#166 – Ryan Welcher on What’s New for Developers  ## Metadata - Author: [[WP Tavern]] - Full Title: #166 – Ryan Welcher on What’s New for Developers - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/02e1a27a-7bc9-44fe-8c77-ec1996b6c079 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Stay Updated on WordPress Dev** - Start following the biweekly "What's New in Gutenberg" posts to stay updated on features. - Participate in WordPress Slack core editor meetings for discussions and ask questions. Transcript: Speaker 1 Would say start with, it is a bit like drinking from the fire hose, for sure. Like, there's a lot of information. You've got stuff on the make.wordpress where they sort of talk about what's coming. You've got the Gutenberg releases. Like the Gutenberg, it's on a two-week release cycle. So there's constant things coming out. So one really great way of keeping up with that is there's a what's new in Gutenberg post that comes out every two weeks that talks about high level features. And then it's got like a change log of everything that was merged in those two weeks. So that's a really great way to like see what's coming at a higher level, but also really get in the weeds. Like you can say, okay, bug that I know about, oh, look, they fixed it or whatever. That's a really great place to start. You can hang out in the WordPress Slack where they do the core editor meetings and block editor meetings and sort of like ask questions in the open floor or just see what people are talking About. Depending on what you're trying to do, the GitHub repo is kind of an okay place to get some information. You're going to get a lot of information, but that would be a place. I mean, it's, I do it full time and it's hard. So I get it. But the reason that's why I exist, because if I can compile this stuff and make it palatable and easy to find for others, that's what DevRel is, right? Like that's what a lot of what we do is. So like, I'll spend the time messing around with the block bindings API, and then I'll do a live stream on it where I'm like, okay, so we're going to do this. And this is why I did it this way. And this is why you should do it this way. Cause it's easier, you know? And so like, I can do all that busy work to help others who don't, you know, cause ain't nobody got time to do all that. ([Time 0:22:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9623e168-b6a6-40de-b4ba-b16c953b8e77)) - **Data Views Enhance Site Editor UI** - The new data views component powers dynamic grid and list views in the site editor. - It aims to enhance filtering and sorting for custom post types, improving the admin UI. Transcript: Speaker 1 The data views is wildly powerful. It's a component, a component in the sense of like a JavaScript component. It's what powers a lot of the views that you get in the site editor. So if you go into like your templates or your pages was the first one, you can see it in a grid view. You can see it in a list view. I believe the intention is that as the site editor sort of spreads into other parts, you'll see it being used for things like the post lists view and stuff like that. So it's a super powerful component. It's being used in Gutenberg. I believe it's still technically experimental because they're still working on it. Speaker 2 Feels like a nice one, that one. Not just for developers who are building websites, but also for clients themselves because they can suddenly, I don't know, you're selling houses, real estate websites, something Like that. And suddenly you've got this house custom post type, something like that. And there's this image and there's a number of bedrooms and you can make it sortable and filterable. We want to drill into the houses that are between 150,000 and 300,000. We want to reverse the order, that kind of thing. And the end user, the real estate agent will be able to do that. And so it's going to make the whole project easier to understand, easier to maintain. So custom post types, pages, posts, users, that's my understanding anyway. Is that done through a UI? Is that going to be done through a UI or is that going to be something like opening up templates? Speaker 1 It's a React component that you will provide the information. So right now it's a little lower level, I think, than they maybe want it to be because there's a lot. I'm kind of just going off what I think rather than like no one's told me this, but having used it a little bit, there is definitely some API refinement that can be done in the sense of like Being able, because you have to provide literally everything for it to handle all of the actions for like sorting and all that stuff. And I think what they're trying to do is make it a little bit easier to use. So you just give it data as opposed to like having to define all the callbacks when you click a specific button and stuff like that. ([Time 0:26:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9226d80c-99a6-409c-9020-8ef79c838dbb)) - **Zoom Out Improves Editing Clarity** - The zoom-out mode in WordPress 6.7 gives users an overview of page content hierarchy. - It improves clarity for complex layouts, especially when working with