WordPress weekly recap #13: new plugin directory and more

At this week, the new plugin repo was released. One new aspect is that it runs on WordPress instead of bbPress, which was used before.

Core

Misc

• »Approaches for a complete sites endpoint and an expanded WP_Site_Query«.

Design

Some results from user testing the Gutenberg prototype

Below in the »Misc« section, I link to a post where the user tests are described more detailed. A few results from the tests on WordCamp London (quoted from the post on Make/Design):

• Adding links when no text is selected creates a link with no text. Maybe force the user to select something?
• Adding new block at the top of the page. Do we want to allow and facilitate this?

The other results can be found in the post »Some results from user testing the prototype Gutenberg Core Editor«.

Misc

• »Gutenberg Core Editor User Testing«.

Polyglots

Call for organizers for the third WordPress Translation Day

The post »Global WordPress Translation Day 3 – call for organisers« by Petya Raykovska is the official call for organizers. There are various areas which need help (quoted from Petya’s post):

• Design volunteers – tasks include creating banners, posters and swag for the event
• Communication (marketing) volunteers – tasks include event announcements, social media announcements, social media support during the event, spreading the word and helping people find information
• Live Streaming content volunteers – tasks include putting out call for speakers, speaker selection, finding and mentoring speakers, supporting speakers during the event

The other roles and more info in Petya’s post. If you would like to become an organizer, write a comment to her post.

Misc

• »Notes from the Polyglots chats on March 29th«.

Theme review team

Chat with Matt about the future of the theme repo

A few members of the theme review team chatted with Matt about the theme repo’s future. Matt’s goal is to make it the main place for searching and finding WordPress themes. A few aspects, where the repo could improve, are, for example, the theme previews, multiple screenshots, and showing more theme details, like the readme and changelog.

The post »Chat with Matt about the future of theme repo« by Ulrich Pogson gives you many more details to the conversation.

Plugins

The new plugin directory

The new plugin directory was launched this week. Mika Epstein summarizes the current state in her post »The New Directory Is (Mostly) Live«. So the plugin submission is currently closed, and pending plugins are not approved.

Plugins without an answer are no longer rejected after seven days in the new directory, and the plugin slug can be changed by the plugin team before approval to prevent obvious typos.

In the post »Plugin Submissions ETA Reopening Early Next Week« Mika writes that the team aims to open the directory for new submissions on Monday.

Meta

Announcing the new plugin directory

Like said before, the new plugin directory went live this week. The improvements in the overview (quoted from Alex Shiels’ post):

• A new back-end based on WordPress, to replace the old bbPress engine.
• Refactored API code, also open source.
• A complete visual redesign and open-source theme.
• A completely open-source codebase.
• A vastly improved search engine.

More about the new directory can be found in the post »Announcing the new WordPress Plugin Directory« by Alex.