WordPress released their latest version 4.0, nicknamed Benny about 10 days back. It is always great to know about a new version coming in be it a software, book, a course or, WordPress installs.
With WordPress it is like an anxious wait primarily because of the changes and additions that the guys at Automattic introduce with every new versions of WordPress.
WordPress 4.0 also brought about a few nice little features to the already feature rich content management platform. Let us take a quick look at some of the changes in WordPress 4.0.
What’s New in WordPress 4.0?
WordPress 4.0, primarily introduced some decent and welcome changes to the WYSIWYG editor. WordPress users have always been complaining about the simple content editor in WordPress. There is not much you can do with it if you are looking at doing something extra with your WordPress site, though it more than serves the purpose of content publishing and editing.
There were other plugins that came in, which would add a lot more to the editor and it has changed the way people used WordPress, one of which is Thrive Themes. But if you are a normal blogger, you would be more than happy with the existing editor.
The No Scroll WordPress Editor
So now, you don’t need to scroll down your dashboard if you are writing a long article. The new editor, now is locked to your screen and the window keeps expanding as your content gets added up. Everything around the editor screen keeps scrolling but the editor box itself remain stationary.
This is a handy little feature if you are interested in distraction free writing. So now all that you need to do is keep writing.
Embedding Videos Just Changed
This was another pain that you would normally go through if you had to embed videos into your blog. You will have to go to Youtube or, whichever platform you are taking the videos from and then take the embed code from there. Then you will go to the text option in your editor and paste the code. You will then return to the visual option and continue with writing your content. A PAIN.. isn’t it?
This has changed. Now all that you need to do is grab the link to the video and enter that into your editor and the video is automatically embedded. Another enhancement for distraction free writing. 🙂
The supported platforms and formats are as follows –
Service | Embed Type |
Animoto | Videos |
Blip | Videos |
CollegeHumor | Videos |
DailyMotion | Videos |
Flickr | Videos & Images |
FunnyOrDie.com | Videos |
Hulu | Videos |
Imgur | Images |
Images | |
Issuu | Documents |
Meetup.com | Various |
Mixcloud | Music |
Photobucket | Images |
PollDaddy | Polls & Surveys |
Rdio | Music |
Revision3 | TV shows |
Scribd | Documents |
SlideShare | Presentation slideshows |
SmugMug | Photos |
SoundCloud | Music |
Spotify | Music |
TED | Videos |
Social media | |
Vimeo | Video |
WordPress.tv | Videos |
YouTube | Videos |
Changed Look to Media Gallery
The Media gallery is now arranged into a nice looking dashboard with a thumbnail view of all the media in your blog. Finding and editing your media is very simple. You also get to see all information related to your media by simply clicking on the media of your choice.
A Changed Plugins Screen
WordPress has thousands of plugins to enhance your experience. Searching and finding the right plugin and knowing more about a specific plugin involved some bit of effort with the limited information that was available on the plugins page in your wordpress dashboard.
That just changed. Your plugins dashboard got a niche little makeover. You can now see all of the plugins on a visually improved dashboard. You have some handy information as well on you screen with the most important metrics, all available on a single page.
Some of these features were a welcome change that most of us bloggers were expecting from WordPress. I am sure there are many more such changes that we can expect to see from future versions of WordPress and I am also sure that these changes will bring about a complete makeover to the way we blog.
As I look at the first versions of WordPress and compare it with what’s new in WordPress 4.0, I feel happy about the fact that technology has changed for the better.
If you are somebody who enjoys videos, you can see all of these changes in WordPress 4.0 in the below video.
Do share the post if you found it informative and don’t forget to tell us your thoughts by commenting.
Great stuff, however, I’ll wait until the next update, as I’m still experiencing problems with 4.0. Namely, in the widgets area, I’m not able to move the widgets around as necessary.
Cost me some time in one project, I had to delete everything and re-install it from a previous backup.
Have you heard of any such problems?
Hey, Thanks for visiting.. Haven’t heard of any such problems.. What exactly is the problem that you are facing?