What's new for developers? (April 2024)

[justintadlock]

This is a rolling discussion for a new monthly series that is intended to keep track of the items, PRs, Trac tickets, and Make blog posts that are interesting/important for developers. The goal is to publish a post on the 10th of each month with the previous month's updates.

Everyone is welcome to contribute to this monthly document. If you find something interesting, just create a new reply to this discussion below.

Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ATnSZ4MdYmkvpaKl4Lbec1ChyHCbnqzNs44xF5k6CVM/edit?usp=sharing

Resources to track:

• Keeping up with Gutenberg: Index 2022
• A Week in Core
• Gutenberg plugin release posts
• Core editor chat, dev chat, performance team meeting summaries
• Dev Notes

[github-actions[bot]]

Heads-up @bph @adamziel @bgrgicak: To include your project's news for developers, please add the information or a link as a comment to this issue. Deadline 8th of next month

[bgrgicak]

I'm not sure if we should include the Playground plugin now or after it's released to WP.org.

[bgrgicak]

We also improved debugging by adding support for seeing PHP logs in Playground.

[adamziel]

@bgrgicak let's include short descriptions and screenshots with these updates to curate and highlight the bits that seem especially important.

[adamziel]

Playground:

• Stability improvements – resolved over 50 issues related to compatibility with native PHP, crashes, and error reporting.
• Kicked off Blueprints PHP library to create a consistent site setup tool that works in Playground, Docker, and hosted environment all alike. Join the discussion about the new Blueprints schema and features – your voice can have real impact.
• The Blueprints builder plugin created by @jdevalk simplifies creating new Blueprints – instead of writing JSON, you can simply export your WordPress site as a Blueprint file. It supports plugins, themes, site options, and more, but has some limitations and doesn't support, e.g., custom database tables.

[justintadlock]

Bring awareness to this ticket: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/59242

[bgrgicak]

The Playground plugin enables running a sandbox of your site using WordPress Playground and previewing plugin installs inside a sandbox.

WordPress Playground now supports PHP error logs. Logs can be previewed in the browser console (debug level) and in wp-now inside the project folder.

[abhansnuk]

https://github.com/WordPress/developer-blog-content/issues/239#issuecomment-1996874095

Playground is going to be a regular topic as we go forward. Are we going to have it as a tag people can use to search for updates on it @justintadlock ?

Really like the two additions above @bgrgicak . Thanks.

[adamziel]

The Playground plugin was submitted to the plugins directory, and until it's approved it can be downloaded through GitHub releases

[bph]

Playground can be used to test PRs, and replaced the earlier implementation of Gutenberg.run

The redirect is in the works

[justintadlock]

Props to @pbking and @mikachan for wrangling this list of updates. This is probably worth adding in the Highlights section.

New Create Block Theme plugin features to be released alongside WP 6.5:

• New theme.json editor (simple editor for now)
• On “Save Changes” via CBT:
  • Fonts added and installed via Font Library - these are now added to the theme fonts and can be exported with the theme
  • All assets in templates will now be saved into a pattern file consistently
  • Strings in templates are now localized in patterns using correct text domain
  • Navigation ref is removed
• Goal to release above features March 27

[justintadlock]

Playground is going to be a regular topic as we go forward. Are we going to have it as a tag people can use to search for updates on it @justintadlock ?

@abhansnuk Good idea. I'll start adding it.

[jrfnl]

WordPressCS 3.1.0: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards/releases/tag/3.1.0

[adamziel]

Fresh off the press: experimental Playground documentation contribution workflow.

Doc pages are stored as HTML pages in GitHub. You can preview and edit them with a click, and submit PR with your changes with another.

We'll explore it in WordPress Playground and, if it works well, I'd love to explore using it in WordPress core.

https://github.com/WordPress/developer-blog-content/assets/205419/d83b6d28-844b-468a-81d7-1d5aeb185833

https://x.com/adamzielin/status/1775210654984540261?s=20

[jrfnl]

Requests 2.0.11 (will be included in WP 6.6, commit has been made): https://github.com/WordPress/Requests/releases/tag/v2.0.11

[jrfnl]

PHP_CodeSniffer 3.9.1: https://github.com/PHPCSStandards/PHP_CodeSniffer/releases/tag/3.9.1

[bgrgicak]

The Playground plugin is now available on WordPress.org: https://wordpress.org/plugins/playground/

[justintadlock]

The Blueprints builder plugin created by @jdevalk simplifies creating new Blueprints – instead of writing JSON, you can simply export your WordPress site as a Blueprint file. It supports plugins, themes, site options, and more, but has some limitations and doesn't support, e.g., custom database tables.

@adamziel , @bgrgicak - Is this plugin going to become a community project? If not, we can't include it as a third-party project.

[jrfnl]

PHPUnit Polyfills 1.1.1 has been released : https://github.com/Yoast/PHPUnit-Polyfills/releases/tag/1.1.1 (also 2.0.1, but in the context of WP, people will still use the 1.x versions).

[bph]

https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/04/08/dropping-support-for-php-7-1/

[ndiego]

I have completed the first review and checked all links. ✅

[bph]

Reviewed. and left comments on the Google Doc.

[justintadlock]

Social Copy:

With a successful launch of WordPress 6.5 out the door, it's time to catch up on the first enhancements and updates expected in the 6.6 development cycle.

https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/04/10/whats-new-for-developers-april-2024/

[bph]

Social schedule for April 21