WordPress 4.7 is out and there is no surprise it’s named after a legendary jazz vocalist – Sarah Vaughan. In this article you can read more about the improvements and bugfixes that are worth the hassle.
⭐ Twenty Seventeen – the new default theme
Unlike the previous default themes that were mostly suitable for blogs, the new Twenty Seventeen is especially designed for business websites.
On the theme’s demo site Needle & Hook – Coffeehouse, you can preview the home page which is divided into multiple sections. Twenty Seventeen also features interesting new options such as starter content, video headers, edit shortcuts and custom CSS.
Installing a fresh copy of WordPress 4.7 will enable you to use the website starter content that displays the theme features such as options, gadgets, pages, navigation elements, etc.
⭐ New Features in Customizer
If supported, video headers enable you to use an atmospheric video on your website’s home page. Settings for that option are available in the admin panel -> Appearance -> Header image or directly under Customize -> Media files for headers.
You can upload a video file and set it up as a header or directly post a YouTube URL.
The video should be in the .mp4 format and with a maximum size less than 8MB. When your website is loaded on a mobile device with a smaller screen size, visitors will see a header image instead of the video. Users will be able to play and pause the video which is played on full screen by default with the control button.
• Edit Shortcuts
Shortcuts to the Customizer preview make it easier to see which elements of your site are editable in the Customizer. In the previous WordPress versions the shortcuts were hidden, but still accessible through the Shift+mouse click command. Now in 4.7 version the shortcuts will be visible. The shortcut support depends on the theme used. The shortcuts are available in Customizer when the Twenty Seventeen theme is enabled.
The Customizer also enables you to add custom CCS to the theme.
⭐ Language Switcher for Admin Panel
Users (mostly administrators) can choose different languages for the admin panel and the website.
You can change your language preferences from the editor of your profile.
This feature has been long anticipated and it is very useful especially if you support a website in a foreign language and you need to change settings in the admin panel.
⭐ Toolbar Buttons Removed
Text editor has been changed as the align-justify and underline buttons have been removed.
Underlining can mislead users that a certain element is actually a link. Justifying is an old-fashioned practice that has uneven browser implementation as it also causes bad readability.
Although buttons have been removed, you will still be able to use those features with keyboard shortcuts Shift + Alt + j to justify and Ctrl + u to underline.
There is more:
The new WP makes it easier to preview PDF files in the media library by generating small image representations. The image representation is actually a screenshot of the .pdf file’s first page.
WordPress 4.7 also changes the way image alt attribute values are generated as they will not be automatically generated from the file name. This means that if you do not manually enter the alt tag value, it will stay empty (alt=””).
The REST API interface has been improved a lot. The newest release of the most popular CMS offers extended possibilities for access and communication from external application to the website’s content. There are also steps made for future developments – Management API (website administration).
Developers are now enabled to register their own bulk actions on list table screens.
Post Type Templates – Similarly to page templates where you can have separate .php files for different templates you can now create and use templates for user data, articles or others.
We highly recommend that you make a full website backup before updating to 4.7. If necessary, you can easily restore your website from WordPress Manager by SuperHosting in cPanel.