patterns. Transcript: Speaker 1 You could get a sense of what you've just inserted in the overall size of the content. So like if you're writing really long pieces, my workshop website has very long content because it's like a step-by huge code blocks. For me to be able to insert something and get a sense of where it is on the page and look at it, that's kind of what that's for. Speaker 2 I have a fairly small laptop. And by the time that the left sidebar and the right sidebar and the block editor have all gone in there, by the time I've dropped a pattern in, there's basically no real estate left on the Screen for me to see what's above it or below it. And this pulls it right out and gives you the impression of, well, there's the whole blog post. And although that sounds really trivial, if the branding and everything really matters and you want one thing to follow another, I don't know, it's a landing page or something like That. It just gives you that overview and you can obviously move things around. Yeah, it's hard to describe how profound it is, but it makes that editing experience, especially for novices, just so much more straightforward. Speaker 1 Oh, for sure. Like, and if you drop a complicated pattern in the wrong spot, you'll see that immediately. So yeah, it's like, I keep using the phrase quality of life, but it really is like a, oh, that's just a nice touch. It's made your life a little easier. And that's kind of like, you know, I know there's a lot of refinements going into the UI to make the writing experience better and easier. ([Time 0:28:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5370a87f-eb1a-487f-adf9-7f9b5a426147)) - **Bits Allow Fine-Grained Block Editing** - The concept of "bits" allows editing smaller parts inside a block, like numbers within a sentence. - It will enable more precise inline editing and greater block flexibility. Transcript: Speaker 1 Don't have one thing per se. I'm super excited about the concept of bits. It's a very complicated thing, but being able to define areas that you can edit in the editor. So for example, the example that probably makes the most sense without me short, like using my hands, because nobody can see me is like when you have a block binding that is connected To a piece of post meta, let's say let's use the whatever the byline aspect, you know, so it's like a bio or something that's connected in post meta. If you just want to edit one part of it, you can't. You could edit the whole field, but you can't edit just one section of it. Or if you have something, like my block developer cookbook site's got a cooking time block that says it's got a little like cooking timer icon, and then it's got 10 and then it says minutes. And well, the 10 part is actually the postmeta, but I can't edit that in line in the block editor because the whole output is, it's like a span tag with some stuff, right? And so what bits would allow me to do is delineate that I want to be able to edit just the 10, just that number. And that'll be super, super powerful. It's like an editable area inside of a larger editable area. Speaker 2 Oh yeah. And I can see that being powerful in a whole bunch of different ways. Yeah, that's interesting. Speaker 1 Yeah. And there's obviously the interactivity API, obviously, but it is one of the most exciting things. I mean, it's already out and there's this more stuff coming and they're just doing really, really cool things. ([Time 0:30:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cbbbc5d7-338f-442c-9c29-dffd29d96bbc)) - **Balancing Options with Simplicity** - Gutenberg adds options and flexibility without making WordPress overly complicated for novices. - Though more options exist, it's easier for users to creatively build customized sites now. Transcript: Speaker 1 An interesting question. WordPress has had a philosophy of decisions, not options for a long time. And I think Gutenberg is providing more options now, which is good. So like if I were to take my mother, who's not technical at all, and sit her down and say, build a website, she would probably have a better chance of doing it with Gutenberg than she would Have pre 5.0 because she can control every part of it. I mean, I'd have to tell her how to do it all because she's not technical. But I think that there is a lot of options but there's also a lot of potential for creativity and you have access to almost everything that you would need in the editor experience now whereas You didn't before if you wanted to build a very customized theme like in classic and this isn't like taking a shot at classic but if you wanted to have a person post type you couldn't do That you needed to edit code to be able to output that meta. I mean, I'm sure there were plugins and stuff, but now you don't really need to do that. You have everything that you need as long as you know where to click to find it. But it's like anybody who's never used WordPress would have to figure that out in any platform. You'd have to sort that out. I mean, there's a lot of options which can be confusing, but now you can do whatever you want to do for the most part. ([Time 0:32:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9b54d0ae-3755-43ac-b64d-f3b6ae8aeb11)) - **AI Augments Developer Roles** - AI won't replace developers but will augment their work by automating repetitive tasks. - Developers must adapt and learn to use AI as a tool to stay effective. Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's kind of like the way a lot of developers are looking at AI right now. People are terrified AI is going to take over. It's not. You're just going to have to learn to use AI to get the job done. You still need to have the skill set to tell it what you need to do, right? It's the same with all this. So the interactivity API, it's really cool. And it's ripe for someone to write a library of interactions with a UI. So the implementers who don't maybe write that level of JavaScript or any JavaScript can just install that plugin and now they can make their animations. And it's like an animation library that's got a UI. I think it's just going to open up other opportunities for the people writing code and building plugins and things like that. I mean, I think with change, change is hard. People fear change, right? ([Time 0:34:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/de52f075-2665-420b-b2d7-826914010ef1)) - **WordPress Integrates AI Tools** - WordPress is embracing AI to enhance features like block patterns and templates. - AI tools will simplify coding queries and reduce reliance on traditional documentation and forums. Transcript: Speaker 1 AI, do you think? Yeah, I think so. I mean, AI is the new hotness, right? And it's getting less and less expensive to do the AI stuff, you know, the LLMs and all that stuff. And it's getting better and it's only going to get better and smarter and faster. I think that there's, again, it's just going to change what you have to do as a developer, right? I am behind on AI, but I've made a concerted effort to start using cursor AI, which I think is a lot of fun. I'm finding that like, I still have to be a developer to tell it what I want, right? But you can absolutely say, hey, build me a website that sells cars and it'll build you a website that sells cars. Who knows what the code looks like and if you can maintain it and if there's a bug in there, can you find it? So I think there's like, I don't know, I'm sure there are people listening that are like, oh, you know what you're talking about. You can already do that in AI and it's amazing because I'm just not. It's like the running joke in JavaScript is like there's a new library released every other weekend. I feel like there's a new AI tool that's like better and better and better like every day. Speaker 2 I'm finding it fascinating that a lot of people who are putting out content into the WordPress space, videos and things like that, they're making a concerted effort to bind AI into WordPress. It's not like they've just pivoted completely to let's build websites with AI. It's more, let's find a thing in WordPress that we can do in a heartbeat and we actually want to do it inside of WordPress. And let's just add a piece of AI on top of that to enable me to do this curious thing and solve this problem that I've got with a client website. So it seems like people are using AI just to build stuff on top of WordPress and not really the opposite. I haven't seen any sort of move away. I don't need WordPress anymore. That just doesn't seem to be what I'm seeing. Speaker 1 And I think it's because the people that are doing that are, that's where they work is in WordPress, right? Like if you're using, I don't know, Wix or whatever, or like Next.js or any sort of like other platform for web stuff, I think you would see people trying to apply these AI things to that. I think it's a huge opportunity for an AI to be able to create block patterns and create templates that work properly. It's hard to do right now because I don't think the LLMs really have the information for it. Like it's not because the way that the data is stored, it's sort of different than like, it's not really that well documented. Maybe I may not be making sense right now. There's no real like example, right? Because it's sort of different. Speaker 2 We need you to create more examples. Yeah. Speaker 1 I think what's really exciting is that having to be in like an encyclopedia of APIs, having to like go to the documentation site all the time, I think that's going to go away. It's already going away. Things like GitHub Copilot and these integrated AI tools in IDEs and everything. Now you can just be like, write me a plugin that does this. Or like, what's the parameter name that I need for WPQuery to be able to do a taxonomy query, right? It'll just tell you. You can just do that, let it do its thing while you're working on other things. And I think the days of like Stack Overflow, you know what I mean? That's like you Google the problem and the first example and most upvoted answer gets copied and pasted, right? I think that's going to maybe not replace, but the new Stack Overflow is like these AI tools and you can ask questions on how do I do this? ([Time 0:35:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e03c7edd-0233-4ba8-9209-149c54d46640))