 Trac tickets in total.

The new performance team has been working hard to improve various parts of WordPress. A lot of queries have been optimized and some removed, cache improved, multiple translations of the same strings removed, just to mention a few.

Let’s take a deeper look at what to expect in 6.0.

Note: Note: some of the changes will require 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-partyPlugin 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 and theme authors to adapt or change their code. Please, read these Dev notesdev notedev 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. Each important change in WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. 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 blogblog (versus network, site) during the 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. 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 GuideField guide The field guide is a type of blogpost published on Make/Core during the release candidate phase of the WordPress release cycle. The field guide generally lists all the dev notes published during the beta cycle. This guide is linked in the about page of the corresponding version of WordPress, in the release post and in the HelpHub version page. at the beginning of the release candidate phase. carefully to make sure your code is ready for WordPress 6.0 on May 24, 2022.

Accessibility

Along with performance, lots of work has focused on improving accessibility in various parts of the WordPress software.

Block Editor

The Block Editor updates bring new functionality, fixes, and more:

  • The ability to bundle multiple Style variations for block themes.
  • The option to create page content patterns that users can choose from to create their pages.
  • New ancestor property in block.json letting one restrict where users can place their blocks.
  • A new block locking UI with a lock attribute for every block.
  • Registration of blocks from within themes.
  • Improved support for preserving unrecognized content in the editor.
  • More robust block theme export feature in the Site Editor.
  • Block markup updates for image, quote, list, and group blocks.
  • New set of Post Comments blocks, No Results block, and more.
  • & more!

Of note, if you currently have the Gutenberg plugin active on your website and are upgrading to WordPress 6.0, please make sure Gutenberg is updated to its latest version. This helps ensure the best experience possible.

Let’s dig in.

Bootstrap/Load

Amongst other performance improvements, in this release you’ll be able to skip not needed queries with do_parse_request filter.

Cache API

In WordPress 6.0 wp_cache_*_multiple API becomes a full CRUD. Also, option to flush the runtime cache without flushing the entire persistent cache is being enabled.

Media

Media has new filters and a few UI additions:

  • Enable edits to custom image sizes. Adds a filter edit_custom_thumbnail_sizes to allow users to enable editing individual custom image sizes. (#28277)
  •  Add a “Copy URL to clipboard” function to the list table view. (#54426)

We’ll find performance improvements in Media component as well.

Posts, Post types/Taxonomies

WordPress 6.0 introduces more dynamic hooks for custom post types and taxonomies.

Taxonomy

Taxonomies received a lot of performance improvements, from term query caching and adding limits to taxonomy queries, through navigation menu items to changing term_exists to use get_terms().

Themes

This new release offers a streamlined way for theme authors to work with patterns, support for multiple theme.json files AKA style variations, better export themes with Site Editor, and a few more goodies.

Allow block themes to be activated without index.php

This change removes the requirement for block themes to have an unused index.php template just for activation, as they use a templates/index.html file instead. (#54272)

Correct the logic for displaying a _doing_it_wrong() notice for add_theme_support( ‘html5’ )

  • Calling add_theme_support( 'html5' ) without passing an array of supported types should throw a _doing_it_wrong() notice: “You need to pass an array of types”.
  • If the second parameter is not specified, it should fall back to an array of comment-listcomment-form, and search-form for backward compatibility.
  • If the second parameter is not an array, the function should return false.

For more info see #51657.

Users

With 6.0 WordPress installs with more than 10,000 users, so called “large sites”, will receive performance improvements for querying and counting users.

Other Developer Updates

WordPress 6.0 also brings:

  • Option for plugin authors to edit plugin description on the Plugins > Add New and/or Network Admin > Plugins > Add New screens.
  • Ability to filter whole notification email in retrieve_password.
  • Possibility to remove site icons in multisite networks.

But Wait, There is More!

More than 131 bugs, 97 enhancements and feature requests, and 23 blessed tasks have been marked as fixed in WordPress 6.0.

