Last week WordPress announced that version 4.0 of their platform is coming, and for those who want to give it a shot before the rest, the beta is now ready to rock. While I’m typically the type of guy who likes to dive in and try new software versions I tend to hold-off on testing new version of WordPress or Mac OSX since both are pretty mission-critical to my life.
That being said WordPress has made it easier than ever to test this version of the platform thanks to a WordPress Beta Tester plugin so you can give it a shot without wreaking too much havoc.
Of course that doesn’t stop me from looking under the hood and what’s coming-up, here’s a few highlights I thought were worth mentioning about the next iteration of WordPress:
- New plug installation experience – this looks pretty cool and something that I think has been in need of a refresh. Plugins are one of my favorite things about WordPress since it makes it easy to add complex functionality without spending your time writing custom modules
- The editor should now resize itself properly – this has bugged me for a while and I’m the most interested in seeing how it works on mobile
- Customizer panels – WordPress says it best themselves, “
- New improved media library – this is another section I’ve been waiting to see get a refresh and it’s the new media library looks a lot better (see a preview of it here)
- Security patches – while WordPress often doesn’t go into too many details here I can tell you that there are plenty of secret security holes being fixed which is good for all of us, and a reason why everyone should update once the stable release comes out next month
If you want to dive deeper into this release without testing it yourself I recommend you check-out this post from WPMUDev.org
