WordPress 4.0 Benny Release

The fourth version of WordPress, named after the American jazzman Benny Goodman , known by the nickname “King of Swing”, has become available for download today.

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 tools for developers. Under the cut is a brief overview of the new features.
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New design of media library

Now the WordPress media library has a more pleasant look. If you click on an element, a pop-up window will open with a preview and the ability to easily delete or edit the element. In addition, it is now much easier to delete items using the multiple selection 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 a scroll bar inside. Also, the toolbar is now always fixed on top, which is very convenient, especially when editing long entries.

oEmbed preview

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

Updated installation interface and search for plugins

The fourth version of WP is much easier to find and install plugins. Now the page of plug-ins is framed in the form of a grid with "cards" plug-ins. 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 greatly improved language mechanics. Now, when installing WP, a page with the choice of language will open, and the settings of languages ​​are 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 appear and hide depending on the page. Improved customizer includes an even wider range of controls and parameters, allowing to make the theme settings 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 accurate and flexible queries.

External libraries

Updated external libraries used in WordPress. The most important are: 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 result of the work of 275 developers. If the code is poetry, then this release is a skillfully written sonnet, correcting a bunch of problems and adding handy tools. Update WordPress to the new version, and you will be surprised how you used to live without these improvements :)