Call for Testing: Calypso WP Super Cache Extension

Hi, I’m Bernie, a developer on the team working on the WP Super Cache (WPSC) Extension for Calypso. WP Super Cache is one of the most popular WordPress plugins and we’re asking for your help in testing it before we release it to the world! This round of testing is perfect for people that have used WPSC before, but it’s also fine if you just like to try and break things 🙂

1. To do so, you need a self-hosted WordPress installation with the Jetpack plugin enabled and connected to WordPress.com. Please use a test site that isn’t of any practical relevance to you — while we don’t expect it to happen, we’d hate if you lost any data!
2. Navigate to https://horizon.wordpress.com/plugins/wp-super-cache (you need to be logged in).
3. Scroll down, and click the ‘Install’ button next to your JP test site.
4. A link saying ‘Edit plugin settings’ should now appear right below the plugin header. Click that link.

You’ll be greeted with the following screen:

Start by switching on the ‘Enable Page Caching’ toggle.

You might notice that WPSC offers a large number of controls to fine-tune caching. How are you supposed to know if and how they work if you’ve never used WPSC before? Well, you could read the WPSC description on WordPress.org, and we certainly appreciate if you familiarize yourself with it.

But you don’t have to. Instead, we ask you to open your site’s wp-admin interface in another browser tab and compare them. (Find instructions below the image.)

1. Open your site’s wp-admin backend in another browser tab, and navigate to Settings > WP Super Cache.
2. Change an individual control’s value inside the Calypso extension (don’t forget to click the Save Settings button).
3. Switch over to the wp-admin tab, and reload. Verify that the control that you changed inside Calypso has been carried over.
4. You can also try the inverse — change a setting in the wp-admin UI, and verify that it carries over to Calypso (again, don’t forget to save and reload, respectively!)
5. Be sure to also check the front-end part of your website to verify it’s not broken by any of your changes.

Please leave your feedback in the comments below. We’re mostly interested in any errors you run into at this point, but you’re also welcome to comment on any smaller glitches you notice. We’re aiming for a release of the extension on Wednesday, August 23, 2017.

Wrap Up: Theme Showcase Jetpack Integration

Thanks again for testing the Jetpack-enabled Theme Showcase!

Following up on the feedback received, we’ve now fixed the link opening behavior, so that clicking on “Preview” in the “•••” menu opens a new tab, as does clicking on the theme thumbnail.

We’ve also fixed a couple of other bugs that emerged from the testing: there are now clearer messages when Jetpack is disabled and when Jetpack hasn’t been updated, which will help to clarify some install situations..

The feature right now seems stable, even if we are aware it’s just the first step to create a complete experience. We are planning to release this with the next Jetpack release, so stay tuned!

Thanks, and looking forward to our next round of testing!

Call for Testing: Theme Showcase Jetpack Integration

Hey everyone, this is Bernie. I’m a developer with the team working on the Theme Showcase, and today we’d like to invite you to test the latest feature we’ve been working on: Jetpack integration.

WHAT IS IT?

You may have already encountered the new Theme Showcase on WordPress.com (or even took part in our first testing round when we introduced it a month ago). The feature we’d like you to test this time will enable you to use the Showcase to manage themes on your self-hosted WordPress site, via the Jetpack plugin. In this first stage we are limiting the features to searching, previewing, and activating themes you’ve already installed, in a way similar to the Showcase’s functionality for sites hosted on WordPress.com. In the future we’ll expand these features, this is just the start.

What works:

• Search for a theme by name.
• Use the Customizer to preview and activate themes.
• Activate a theme directly from the main list.
• Details link in the “•••” menu.

What will work soon:

• Search for a theme by description and features.

What isn’t part of this release:

• Installing new themes.
• Activating themes from the “All Sites” view.

WHAT TO TEST?

To test the Theme Showcase’s new Jetpack integration, you need a self-hosted WordPress site, on which you need to install the Jetpack plugin in its brand new 3.7 Beta version, which our colleagues from the Jetpack team released yesterday — just follow the installation instructions! Keep in mind this is a Beta, so:

Please only install the Beta Tester plugin on a test site. By their nature, Beta releases could be unstable and should not be used on a site where your data is important. If you decide to install this on a live site, please backup your WordPress database before installing the Beta plugin or upgrading to a new Beta release.

After connecting your Jetpack site to WordPress.com, you can jump right into testing! Here’s a list of suggested activities to try:

1. Go to the Theme Showcase on Horizon. If you have multiple sites, use the site selector at the top of the sidebar to switch to the self-hosted site on which you just installed the Jetpack Beta.
2. Try to preview a theme on that site.
3. Try to activate a theme on that site.
4. Try searching for a theme you know by name (if any).

As always, write any feedback you have as a comment to this post, even multiple comments if you find different things at different times. Specifically, we’re interested in the following:

• Were you able to complete all the activities above (preview, activate, search)? Did you find any frustrating moment?
• Your overall impression: does it feel fast? does it work well? can you find what you want, by name (especially relevant on a hosted site with lots of installed themes)?
• Any bug you have found.

Of course, if you’re interested in testing other features that the new Jetpack Beta introduces, our colleagues will be happy to hear from you!

We are going to gather feedback about this specific sequence of tasks for the next 2 weeks, so until September 2nd.