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Digital Strategist

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Mitch Canter

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WordPress

WordPress 3.3’s roadmap has been set… at least, it will be.

CMDR Mitchcraft

Reading time: 3 minutes

Here’s the email I received of some of the proposed changes to WordPress – a lot of them look super exciting (goodbye IE7!) and plenty of them are just amazing.  What’s your favorite?

User Feature: Media Uploader (azaozz)

· Definitely v1: Integrate Plupload into dashboard. (GSoC project)

· Probably v2: Improve our image manipulation and gallery management.

· Nice to have: Kill all thickbox usage, move everything inline.

User Feature/UI: New User Experience (jane, koop)

♫ Feels Like the First Time ♫

· 1st time install welcome screen – intro text and checklist of “steps” to get going.

· 1st time post-update welcome screen a la Mozilla.

· 1st time exposure popup for new features a la facebook, twitter, etc.

Note: Matt says WordPress.com is working on similar features there. Will connect with them and see if/where there is overlap and work with them when possible to free up some of Koop’s time.

UI: Responsive Admin (saracannon with azaozz, koop)

Make the admin dynamically display nicely on devices of various screen sizes (including wider screens) and human interface mechanisms, such as touch. Plotting and specifics to happen on UI blog and in weekly UI meetings.

UI: Improve Admin Bar (koop, jane)

Continue the admin UI work started in 3.2 and work toward combining admin bar (in dashboard) with admin header to reduce duplication and save vertical space.

Internal: Performance Improvements (markjaquith, jon)

· Permalinks

o #17177, #15915, #16687, others

o The permalink structure is highly desirable, but it doesn’t scale beyond 50 pages or so.

o /%postname%/ permalinks without performance penalty

o /static-slug/%postname%/ permalinks without performance penalty

o Consider retiring verbose rewrite rules all together in favor of queries.

o Finally fix the issues relating to special characters in permalinks using an upgrade routine (#16036 and others)

· Nav Menus

o #14134, #16799, possibly others

o Fix the issues around saving menu items.

Deprecate IE7 in the Admin for 3.4

Everyone hates IE7. It’s insecure. Let’s make it go away. Also, dropping IE6 didn’t give us much beyond goodwill, because most of the hacks we needed for IE6, we also need for IE7. So we could actually clean up our CSS a bit if we dropped IE7.

Not happening for 3.3, will target 3.4. Once we hit freeze or RC someone could start working on this to have it ready to go in the minute we open 3.4, to provide the maximum testing time.

API: Meta Improvements (ryan, koop, others)

· register_meta, new caps, *_metadata_by_mid() (nearly done)

· Nice to have: WP_Meta_Box (proof of concept posted)

API: Settings API Improvements (ryan, petemall)

· Convert table markup to CSS

· Nice to have:

o Make settings fields/forms/errors construction less painful

o Use the settings API in the Network Admin

o Kill options.php as a POST handler

Internal: Language Packs (nacin)

Merge in GSoC project. Will require quite a bit of development across GlotPress, api.wordpress.org, and core. (As in, needs additional owners.) In the next week we should come up with a plan of action for how it should all work, as there are currently many questions. (#18200)

Update/Upgrades (nacin, dion, otto)

· Internal: Partial build updates, version 2 – md5 verifications of files – nacin, dion

· Feature: Ability to install child themes (in the theme directory) via the theme installer – otto

· Enhancement: Core changelogs via the update check, to entice updates

Secondary Items

API: Editor API improvement (azaozz)

Update/refactor Quicktags (mostly done) and combine all supporting functions.

User Feature: Press This

Plugin now, target 3.4 for core.

o Make Press This better in a nebulous and undefined way.

o Browser extensions? See also

Mixed Bag

These are things we really want, but no one is assigned to them. This is a great opportunity to earn some core cred by taking a greater role and spearheading development of a feature.

o UX: Dismissible admin notices.

o UX: better management of workflow in editor (joe is currently editing this post any changes etc)

o Design: HTML E-Mails – Leverage Wojtek’s GSoC work

o Performance: CSS files merge/remove duplicate styles

o Death: remove (finally) compat functions from the widgets API and cleanup converting of old settings, and keep widgets while switching themes (will require copious unit tests first)

  • 3+ Things Every Content Creator Needs In 2020

    3+ Things Every Content Creator Needs In 2020

    Reading time: 3 minutes

    There is no better time to stake your claim online. The Internet, one thought to be a ‘passing fad‘, is still here and going stronger than ever. But it’s not enough to just put your voice out on every social media platform you come across. In order to truly succeed online, there are certain necessities…

    Digital Strategy, WordPress
  • A Responsive Menu Solution for WordPress

    A Responsive Menu Solution for WordPress

    Reading time: 3 minutes

    Edited 01/14/14 to work with WordPress 3.8 A few months ago I modified a really cool WordPress template and started using it for my own clients.  As part of the overhaul, I realized that there was no really good way (included) to turn a WordPress unordered list into a menu that would work on a…

    Development, WordPress