Here are a few that haven’t been highlighted:

  • Administration: Add a media_date_column_time filter to the media list table date column. Similar to the existing post_date_column_time filter in the posts list table, this change adds a new hook to filter the “Date” column output in the media list view. (#42942)
  • Build: Update webpack to v5.x. This aligns closer with how the Gutenberg plugin handles WordPress packages. Enable React Fast Refresh support to WordPress core for block development with @wordpress/scripts. Bring caniuse-lite to the latest version which ensures that build tools target the most recent version of browsers supported by WordPress. (#51750, see #55505)
  • Build/Test Tools:
    • A .git-blame-ignore-revs file has been added to the repository with a curated list of “pinking shear” commits (ones only applying stylistic changes), making the blame feature on GitHub much more useful (#55422)
    • Webpack and all related build processes/scripts have been updated to version 5 (#51750).
    • The npm install command has been fixed for contributors using an Apple M series silicone by updating the grunt-contrib-qunit dev dependency (#52690).
  • Bundled Theme: If you’ve been having problems with order of elements in comment form in Twenty Nineteen theme, there’s a good news for you in #46600. It’s fixed!
  • Canonical: Function redirect_guess_404_permalink() includes all public statuses, rather than just publish, in 404 redirects in its search. (#47911)
  • Comments: Speeding up Dashboard and Comment moderation SQL load – (#19901)
  • Emoji: Update the Twemoji to version 14.0.2. This version introduces support for the latest Emoji added in Emoji 14. (#55395)
  • External Libraries:
  • Formatting:
    • Add support for formatting sizes as PB, EB, ZB, and YB. (#40875)
    • KSES: Add support for <ruby> and related elements. This is especially commonly used in Japanese content, but it can also been seen in content of other languages like Chinese. The set of elements to enable such functionality consists of <ruby><rt>, and <rp> in the HTML Standard, while some browsers (like Firefox) additionally support <rb> and <rtc> for more advanced formatting. (#54698)
    • KSES: Allow langxml:langdir attributes globally. Globally permit the langxml:lang, and dir attributes on all elements rather than a subset in accordance with the HTML specification. (#54699)
    • Function get_the_author_link() is going to be pluggable in WordPress 6.0. A new filter, get_the_author_link, is added for altering author link output. (#51859)
  • I18n:
    • List item separator should be a WP_Locale property (#39733)
    • Allow languages path in register_block_type (#54797)
  • Media:
    • Remove attachment_fields_to_save filter and deprecate image_attachment_fields_to_save(). This filter prevented removing attachment titles. This changeset removes the filter and deprecates the related function since it is no longer used. (#39108)
    • Enable edits to custom image sizes. With a new filter edit_custom_thumbnail_sizes users will be able to apply media edits to individual custom image sizes. (#28277)
  • Network/Sites: Improve cache key generation in WP_Site_Query (#55462)
  • Plugins:
    • Introduce the plugin_install_description filter. This allows for modification of the plugin card description on the Add Plugins screen. (#55480)
    • Convert apply_filters() into a proper variadic function. (#53218)
  • Posts, Post Types: Pass the $update parameter to wp_insert_post_data and wp_insert_attachment_data filters. This makes it easier to determine in a callback function whether this is an existing post being updated or not. (#46228)
  • Posts, Post Types; Taxonomy: Translate default labels once. Improve the translation of post type and taxonomy labels by caching the translations during runtime. (#26746)

Please, test your code. You can use the Beta Tester plugin on a test site to validate how your plugin or theme functions with WordPress 6.0 RC1.  Fixing issues that your code has with WordPress core helps you and millions of WordPress sites.

Props to @desrosj, @imath, @spacedmonkey, @swissspidy, @annezazu, @webcommsat, @jeffpaul, @costdev, @bph for contributing to this guide.

#6-0, #dev-notes-6-0, #field-guide

Performance team meeting summary 3 May 2022

Meeting agenda here and the full chat log is available beginning here on Slack.

