WordPress 4.0 finally rolled out last week, & it was a big update with lots of changes that you will notice right away. Here are my three favorite changes. One of these could be counted as two, but who’s counting anyway?
Image Grid
The 1st thing I noticed in WordPress 4.0 was the updated Media Library. Images have been put into a grid format & are much, much faster to find & edit. This is an important update for those of us who didn’t optimize our WordPress images for SEO when we initially built our websites. Using the new grid format, simply scroll through the images & quickly add Alt Text, Descriptions, & Titles. It’s a very fluid process & even with a large Media Library can be done in a reasonable amount of time.
Image PopUp Editor…Sweet!
Visual Editor Updates
There were 2 major enhancements to the visual editor in WordPress 4.0, & I think you will like them both.
One that everyone will notice is that there is no longer a scroll bar when you’re editing a page or post. Instead, the editor automatically resizes to fit your content & you just scroll like you would any other page. No more confusion over having 2 separate scroll bars…very nice!
The 2nd update in visual editor is that embedded objects now preview within the visual editor. You don’t have to Publish or Update in order to see what a YouTube video or Tweet will look like. In fact, any oEmbed supported embeds will now preview this way.
Plugin Search Just Got A Lot Easier
Searching for the best WordPress plugin is, by it’s very nature, a difficult process. Sometimes, there are so many options that it’s tough to know which is truly the best fit for your site. Other times, there just aren’t enough options. The new plugin search format won’t solve all your issues with WordPress plugin searches, but it sure makes it a much better experience.
Now when you search for plugins, you will see more relevant info about the plugins listed, as well as an image for any plugins that provided them. Besides the cool new UI, plugin search is faster, smoother, & easier than ever before.
Hopefully they’ll move a similar format for installed plugins, too.
Those are my 3 favorite enhancements in WordPress 4.0. As always, before you update, make a backup of your site. Use BackupBuddy (a plugin by iThemes), or check with your website host to see if they will backup for you.
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People with disabilities who say their faith is important to them.
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People with severe disabilities who attend a place of worship at least monthly.
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Faith communities that do congregation-wide disability awareness.
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