Display counts for available plugin and theme updates on update-core.php

[sabernhardt]

I would like to display counts for plugin and theme updates on the Updates screen within the context of those two sections.

Currently, the admin toolbar uses a title attribute tooltip on most screens to display those counts on mouseover. I already suggested removing that tooltip from all admin screens (and the front end) in ticket:26562, but I like knowing the numbers.

[sabernhardt]

plugins count

[sabernhardt]

themes count

[mukesh27]

Hi there!

53031.patch​ patch looks good to me.

Can we change $plugins_available to $plugins_count and $themes_available to $themes_count for better understanding?

[sabernhardt]

$plugins_count should be better than my variable name, and it would reflect the naming in privacy tools.

(I used that span instead of adding it to the translated string, though many strings include it within list table filter links.)

[davidbaumwald]

@sabernhardt Great work so far. If you're reworking the patch, could we tidy things up a bit with something like...

<h2>
<?php
     printf(
        '%s <span class="count">(%d)</span>'
 	__( 'Plugins' ),
 	$plugins_available
    );
?>
</h2>

[sabernhardt]

Thank you both for the quick feedback.

The variable names include "count" and the PHP combines heading text with the count. I also used the number format function in case it's necessary.

Would it be easier to read the printf with the heading tag inside there, too?

	$themes_count = count( $themes );

	printf(
		'<h2>%s <span class="count">(%d)</span></h2>',
		__( 'Themes' ),
		number_format_i18n( $themes_count )
	);
	?>

[davidbaumwald]

@sabernhardt I think leaving the <h2> outside the printf is fine as it's more semantic to the markup than the translatable string.

[audrasjb]

Moving for 5.8 consideration

[joedolson]

In 50801:

Toolbar: Remove title attribute on pending updates link.

Remove the title attribute from the link, wrap the link icon and numeric indicator with the aria-hidden attribute, and add a .screen-reader-text span so screen readers hear a link that has relevant context without requiring translators to deal with appended strings. Removes the individual counts of theme and plugin updates from the attribute, as those were already buggy and didn't include translation counts.

Props afercia, Mte90, sabernhardt, audrasjb
Fixes #26562. See #53031.

[audrasjb]

53031.2.diff

[audrasjb]

Hey there!

53031.2.diff suggests the following changes:

• move the whole string into the gettext function so translators are able to reverse the order
• use a pluralized translation string so translators are able to use a different translation depending on the number of items
• also display the number of translation packages that are going to be updated (I'm not 100% sure this one is needed, but… why not)

What do you think about this proposal?

[sabernhardt]

No objections from me :)

I chose the simpler way without new translations, though it likely is better to add them.

Showing the number of translation updates available might help to have an idea how much time the process will take (especially on a slow server). That also makes the headings more consistent.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to audrasjb:

53031.2.diff suggests the following changes:

• move the whole string into the gettext function so translators are able to reverse the order

Just noting that for RTL translations there is no need to reverse the order in cases like this, text direction takes care of that.

• use a pluralized translation string so translators are able to use a different translation depending on the number of items

Also noting that this is not as straightforward as it seems, there's a note in the plugin i18n handbook:

Note that some languages use the singular form for other numbers (e.g. 21, 31 and so on, much like ’21st’, ’31st’ in English). If you would like to special case the singular, check for it specifically:

if ( 1 === $count ) {
    printf( esc_html__( 'Last thing!', 'my-text-domain' ), $count );
} else {
    printf( esc_html( _n( '%d thing.', '%d things.', $count, 'my-text-domain' ) ), $count );
}

See the discussions in #28502, #33239, #34127, #34307, #34308 for more context.

• also display the number of translation packages that are going to be updated (I'm not 100% sure this one is needed, but… why not)

No strong objections here, but it looks a bit weird to see the number if we're not listing the updates themselves.

Not listing them was intentional decision at the time, as they are generally installed automatically under the hood, e.g. along with a plugin or theme update. Related: #28133, #28571, #32270, #34907.

So going with 53031.1.patch​ for now would be my preference here.

[audrasjb]

Understood, thank you @SergeyBiryukov for the detailed answer. Let's go with 53031.1.patch then.

[SergeyBiryukov]

In 50803:

Upgrade/Install: Display plugin and theme update counts on WordPress Updates screen.

This restores the information that was previously included in a title attribute tooltip on pending updates link in the toolbar.

Follow-up to [50801].

Props sabernhardt, audrasjb, mukesh27, davidbaumwald.
Fixes #53031.