dgw

Will do, thanks!

As far as the version numbering goes, might I point to your own description of the versioning system you use?

Version 2.4.2 is a z release, which your described versioning method says should contain “urgent bug fixes, security or maintenance changes only”. In fact, it contains a new feature (sorting by author), and thus falls under at least a y release. I would describe the new function as a “minor enhancement”, consistent with your stated versioning system.

Dropping backwards compatibility of any kind is only mentioned in the x version identifier description:

A major change *might* mean it can break backwards compatibility but I strive to not do this, if at all possible. However code “bulk” is equally something I am concerned about so will often provide backwards compatibility for some time before finally phasing it out in a major release.

So it seems that, at least in 2016, you agreed with me that breaking changes like raising the required version of a dependency (WordPress, PHP, etc.) should come with a major version bump. If your versioning system has changed and that post is simply outdated, then I rest my case on this front.

I do, however, think it’s a bit odd to offer such a relatively simple plugin that cannot run under every environment WordPress itself can. Maybe I’m biased. I do steward a Python project that runs on both 2.7 and 3.3+, even though that causes some code headaches, but I put up with them because I think it’s worth supporting users who can’t upgrade yet. And in this case, the overhead to support PHP 5 really isn’t that big. It’s all of a five-line change. (It would be a seven line diff if I used intermediate variables to store the uppercase versions of the strings to compare, but I see no reason to go back and amend the pull request unless you actually want to merge it.)

This change should have been mentioned in the changelog.

Bumping major dependency versions like this also probably should come in a major version bump, or maybe minor version, but not a patch.

Since the PHP 7 requirement stems from a single use of the new <=> operator in the function to sort by author, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to simply implement the author sorting with PHP 5 syntax and keep compatibility.

The site in question no longer exists; the domain has expired (wasn’t mine; I was consulting). So there’s no URL to send any more…

I hope the test post types will be removed soon. They shouldn’t have been added to the stable plugin release in the first place if their only purpose was gathering debug logs.

Capped the Customize -> Social media buttons screen: https://puu.sh/monn5/3904ca4b1a.png

What happens to the email templates if the theme is updated? Doesn’t WordPress remove the old theme folder and unpack the new version in its place?