Focus group updates

Images

@adamsilverstein @mikeschroder

GitHub project

Feedback requested

Object Cache

@tillkruess @spacedmonkey

GitHub project

Feedback requested

Site Health

N/A

GitHub project

  • We’re seeking 1-2 POCs for this group; if you’re interested, please comment here or pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” 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/.
  • @furi3r: PR for Site Health test for full page caching is still open; would love another review to get into the next release@flixos90 will take another look
  • @flixos90: Is there any update on the work to refine the two existing experimental Site Health modules to make them non-experimental and eventually merge to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.?
    • @furi3r: We should go over them again and take another look
  • @spacedmonkey: Should we use next week’s meeting to decide what we want to get merged into 6.1
    • @flixos90: Great idea, as well as looking owners for whatever we decide on

Feedback requested

Measurement

N/A

GitHub project

  • We’re seeking 1-2 POCs for this group; if you’re interested, please comment here or ping in Slack
  • No updates

Feedback requested

JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/.

@aristath @sergiomdgomes

GitHub project

  • No updates

Feedback requested

Infrastructure

@flixos90

GitHub project

  • @flixos90: Decision has been made to follow WP core’s versioning approach for our 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 based on the vote in Define plugin versioning approach #300, so next release will be 1.1.0.
  • @flixos90: The other decision we need to make is about release cadence in Define plugin release cadence #320.
    • Before 1.0.0, we published every two weeks, which is the minimum but requires some additional maintenance and overhead, so a timeline of four weeks or more is probably better. At the same time, we don’t want to go too long and lose momentum.
    • @adamsilverstein: Monthly feels straightforward to keep track of; longer gets more difficult
    • @pbearne: A 4 week cycle feels right to me
    • @eugenemanuliov: Yes, 4 weeks seems to be most appropriate
    • @jeffpaul: 10up open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. team checks what’s releasable on the first day of the month and determines if it requires a major, minor, or no release. If there’s a release, it’s done in a subsequent week that month.
    • @flixos90: Could also do monthly, e.g. third Monday of the month. Will add to the options in the issue.
    • Vote is open here until next Monday

Feedback requested

Open floor

  • @jb510: Research: Impact of additional WebP images on upload #289 focuses on the file system impact of WebP. But when an image is uploaded to a post, there is the time it takes the original to upload, but then the user has to wait while additional image sizes are generated and the progress bar for that action completes. We should then consider the impact of WebP generation has on that already sometimes frustrating delay between generating JPEG only vs JPEG+WebP. Want to make sure this is being considered. I recommend moving this to the background.
    • @jeffpaul: Agreed, that UXUX User experience is quite painful
    • @adamsilverstein: Moving to the background would make sense, as that image generation is slow and can break if you navigate away from the editor. Related Gutenberg issue.
    • @adamsilverstein: Note that the progress bar only shows upload progress, not processing progress
    • @pbearne: Once WP has the image, we should be able to release the editor and do the processing in a new thread
    • @jb510: For scope, consider 1) measuring impact of additional processing/completion time due to WebP and 2) finding a way to move that out of blocking the user from continuing with what they wanted to be doing

Help wanted

#core-js, #core-media, #performance, #performance-chat, #summary

Miscellaneous Dev Notes for WordPress 6.0

Here are notes to a few further adjustments coming to WordPress 6.0 for developers.

Upgrade/Install

Replace 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 description on the Plugins > Add New Screen

The patchpatch A special text file that describes changes to code, by identifying the files and lines which are added, removed, and altered. It may also be referred to as a diff. A patch can be applied to a codebase for testing. #55480 introduces the plugin_install_description filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. in the WP_Plugins_Install_List_Table.

This new filter allows developers to modify or replace the description of a plugin on the Plugins > Add New and/or Networknetwork (versus site, blog) Adminadmin (and super admin) > Plugins > Add New screens.

