{"id":1941,"date":"2017-11-15T11:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T06:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/?p=1941"},"modified":"2017-11-16T07:34:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T02:34:19","slug":"wordpress-4-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedevcouple.com\/wordpress-4-9\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress 4.9 Tipton Is Pretty Awesome \u2014 WPCouple Team’s Core Contributions!"},"content":{"rendered":"

WordPress 4.9 Tipton<\/a> just got released, here’s a post about what’s new in it.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfa9\u00a0Here at WPCouple, every team member<\/a> contributes to WordPress.\u00a0As you can imagine, we are super passionate<\/em> about the WordPress software and its community.\u00a0We live and breathe WordPress, build WP products with it, and give back to the make it better.<\/p>\n

WPCouple Team’s Core Contributions! \ud83c\udf89<\/h3>\n
\"WordPress4.9-Core-Contributors-WPCouple-Ahmad-Awais-Maedah-Batool-Ashar-Irfan\"<\/a><\/div>\n

\ud83d\udd25\u00a0Ahmad Awais<\/a><\/strong> is a regular WordPress core contributor<\/a>, he contributed to WordPress 4.9 to improve the Customizer widgets’\u00a0CSS for small screens,\u00a0building the default themes changelogs, and improved upon the consistent error message screens for plugins and themes.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude80\u00a0Maedah Batool<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0started contributing to the core in 4.8<\/a>\u00a0and also contributed to 4.9, she’s the best technical writer I know of, she wrote the changelogs and improved the Codex as per the WordPress 4.9 release \u2014 esp. for default themes.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udce6\u00a0Ashar Irfan<\/a><\/strong>, on the other hand, will become a core contributor in 4.9. He improved the core’s CSS for different areas in the customizer from default HTML widget to adjusting the background and alignment of various buttons and the Gallery widget.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfa9\u00a0Saqib Ameen<\/a><\/strong> contributes as the General Translation editor of Urdu language for WordPress. Because of him and over 150 contributors<\/a>, we get 100%\u00a0Urdu translated WordPress release<\/a> since WordPress 4.7.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\ude4c\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n

I’d like to thank my incredible\u00a0Open Source Partners<\/a>\u00a0who help me and my team give back 30% to 50% of our time. To help improve the WordPress software and its community by WordPress core contributions, maintaining over 70 Free & Open Source Software<\/a>, as well as by\u00a0building the community<\/a>\u00a0itself among other things. Thank you!\u00a0\ud83d\udcaf<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

OK, let’s get on with the what’s new in WordPress 4.9.<\/p>\n

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Some of the exciting new features which you will find in WordPress 4.9:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udd25\u00a0Drafting & Scheduling in Customizer<\/h2>\n

WordPress 4.9 allows you to create a draft and schedule changes in the customizer. It also generates a public preview URL<\/strong>. A user, not having access to the dashboard, can view the changes using a unique URL.<\/p>\n

This is a huge update to the Customizer component. Huge props to all the contributors especially the<\/em> Weston Ruter<\/a>\u00a0for leading this effort.<\/p>\n

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Once you save a draft or schedule a changeset, it will auto reload the next time you open the customizer. You can continue changing it or discard it to restore to the original.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udd0e, \ud83c\udfd7\ufe0f, and \ud83d\udc53 Themes in the Customizer<\/h2>\n

This update comes with a significant overhaul of the theme browsing experience in the customizer. Now, apart from installing themes, you can browse, preview and install themes directly from the WordPress theme repo through the Customizer.<\/p>\n

It also offers useful filters to narrow down your search \u2014 cherry on the top.\u00a0\ud83c\udf52<\/p>\n

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Personally, I found this feature very useful. It saves you from the hassle of going back to the Themes<\/strong>\u00a0section to install a new theme \u2014 and dealing with change of context. It is going to save a lot of time for sure,\u00a0 and help users to experiment different themes at one time quickly.<\/p>\n

\u26a1\ufe0f\u00a0Shortcodes & Media Support in Text Widget<\/h2>\n

Text widget now comes with an \u201cAdd Media<\/b>\u201d button and support for Shortcodes<\/b> in WordPress 4.9. Visual Editor in text widget was introduced in WordPress 4.8. But you had to use HTML to insert the media. Now you can directly add media from your media gallery with Add Media button.<\/p>\n

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One very longstanding request\u2014for over eight years\u2014has been to support shortcodes in the Text widget (#10457<\/a><\/span>). This is finally implemented in WordPress 4.9.<\/p>\n

Using shortcode, you can do awesome stuff, like displaying products in the text widget using WooCommerce shortcode, or may insert a contact form right in your textbox using your contact form shortcode.<\/p>\n

\u2604\ufe0f Gallery Widget<\/h2>\n

WordPress 4.9 introduces a new gallery widget<\/em><\/a>. Using the gallery widget, you can display a gallery of your favorite pictures on your site.<\/p>\n

You can also adjust the size of the images and number of columns of the gallery.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udcf9Support for More Video Providers in Video Widget<\/h2>\n

In WordPress 4.9, uses oEmbeds to support other video providers as well. You can only embed the videos from the URLs present in the internal whitelist<\/a>. It’s a huge list.\u00a0Now you can add\u00a0your favorite TED from TED.com or maybe a Facebook video on your blog.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc69\u200d\ud83d\udcbb\u00a0Better Coding Experience<\/h2>\n

Version 4.9 introduces a\u00a0CodeMirror <\/a>editor in the theme\/plugin editor<\/strong>, Custom CSS in Customizer<\/strong>, and Custom HTML widgets<\/strong>. It also includes support for linters to catch errors. It all adds up to a better experience while writing code in WordPress.<\/p>\n

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While it’s not a good practice to code live on the site but this does come in handy at times. Anywho, having this feedback, syntax highlighting, and the linter is a big plus.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udc1e Warning: Potential Danger Ahead!<\/h3>\n

When you edit themes and plugins directly, WordPress 4.9 will politely warn you that this is a dangerous practice. It will recommend that you backup your files before saving, so they don\u2019t get overwritten by the next update. Take the safe route: your future self will thank you. Your team and customers will thank you.<\/p>\n

You’ll also be able to avoid the dreaded white screen. You\u2019ll avoid it when working on themes and plugin code because WordPress 4.9 will warn you about saving an error.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\ud83d\udce8\u00a0Confirmation Email on Email Change<\/h2>\n

Unlike the previous versions of WordPress, v4.9 sends a confirmation email when a user changes his email address. This is a pretty good security feature.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\ude4c\u00a0Updates for Developers<\/h2>\n

WordPress 4.9 also plans to introduce several other new features for the developers. I have listed a few of them below:<\/p>\n