WordPress 4.9 – what to expect?

WordPress 4.9 is just a few weeks away! Set to arrive on the 14th of November 2017, it has entered its beta phase, so we can dive in and check out some of the features that will soon be brought to the table.

If you’d like to learn what WordPress 4.9 has in store, just install the WordPress Beta Tester plugin and update to the latest release candidate. Keep in mind that this is not an official version, which means that you shouldn’t test it out on your live production site.

So, without further ado, let’s see what we can expect from WordPress 4.9.

Better experience with the Customizer

The Customizer is the place where you can make changes to the way your website looks. Even though it was a bit limited in functionality at the time of its release, it has become more and more usable with each new WordPress version.

And with WordPress 4.9, it will become even more so.

The most important new feature is the ability to save your changes as a draft and to create a public post preview link. This way, you can share the changes that you’ve made with your teammates or with your friends and get their feedback before you publish them live.

Also, you can now schedule any updates just like you schedule blog posts.

Another novelty is the ability to install themes from WordPress.org without ever leaving it. This will allow you to quickly set up a new theme and to see how your website will look like without leaving the Customizer itself. While there’s nothing groundbreaking, this feature is quite useful if you like to tinker with your themes.

Last, but not least, the Menus section has been updated as well. Menu creation is now simpler than ever, and if you’ve ever had to work on a website with a complicated menu structure, this update will be a godsend.

New Gallery widget & widget updates

WordPress 4.8 introduced several new widgets, including a media widget for images and a video widget for…, well, videos. WordPress 4.9 will introduce yet another one, namely the gallery widget.

It works just like you may have expected it to – all you have to do is simply select images from your media library and they will be displayed next to each other.

Speaking of widgets, the text widget has also been updated. You will now be able to add images, videos or any other media using the TinyMCE editor, which was added in WordPress 4.8. Also, any supported shortcodes will be parsed automatically.

The video widget has also received an update – a lot more video providers are now supported by default. It will also provide better guidance whenever you decide to use an external URL.

An improved code editor

We believe that the improved code editor represents the most important change. Our team loves to tinker with the different themes and plugins and the existing editor hasn’t been very helpful in this regard.

WordPress 4.9 will introduce CodeMirror as the default code editor. And not only that, several APIs will be made available, too. This way other plugins can take advantage of the new editor too.

Aside from the plugin/theme editors, the new CodeMirror functionality will be added to the Custom HTML widget as well.

Here are some of the features that will be offered by the new editor:

• Automatic code highlighting (if you are not a big fan, this feature can be disabled)
• Live error notifications (before you hit Save Changes, you will be alerted if there is a missing closing apostrophe)
• Autocomplete (if you are in the habit of writing out your own code by hand, this will save you lots of time)

Other changes and bugfixes

As with any other new release, there will be multiple small changes and refinements. Plus, a ton of bug fixes. Here is a quick list of some of the features and options that WordPress 4.9 will bring to the table:

• Improved theme switching
• Account security improvements
• PHP sandbox
• New global notification area
• Multiple multi–site updates
• Complete PHP 7.2 compatibility

A list of all the changes and bug fixes is available here.