The following example shows how to replace the description of specific plugin:

function wporg_plugin_install_description( $description, $plugin_data ) {
	if ( 'my-plugin' === $plugin_data['slug'] ) {
		$description = esc_html__( 'A new description for My Plugin', 'textdomain' );
	}

	return $description;
}
add_filter( 'plugin_install_description', 'wporg_plugin_install_description', 10, 2 );

For more info see #55480.

Users

Add ability to filter whole notification email in retrieve_password

New WordPress release introduces two new hooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. to help developers to filter retrieve password emails:

  • send_retrieve_password_email can be used to filter whether to send the retrieve password email;
  • retrieve_password_notification_email can be used to filter the contents of the reset password notification email sent to the user.

For consistency with some similar filters like send_password_change_email or send_email_change_email, and for more flexibility, pass $user_login and $user_data parameters directly to the new send_retrieve_password_email and retrieve_password_notification_email filters.

apply_filters( 'send_retrieve_password_email', true, $user_login, $user_data );
apply_filters( 'retrieve_password_notification_email', $defaults, $key, $user_login, $user_data );

For more info see #54690.

Toolbar

Site icons in the toolbar My Sites menu

In large multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site networks, the site icons added to the toolbar navigation in WordPress 5.8 could make pages load significantly slower. To remove these icons, use the wp_admin_bar_show_site_icons filter.

add_filter( 'wp_admin_bar_show_site_icons', '__return_false' );

Without using the filter, these icons now include lazy loading when it is enabled for images. The loading attribute can be removed if it does not fit a site specifically in this context.

function wporg_disable_toolbar_image_lazy_loading( $default, $tag_name, $context ) {
    if ( 'img' === $tag_name && 'site_icon_in_toolbar' === $context ) {
        return false;
    }
    return $default;
}
add_filter( 'wp_lazy_loading_enabled', 'wporg_disable_toolbar_image_lazy_loading', 10, 3 );

For more info see #54447.

#6-0, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-0

Block Editor miscellaneous Dev Notes for WordPress 6.0

Removed bottom margin on LineHeightControl component

Several UIUI User interface components currently ship with styles that give them bottom margins. This can make it hard to use them in arbitrary layouts, where you want different amounts of gap or margin between components.

To better suit modern layout needs, we will gradually deprecate these bottom margins. A deprecation will begin with an opt-in period where you can choose to apply the new margin-free styles on a given component instance. Eventually in a future version, the margins will be completely removed.

In WordPress 6.0, the bottom margin on the LineHeightControl component has been deprecated. To start opting into the new margin-free styles, set the __nextHasNoMarginBottom prop to true:

<LineHeightControl
  value={ lineHeight }
  onChange={ onChange }
  __nextHasNoMarginBottom={ true }
/>

For more info see #37160.

Props to @0mirka00 for writing this dev notedev 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..

Unrecognized 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. preservation

We’ve started making strides in preserving unrecognized content in the editor, also called (sometimes incorrectly) “invalidinvalid A resolution on the bug tracker (and generally common in software development, sometimes also notabug) that indicates the ticket is not a bug, is a support request, or is generally invalid.” or “missing.” In situations where the editor is unable to validate a loaded block against its implementation we run into numerous cases where content has previously been lost or corrupted, notably when inner blocks are involved.

Currently, we’re on the journey to preserving that original unrecognized content but have many corners in the project to update before it’s finished. Notably, when loading posts in the editor or in the code view that content will be preserved as it was loaded. Surprisingly, this lets us do something we’ve never been able to do before: intentionally create certain kinds of broken blocks within the code editor, or modify and fix blocks in the code editor whose block implementation is missing.

Still on the list to update are smaller parts of the flow such as the array of confusing block resolution dialogs and operations as well as certain validation steps that currently fail but shouldn’t.

In short, if you’ve been frustrated by the editor breaking your posts as soon as you hit “save” then good news is coming in 6.0.

For more info see #38794, #38923, and #39523.

Props to @dmsnell for writing this dev note.

