Add wordpress.org information page about upgrading PHP

[flixos90]

As discussed in today's and the recent PHP meetings, it would be helpful if wordpress.org provided a page with general information on why and how to upgrade PHP.

Such a page should highlight arguments focused on the user that indicate why such an upgrade is necessary. In addition it should also have a section on how to upgrade. The latter is especially tricky since we don't know how each host handles this. But a general information on where to ask and what to ask will certainly help.

In the future, core could have areas where it highlights that the current PHP version in use is outdated and link to that new page for more information. This ensures we can keep that page up to date without relying on a core release. However it should not be limited to core usage. It could also be used simply as information material to pass around.

It's important to highlight that this is page will need several discussions, most of which will probably happen in the weekly PHP meetings. For now it is here mostly for maintenance.

What we need is:

• A solid page title and URL.
• One or more sections with arguments on which problems an unsupported PHP version causes, in general and for WordPress specifically.
• One or more sections on how to upgrade PHP.
• Possibly something else: Maybe a list of popular plugins that require a higher PHP version? A list of popular hosts and more elaborate instructions? These and more things will need to be discussed.

[flixos90]

@jdgrimes posted a great draft for something we could show to the users. It may go a bit too much into the direction of an immediate PHP requirement bump of WordPress than we wanna have for the general information page this should become, but I'd nevertheless like to share it here:

Did you know that WordPress has taken special care for years to support legacy versions of PHP, just for you? We know that site owners have enough to worry about already, and so we try to keep things simple by supporting a wide variety of environments right out of the box. However, as PHP 5.2 becomes an older and older technology, the maintenance burden on everyone to stay compatible with it increases, while the number of people who are using it continues to decrease. The time has finally come that we need to move on, for the good of our users. Newer technology like PHP 5.6 and PHP 7 offer many advantages, like improved performance and better security for your site, and making it possible for WordPress and plugins to use more-robust programming techniques. Dropping old technology sometimes causes growing pains (and even a bit of nostalgia), but it is just a part of the evolving web, and we've been working hard to make the transition as easy for you as possible.

[vizkr]

Do we actually want to include a how to upgrade section?

Or would this me more of contact your hosting provider kind of data once you bought into the why you need to have PHP upgraded?

[mrahmadawais]

I'd love to contribute to this project. Should the contributions be made on GitHub? @flixos90

[flixos90]

@vizkr The format of that section is yet to be determined. In general yes, it most likely will be instructions on how to approach your hosting provider for this. But we could possibly also do something more advanced, like allowing a GET parameter to set a host and show relevant content for that host if available, which would make it much more intuitive and user-friendly.

@mrahmadawais Awesome! Yes, the current efforts should go into the GitHub repository as it's the easiest to manage. And since it hasn't been shared on this ticket yet, here it is: ​https://github.com/wp-core-php/servehappy

[mrahmadawais]

@flixos90 Great. I have already submitted a PR. Plan to do more as we make progress with this project.

[obenland]

Where on wordpress.org would that page live?

[azaozz]

Reading the description at ​https://github.com/WordPress/servehappy it looks like the codex may be a good place for it. It is strictly educational. Of course in that case the links to the hosts' "Switch PHP" help pages should be served by the WordPress API directly to the dashboard.

[obenland]

Yeah, I think that would be an appropriate place

[netweb]

Possibly also including a link on ​https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/ to the appropriate codex section would be worthwhile

[flixos90]

Per today's discussion, the initial version of the page will live at wordpress.org/support/upgrade-php/. @schlessera, @nerrad, @sergeybiryukov and @flixos90 should receive permissions to edit the content for now.

Further notes:

• Forum administrators should create localized variants on their language sites.
• The links to the page in core should be translatable.
• If the decision is to move the page to another location in the future, the URL can become a redirect instead.

[hedgefield]

Glad to see this going forward :) Small side note to the URL agreed upon above: right now it seems to link to a support forum topic for the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin. Is the intention to redirect the URL to the new page?

[flixos90]

@hedgefield Yes, the URL is going to be its own page. Right now I think it's only redirected because that's default behavior there. @sergey I assume having the page there will override that rewrite and there won't be any issues? :)

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to flixos90:

@sergey I assume having the page there will override that rewrite and there won't be any issues? :)

Yep, it's just redirect_guess_404_permalink() trying to find the closest match. Once we create a page, it will show up as expected :)

[obenland]

Are there any wp.org platform changes needed to make that happen?

[schlessera]

@obenland For the initial version we plan to put online as soon as possible, no platform changes will be needed.

We will however continue to run discussions and experiments (and gather user feedback with the first version of the page) to formulate the best possible approach, which then might or might not need .org API work or other platform support.

[obenland]

Sounds good! This can be closed then?

[flixos90]

@obenland Let’s wait until that version of the page is up, but then this can be closed.

No further technical steps are required though, other than granting the respective permissions to create/edit such a page on wordpress.org/support.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to flixos90:

Per today's discussion, the initial version of the page will live at wordpress.org/support/upgrade-php/. @schlessera, @nerrad, @sergeybiryukov and @flixos90 should receive permissions to edit the content for now.

Permissions have been granted.

[schlessera]

A preliminary version of the page has been published: ​https://wordpress.org/support/upgrade-php/

This is only a very first version, and we can further iterate on that as needed.

[nerrad]

I created #3440 to get this page added as a link on the ​https://wordpress.org/about/requirements/ page. It seems fitting that we link from there?

[Kelderic]

I'm coming at this from an outside perspective, but my first reaction on seeing the update-php page is to just scroll through. It's a MASSIVE wall of text, and I can't see most people reading through it entirely.

The initial mockup had collapsed sections which could be opened one at a time. Is there a reason that we can't do that, to make the page less intimidating as it first opens?