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