Registration of Blocks from within Themes

Until WordPress 6.0, building blocks inside plugins was the only way possible if you wanted to use block.json. This remains to be the recommended way to build Custom blocks  going forward. Blocks add functionality and therefore should be built as plugins that stay active even when a new theme is enabled. 

There are however instances where the styling and functionality of a block is so tightly coupled with a theme that it doesn’t make sense to have a block active without a given theme. This is true when building custom solutions, and the blocks are site-specific and not used for other instances. Furthermore, from discussion with agency project managers and developers, it turns out that there are considerable deployment costs when separating comprehensive solutions.

Each implementation had to reinvent a way to register blocks within themes, as WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. wouldn’t allow for it. With 6.0 the registration of blocks using block.json from within a theme is now technically standardized. You can use the same register_block_type function as you would inside 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 and all the assets that you may register in the block.json file like the editorScript, style, etc get enqueued correctly.

For more info see #55513.

Props to @fabiankaegy for writing this dev note.

Comments blocks – Enable legacy Post Comments block

With WordPress 6.0, there is a new set of blocks to show the Comments of a post:

  • Comments Query Loop: An advanced block that displays post comments and allows for various layouts and configurations.
    • Comment Template: Contains the block elements used to display a comment, such as the title, date, author, avatarAvatar An avatar is an image or illustration that specifically refers to a character that represents an online user. It’s usually a square box that appears next to the user’s name. and more.
    • Comments Pagination: Displays next/previous links to paginated comments where this has been enabled in the comment settings in the WordPress adminadmin (and super admin)
      • Previous Page: Displays the link to the previous page of comments.
      • Page Numbers: Displays a list of page numbers for comments pagination.
      • Next Page: Displays the link to the next page of comments.

The legacy Post Comments block, which directly renders the comments.php file, has been deprecated and hidden. It will still work for themes currently using it, but it won’t appear in the inserter.

The new set of blocks provides almost the same functionalities with the benefit that the layout and styles can be customized from the Editor. However, if any user wants to re-enable the Post Comments legacy block, they can use the block registration filters and adapt it to their needs. For example, this piece of code shows the legacy block in the inserter again and removes the “deprecated” from the title:

function wporg_enable_post_comments_legacy_block( $metadata ) {
    if ( 'core/post-comments' === $metadata['name'] ) {
        $metadata['title'] = esc_html__( 'Post Comments', 'textdomain' );
	$metadata['supports']['inserter'] = true;
    }
    return $metadata;
}
add_filter( 'block_type_metadata', 'wporg_enable_post_comments_legacy_block' );

For more info see #34994.

Props to @SantosGuillamot and @annezazu for writing this dev note.

Gallery block – Ability to adjust gap between images added

In order to implement this the spacing of the Gallery images had to be changed from a right margin setting to the CSSCSS Cascading Style Sheets. gap property. Themes or plugins that use a right margin setting to manually adjust the Gallery image spacing may need to be updated to instead override the gap setting.

Default gap changed

The new block editor block gap support functionality has been used to implement this and this adds a default block gap of 0.5em so for some themes that don’t explicitly set this gap the default will change from the previous 16px to 0.5em. If plugin or theme developers want to ensure that the 16px gap remains the following CSS can be added to the theme, or site custom CSS:

.wp-block-gallery {
	--wp--style--gallery-gap-default: 16px;
}

Gallery Image bottom margins removed

Some themes may have depended on the bottom margin set on the gallery images to provide a gap between two galleries. Because the gallery now uses the flex gap for spacing this bottom margin is no longer set. Themes that were relying on this unintended side effect of the image margins will need to add the following CSS in order to maintain a gap between galleries:

.wp-block-gallery {
	margin-top: 16px;
}

Gallery gutter CSS var deprecated

To keep the naming of the gap setting consistent the --gallery-block--gutter-size CSS var has been deprecated and replaced with --wp--style--gallery-gap-default--gallery-block--gutter-size will continue to work in release 6.0 and will be removed in 6.1.

