The latest and greatest update to the world’s best CMS is right around the corner! With a tentative launch date set for June 8th, the time is now for reviewing impending changes. What does WordPress 4.8 have to offer? You can check out the publicly available release candidate if you’re super curious, but otherwise stick around and we’ll take a look at the changes that are coming soon to a WordPress website near you!
New Features in WordPress 4.8
Media Widgets for Images, Audio, and Video
The WordPress core team has identified adding media to widgets as a pain point for users. Understandably so- right now the process requires uploading to the media library, acquiring the URL, copying it, and pasting it manually within the widget. No more. There’s now a default Media widget! This change also brings about the retirement of the WMA and WMV file formats for video.
TinyMCE in Your Text Widgets!
TinyMCE revolutionized the rich text editing features of the WordPress post editor way back in 2.0. With 4.8, you’ll now have those same rich text capabilities in your text widgets! All you’ll miss now from the post editor is the Add Media button, but there an independent widget for that now!
Editor Upgrades
Simpler link editing is the one big change that we’ll directly enjoy with the edition of TinyMCE inline element/link boundaries bringing an upgrade to the link editing process. Browser support has been streamlined, with some of the older versions of Internet Explorer finally being laid to rest. IE 8, 9, and 10 have officially been retired from WordPress support. If you’re developer-minded, there have also been some changes to the Editor API.
Other Changes
Accessibility Enhancments
The WordPress Core team has been hard at work improving the accessibility of WordPress for everyone. 4.8 includes two big moves in that direction:
Customizer upgrade
The Customizer will now change scale to be a more optimal width on large screens.
WordCamps and Meetups in your Dashboard
Wondering when the next local WordCamp or Meetup will be? Ponder no more. They’ll now display right there in your dashboard!
Multisite Focused Improvments
These are developer-minded changes, but click through if you’re interested in reading more!
Updating make you nervous? You’re not alone! Check out this article on updating WordPress safely to help guide you through the change. You should also get familiar with the hows and whys of setting up a WordPress test site to run your updates on first before updating your live site!
We hope you’re looking forward to 4.8, and if you have any questions please sound off below!
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