October 31, WordPress 4.9 release candidate is out for the final testing. If you speak a language other than English, you can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.
The last WordPress version WordPress 4.8 Evans turned out to be a huge success with the new image, audio, video and rich text widgets, and link boundaries that it brought forth. And the much-awaited release of WordPress 4.9 is quite near.
However, the latest version will be out on Tuesday, November 14. It’s the time to test it properly before you start planning to shift with the latest version.
WordPress 4.9, according to Matt Mullenweg revolve around 3 areas:
- Editor
- Customizer
- REST API
WordPress 4.9 is all about the editor, customizer and REST API. But, while the Gutenberg plugin lets the user experience changes in the editor, the customizer would have to be the second priority till the editor gets a little way ahead.
The updates that you should be looking forward to in WordPress 4.9 are given below:
Customizer Update
WordPress 4.9 would let you schedule customizer changes, which, according to co-maintainer Weston Ruter is “adding statuses for changesets: being able to draft a changes to come back to later, and then to be able to schedule it to go live.”
Customize Snapshots Plugin would let you take a snapshot of the customizer to save the state of the customizer so that the changes would be saved as a draft. UI addition in WordPress 4.9 would mean:
- Sharing of the customizer sessions
- Customizer previews outside iframe
- Future date publishing
Error Warnings
WordPress 4.9 would show warnings to users regarding the plugins and themes, if they were to opt for some alternate linking to documentation. If WordPress were to spot an error, the changes wouldn’t be saved, and a warning would be shown.
CodeMirror Functionality
Another update in the WordPress 4.9 would be the inclusion of CodeMirror functionality into the CSS box of customizer, and plugin and theme file editor.
Syntax Highlighting
Addition of Syntax Highlighting for a better code editing experience is yet another possibility.
Shortcode in Text Widget
WordPress users would be provided with the possibility of shortcut to embed files or create objects without using long codes within a line merely by using a shortcode in the Text Widget. Such shortcodes are added to widgets using a plugin. But after the release of WordPress 4.9, plugins won’t be necessary for shortcodes.
Moreover, if the plugin would have been used before, then the widget would stop the shortcode from being applied twice.
Add Media Button
The new add media button would help users insert images, audios, videos etc. within the content easily.
Also, WordPress 4.9 would provide extended support for oEmbed provider for video
Gallery Widget
WordPress 4.9 would offer a Gallery Widget that would allow the creation of a native gallery to use it on any widget area. Other than that, the updated WordPress version would let you add the name and the location of the menu when you are creating a new menu.
Success/Failure Message
The success of failure messages would be displayed in the Global Notification Area under the Save and Publish buttons.
Easily Switch between Themes
WordPress 4.9 users would be easily able to switch between themes by the inclusion of a logic that would map widgets between the theme areas of two widgets.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, we can say that WordPress 4.9 is making customizing and editing easy, scheduled, and shareable.
Use editor shortcodes in text widget, scheduling customizer changesets, getting warnings when WordPress notices errors while the user would be editing the themes or plugins, inclusion of CodeMirror functionality and syntax highlighting and inclusion of logic for better mapping of widgets between the theme areas of two widgets.
Monks are WordPress Experts and would be happy to assist you in updating your WordPress to WordPress 4.9.
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