WordPress 4.0 Benny Release

Today, the fourth version of WordPress has become available for download, named after the American jazzman Benny Goodman , known as the “King of Swing”.

The development of the fourth version began in late April under the leadership of Helen Hou-Sandí . This release includes hundreds of improvements and several completely new features that relate to working with media files and the editor. Also, new cool developer tools have appeared. Under the cut is a brief overview of new features.

New media library design

Now the WordPress Media Library has a nicer look. If you click on an item, a popup window opens with a preview and the ability to easily delete or edit the item. In addition, it is now much easier to delete items using the multiple select function.

Improved Editor

Editing content in WordPress has never been as convenient as it is now. Now the editor will adjust to the length of the content, instead of displaying the scroll bar inside. Also, the toolbar is now always fixed on top, which is very convenient, especially when editing long records.

oEmbed preview

WordPress 4.0 adds oEmbed support for TED talks, Mixcloud, CollegeHumor.com, Issuu, Polldaddy, YouTube. Now you can just insert the desired link, and the preview will immediately appear in the editor. In the video above you can see a demonstration of how this works.

Updated plugin installation and search interface

In the fourth version of WP, it’s much easier to search and install plugins. Now the plugins page is framed in a grid with plugin “cards”. The author of the plugin can add an icon that will be displayed on the page. If you click on the plugin, a pop-up window will open with information: description, rating, reviews about the plugin and more.

Improved language support

WP 4.0 has significantly improved the mechanics of working with languages. Now, when installing WP, a page with a choice of language will open, and the language settings have been optimized in the admin panel.

What's new under the hood?

Customizer API

This release includes the Panels API , which allows you to combine controls into sections within the customizer. Also added support for contextual elements that are displayed and hidden depending on the page. Improved customizer includes an even wider range of controls and parameters, allowing you to make theme customization more subtle.

Query ordering

WordPress 4.0 has a more powerful ORDER BY argument for developers working with WP_Query. Now you can pass an array as an orderby value, which allows you to write more precise and flexible queries.

External libraries

Updated external libraries used in WordPress. The most important: TinyMCE 4.1.3, jQuery 1.11.1, MediaElement 2.15.

A complete list of changes can be found on the release page 4.0 .

WordPress 4.0 is the work of 275 developers. If the code is poetry, then this release is a skillfully written sonnet that fixes a bunch of problems and adds the most convenient tools. Upgrade WordPress to the new version and you will be surprised how you used to live without these improvements :)