Menu Customizer Tentatively Approved for WordPress 4.3

WordPress 4.3 release lead Konstantin Obenland posted notes from this week’s core development chat, confirming that the Menu Customizer plugin has been conditionally approved to merge. The approval is pending a few conditions that will be required before officially merging it:

Complete a11y audit.

Address possible blockers.

Merge php tests.

Add JS tests.

One of the most controversial aspects of the proposal submitted by project leader Nick Halsey was the timeline he outlined for removing all core links to the old Menus admin screen in future releases. Commenters on the proposal reacted strongly to this approach as well as this particular use of the customizer.

Discussion continued following the meeting, as Halsey wanted to address the critical issue of the timeline for removing removing the menus screen from the admin. He attributes the resistance to the customizer to a lack of education on the feature and strongly advocates “focusing on the new UI as the primary (and in terms of development, only) menus admin interface.”

For Menu Customizer, this idea has been part of the project from the very beginning. My GSoC proposal (3/20/14) states ‘If the Menu Customizer provides all of the features of the existing menu management screen, while clearly demonstrating that it is a better solution than the existing screen in user tests, it could potentially replace the existing screen entirely for users that can access the Customizer,’ and there has never been indication that this isn’t the direction we should move in, other than the general and ongoing resistance to the Customizer as a whole that we’ve seen from many community members (which I think is more of an educational issue).

Discussion continues on the matter and work will move forward on the plugin to ensure that it meets the conditions outlined for its merge into WordPress 4.3.