Call for Testing: WordPress for iOS 6.6
The WordPress for iOS 6.6 beta will be available for testing on TestFlight soon. Not part of the beta program yet? Please sign up for our TestFlight program to request to join as a beta tester.
What’s New
- Animated GIFs in Blog Posts List: The Blog Posts list (on the My Sites tab) now supports animated GIFs.
- Add an animated GIF as the featured image or the only image in a blog post. Save or publish the post, and view the post in your Blog Posts list. The image should animate.
- Try adding very large GIFs, or multiple GIFs to a post, and let us know if anything unexpected happens (such as the app slowing down or crashing).
- Backend Changes to Notifications: Notifications got revamped under the hood (backend changes). There shouldn’t be any noticeable changes, but please pay attention to any bugs with notifications in this version.
Additional Testing
In addition to testing new features and changes, as beta testers we can give feedback about the flow through the WordPress app. (Not sure what I mean? Check out how the WordPress Flow team tests and what we mean by flow.)
Here are some things to consider or try out in this release:
- Take a screenshot of each step as you test the animated GIFs and/or notifications above. Upload your screenshots (you can create a gallery on Cloudup) and share them in a comment here.
- Describe how the process makes you feel and whether you were able to finish the entire task or process you started.
- When you finish the process (posting/viewing your animated GIF or checking your notifications), what do you want to do next? Is there a clear path to continue on to your next task?
Bugs & Feedback
Did you find a bug or come up with a feature request while testing? You can discuss it here, report it using the TestFlight feedback link, or head straight to the iOS Github repository and open a new issue.
Thanks for testing!




























hoverduck 7:39 pm on October 12, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I tested out the animated GIFs on an iPad Air 2 running 9.3.1 and didn’t see any problems. Tried large GIFs and 20+ posts in a row with GIFs, and it scrolled with no issue. A single post with a ton of GIFs looked fine in the Blog Posts list, but was slow to load the individual page (unsurprisingly). But once loaded it behaved fine.
Is it on the radar to have this feature copied over to the Reader display too? That was the only problem I noticed, the disconnect between what I see in Blog Posts and what I see in Reader.
Rachel 10:26 am on October 13, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Yep, issue 6062 is to add animated GIF support to the Reader, too. I also felt that disconnect and look forward to that enhancement. 🙂
hoverduck 8:18 pm on October 12, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I ran through some notifications tests, and everything seems to work, but interacting with the actions on the notification left a little to be desired. This may not be new behavior in this release, but just something I haven’t tested before.
Clicking either Approve or Like on a notification gives no indication of success or failure…I had to then go open the app to verify that it actually happened. This is in contrast to Android, where it opens the app regardless (and ticket 4602 should hopefully change that to just give a success/failure message instead).
Clicking Reply on a notification opened the app to the notification, but I still had to click Reply again once in the app to open the keyboard. – https://cloudup.com/cnDhWDK7p3s
Let me know if I should create GitHub issues for these.
Rachel 2:58 pm on October 13, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I confirmed that this is the same behavior as the stable release, so it isn’t new behavior but I agree with the suggestions. (The note about clicking Reply also parallels a recent enhancement request for the Android app: 4643)
These should be technically possible as enhancements, so let’s create Github issues for them.
hoverduck 3:40 pm on October 13, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
New issues:
https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues/6072
https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues/6073
Alister Scott 2:49 am on October 13, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I tested both animated GIFs in blog posts list and also the notifications. I will mimic what @hoverduck says about showing these in The Reader would be great.
The only issue I found is pretty minor: if you have a published post with an animated gif in the body it shows the animated gif correctly in the posts list until you edit it and remove the image, where it then remains in the posts list. I tried pulling down to refresh and it still showed for me.
Lance Willett 5:00 pm on October 13, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
GIFs work well in posts list.
I noticed a minor bug in Comments, though — and reported on an existing GitHub issue for “Comments: Extra HTML tags added after adding or editing comments.”
Ryan Boren 1:47 pm on October 14, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m stuck on 6.5. TestFlight shows WP as unavailable. I’d include a screenshot, but commenting here from iOS safari doesn’t support uploads.
Ryan Boren 4:42 pm on October 14, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Now my 6.5 TestFlight install crashes upon open. The posts list shows briefly before crash.
I removed the app. TestFlight still shows unavailable.
Blocked.
Ryan Boren 1:18 pm on October 17, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Gifs inserted with Reboard and Giphy Keys don’t animate.
Rachel 2:11 pm on October 17, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I think this has to do with how images are added to posts. I tested by adding GIFs from the Giphy app as well as using Giphy Keys, and here’s what I found:
So it looks like we’ll need to support sharing/pasting GIFs to make this work. I added a comment to this issue about that: https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues/2752
Ryan Boren 1:24 pm on October 17, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Featured images, both still and animated, remain in the posts list after removal.
Rachel 2:13 pm on October 17, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Related issue: https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/issues/3612
designsimply 7:27 pm on October 17, 2016 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I tested adding an animated gif (567 KB) to a post as a featured image using Safari iOS 10.0.2 on an iPhone 6S and didn’t find into any problems with animated gifs.