Today’s WordPress 4.0 release marks another step forward in the development of the world’s most popular website platform. You’ll notice I didn’t say “blogging” platform, although WP is certainly excellent for blogging. WordPress has evolved considerably since its beginnings over a decade ago and is now a full fledged Content Management System in addition to a fine blogging platform.
As is the tradition with WordPress, this release is named for the great jazz and classical clarinetist, Benny Goodman.
What’s New?
There are some new features for the editor, primarily the ability to embed videos from services other than YouTube by simply entering the link to the video into a post or page. The editor itself has evolved to provide a more immersive writing experience, according to the release notes.
There are some under-the-hood improvements, notably the query that determines the order in which posts appear has been enhanced to provide many more options than before. Developers have long had to use workarounds and third party plugins to get posts to appear in the order they wished. Now those capabilities are built into WP.
This is not a typical major number release involving sweeping changes to the software. As Matt Mullenweg puts it in his post announcing the release, “While 4.0 is just another number for us after 3.9 and before 4.1, we feel we’ve put a little extra polish into it.”
Should You Update?
Those in my Website Management Program know by now that we won’t be updating to WP 4.0.0. Historically, a patch release happens within a couple of weeks after a dot-zero release so we’ll be waiting at least until the first patch release.
I’ve already seen reports of two fairly significant bugs in 4.0.0 so the patch may be forthcoming sooner than usual. There has been at least one instance in the recent past where a release was followed with a patch the next day!
If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you may want to put up a test site and play with WP 4.0 to see how it works with the plugins and theme you use. The better developers should have already updated their products to accommodate any changes in the WP architecture, but it always seems to take some a few days or more to get up to speed after a new WP release.
Special Offer Expiring
I just wanted to mention that the free teleclass with Andrea Conway, “Insider Secrets: Successful Blogging With WordPress”, has gotten a lot of compliments from those who attended or listened to the recording. If you’ve done neither, you still have the opportunity to get the recording and the accompanying special offers until midnight Friday, September 5th. Please go to the following link to take advantage of this limited opportunity:
And, stay tuned for further updates on WordPress 4.0!
