Handbooks

What are the handbooks? What are the handbooks?

The handbooks are individual guides that teach people to work on specific aspects of WordPress.

There are two kinds of handbooks that the Docs team works on:

  • contributor handbooks that help people to get involved with the project
  • developer handbooks to teach developers how to work with and extend WordPress

Currently, the Docs team is focused on completing the Theme Developer Handbook , Plugin Developer Handbook and REST API handbook.

In addition, most, if not all contributor handbooks are currently under the management of the individual teams themselves.

Each handbook has a spreadsheet associated with it so we can track the progress of it. Anyone can update the spreadsheet and assign a new percentage to a page. In general, we use the following percentages across spreadsheets:

  • 0% – Nothing created yet
  • 10% – Outline of the page is created.
  • 25% – Rough draft of the part of the page.
  • 50% – About half of the relevant content created and an outline exists for remaining content.
  • 80% – Page is nearing completion but needs some expansion or explanations. In some cases, this may mean screenshots are needed.
  • 95% – Final copy edit needed; final copy editor will look for fixes to the voice and style of the text.
  • 100% – Final copy edit is complete; page is finished!

Percentages in between these are guesstimates of how far the page is to reaching the next level. If you edit a page to improve things even slightly prior to 100%, you may update the percentage even 1% higher to indicate a change has been made.

Also on the spreadsheets are columns for “what’s next” and the “current lead.” The current lead should be actively working on what’s next for the page. If they aren’t, and you intend to, you may takeover the current lead title and work on the page.

Developer Handbooks Developer Handbooks

The goals of the Theme, Plugin & REST API Developer Handbooks are:

  1. to teach a developer how to create a basic plugin or theme or a REST API integration.
  2. provide reference materials for more experienced developers.

The developer handbooks – along with the code reference – will eventually replace the equivalent documentation in the Codex.

Top ↑

Contributor Handbooks Contributor Handbooks

Contributor handbooks should help people get involved with a specific part of the project. The following teams currently have contributor handbooks:

It’s hoped that every team will eventually have a contributor handbook.

Top ↑

What’s needed at the moment? What’s needed at the moment?

Due to the wide audience for the handbooks, whatever your skill set or desire, the chances are you’d make a great contributor. We’re particularly looking for the following:

  • writers
  • editors
  • WordPress developers
  • front-end developers
  • designers and UXers
  • and of course, feedback of any kind!

Top ↑

How to get involved How to get involved

  • Look at the Theme Developer Handbook Trello Board or Plugin Developer Handbook spreadsheets, and grab a page or section in need of work.
  • If you have questions, you ask for help in Slack (#docs). Feel free to message @sam, @kenshino and @blobaugh on Slack if you need help getting started.
  • You can also join the official weekly chat on Thursdays at 21:00 UTC in the #docs channel in Slack.

Top ↑

Resources Resources

Top ↑

Points of Contact Points of Contact

  • Plugin Developer Handbook Editor: @blobaugh (Ben Lobaugh)
  • Theme Developer Handbook Editor: @kenshino (Jon Ang)
  • REST API Handbook Editor: @kadamwhite (K.Adam White)
  • Core Contributor Handbook Editor: @kpdesign (Kim Parsell)
  • Polyglots Contributor Handbook Editor: @nao (Naoko Takano)
  • Handbook Wrangler: @samuelsidler (Sam Sidler)