Today version 4.0 of WordPress was released. Most of the big changes in “Benny” are changes in how the admin area, or WordPress Dashboard, works and interacts with the user. The biggest changes are:
- Page/Post content editor stays in the same place as users scroll down the editing page.
- Plugin search results are rearranged in a grid and allow admins to easily checkout a plugin’s ratings, documentation, screenshots and other information.
- The Media Library images are in a more fluid grid pattern, not in a list.
- Embedded videos now show as a preview inside of the WYSIWYG content editor so users no longer have to publish or preview a page to see the video.
Click here to view WordPress’s release post with a video that goes through the changes.
For the most part, I think these changes will be beneficial to most WordPress administrators. However, I have some concern on the new page/post editor’s focus when an admin wants to change a custom field on that page. If the page is particularly long, the admin will need to scroll through the entire content of the page to get to the bottom. Thankfully, if you don’t like this feature, there is a way to turn this off. If you open Screen Options at the top, you will see a checkbox labeled “Expand the editor to match the window height.” Uncheck this to manually set the height of the content editor and return to pre 4.0.
We’ve slowly and cautiously been updating some sites across our websites and have not come across any major issues. If you discover any while updating your own website, post a comment below to share!