What better than a plugin that reviews the quality of other plugins before they are published in the WordPress repository?
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Program transcript
Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WordPress Podcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.
In this episode, you’ll find the information from September 16th to 22th, 2024.
The initial idea for the Plugin Check project was proposed in July 2022 with the goal of providing a tool to help WordPress plugin developers verify the quality and security of their creations.
This proposal arose from the need to set higher standards in the plugin ecosystem, where variety and quality can vary significantly. It emphasized the importance of having a system that could help identify common issues and improve the reliability of plugins in the WordPress repository.
Since then, significant progress has been made in developing Plugin Check. With the current version, developed between the Performance and Plugins teams, several functionalities have been incorporated to enable automated analysis. This includes detecting common errors, evaluating compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress, and identifying coding practices that may affect security and performance. These improvements make the development process more agile and efficient, helping developers create high-quality products.
The importance of Plugin Check lies in its ability to raise standards within the WordPress community by providing a tool that helps developers identify and fix issues in their plugins, contributing to a safer and more reliable ecosystem. This benefits not only developers but also end users, who can trust the quality and security of the plugins they use on their sites.
According to the plugin’s own description, it is crucial for developers to use Plugin Check to validate their plugins before releasing them to the public. The tool allows developers to perform a thorough verification of their creations, helping to prevent problems before they reach users. By using this tool, developers not only improve the quality of their work but also contribute to the reputation of the WordPress community as a whole, ensuring that the plugins offered are secure, efficient, and of high quality.
The Developers Blog has published a post explaining how to build a multi-block plugin. The central idea is to create and maintain a single plugin instead of multiple ones, and the plugin’s architecture in terms of its files, thanks to existing tools.
The Design team has proposed some improvements for using Storybook in the WordPress design system.
They have identified areas of improvement in the information architecture, particularly in organizing the reference site. New sections like “Fundamentals,” “Tokens,” and “Patterns” have been proposed to improve navigation and component categorization.
These improvements aim to make the site more useful for both designers and developers by providing a clearer structure and a better user experience.
Another ongoing focus for the next major release is the Data Views for the new admin panel.
Recent work has focused on enhancing filter visibility, reorganizing data columns, pinning rows or columns, and creating advanced filtering options configurable to user preferences.
The Media Corps team is at the midpoint of their project, focusing on empowering marketing specialists and independent WordPress media members to produce high-quality content more efficiently.
Phases 2 and 3 have introduced a self-assessment model for participants, and collaboration has been established through Slack and short briefing sessions.
However, feedback reveals concerns about commitment, with a decline in participation in briefings and a lack of clarity about the impact on content production. The team is seeking input on how to better support diverse media, addressing time zone issues, and creating more personalized content.
The Community team has announced updated marketing and advertising guidelines for WordCamps and WordPress events. Organizers will be allowed to allocate part of the budget for marketing, aiming to attract a broader audience, including first-time attendees. However, the allocated funds must be approved during the budget review by a program manager.
The Five for the Future project has presented some statistics as of September 1. A total of 191 organizations with 897 people have participated, contributing 7,837 hours. On average, each organization dedicates nearly 40 hours per week with five people.
Eighty percent of participants have logged into WordPress.org in the last three months, meaning two-thirds of the organizations are active, although only one-third participate in high-impact projects.
At WordCamp US 2024, a discussion on marketing WordPress took place, focusing on how to reposition the WordPress brand to improve its competitiveness in a landscape where competitors invest heavily in marketing.
Challenges identified included declining attendance at WordCamps and a lack of concrete analytics data to measure marketing success.
The discussion also highlighted the importance of engaging younger audiences through educational programs and promoting WordPress as an open and customizable platform to combat perceptions of obsolescence.
And finally, this podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons license as a derivative version of the WordPress Podcast in Spanish; you can find all the links for more information, and the podcast in other languages, at WordPress Podcast .org.
Thanks for listening, and until the next episode!
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