Theme authors should be able to provide compatibility for WP 5.9 and 6.0+ with the following:

.wp-block-gallery {
        --gallery-block--gutter-size: var( --wp--custom--spacing--4 );
	--wp--style--gallery-gap-default: var( --wp--custom--spacing--4 );
}

For more info see #40008.

Props to @glendaviesnz for writing this dev note.

New ancestor property in block.json

Block developers sometimes need to restrict where users can place their blocks. For that, developers already count on APIs like block.json‘s parent property or the allowedBlocks option of the useInnerBlocksProps hook that allowed developers to express some basic, direct parent-children relations between blocks.

Since WordPress 6.0, the ancestor property makes a block available inside the specified block types at any position of the ancestor block subtree. That allows, for example, to place a ‘Comment Content’ block inside a ‘Column’ block, as long as ‘Column’ is somewhere within a ‘Comment Template’ block. In comparison to the parent property, blocks that specify their ancestor can be placed anywhere in the subtree, while blocks with a specified parent need to be direct children.

This property admits an array of block types in string format, making the block require at least one of the types to be present as an ancestor.

{
    "$schema": "https://schemas.wp.org/trunk/block.json",
    "apiVersion": 2,
    "name": "core/comment-content",
    "ancestor": [ "core/comment-template" ],
    ...
}

Block developers can also combine parent with ancestor inside block.json and use them together to express more complex relations if needed. For example:

  • Parent [ 'A' ] and ancestor [ 'C' ] would work as ”parent A and ancestor C”.
  • Parent [ 'A', 'B' ] and ancestor [ 'C', 'D' ] would work as ”parent (A or B) and ancestor (C or D)”.

Note that there are some edge cases uncovered by this APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., like blocks that would require two or more different ancestor types simultaneously.

For more info see #39894.

Props to @darerodz for writing this dev note.

#6-0, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-0

Page creation patterns in WordPress 6.0

When a user creates a page, the editor starts with an empty canvas. However, that experience may not be ideal, especially since there are often possible patterns the user can use when creating a page, e.g., an about page, a contact page, a team page, etc.

Starting with WordPress 6.0, offering a set of patterns that users can choose from to create their pages is possible. We added a modal that shows possible patterns that can be used on page creation:

The modal appears each time the user creates a new page when there are patterns on their website that declare support for the core/post-content 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. types. By default, WordPress 6.0 CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. does not include any of these patterns, so the modal will not appear without some of these post content patterns being added.

Any theme or 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 can register a pattern with core/post-content block support and make the modal with the patterns appear. Here we provide a sample pattern that appears in this model.

register_block_pattern(
	'my-plugin/about-page',
	array(
		'title'      => __( 'About page', 'my-plugin' ),
		'blockTypes' => array( 'core/post-content' ),
		'content'    => '<!-- wp:paragraph {"backgroundColor":"black","textColor":"white"} -->
		<p class="has-white-color has-black-background-color has-text-color has-background">Write you about page here, feel free to use any block</p>
		<!-- /wp:paragraph -->',
	)
);

Completely disabling this functionality

By default, no modal appears because there are no post-content patterns unless a theme or plugin registers one.
If one wants to disable the modal even if there are plugins registering post-content patterns, it is possible to do so by removing the post-content block type from all patterns, as the following code sample does:

$patterns = WP_Block_Patterns_Registry::get_instance()->get_all_registered();
foreach ( $patterns as $pattern ) {
	if (
		! empty($pattern['blockTypes'] ) &&
		in_array('core/post-content', $pattern['blockTypes'] )
	) {
		unregister_block_pattern( $pattern['name'] );
		$pattern['blockTypes'] = array_diff( $pattern['blockTypes'], array( 'core/post-content' ) );
		register_block_pattern( $pattern['name'], $pattern );
	}
}

For more info see #40034.

#6-0, #dev-notes, #dev-notes-6-0