WordPress 4.1 Beta 1: Coming With a New Default Theme

WordPress 4.1 is expected to be released in the second week of December and it will be a real treat for the entire WordPress community before the end of 2014. For complete schedule of Beta releases, visit: https://make.wordpress.org/core/version-4-1-project-schedule/

Note: WordPress 4.1 is in the development phase and it is not recommended to run Beta 1 on live sites.

The release lead of WordPress 4.1 is John Blackbourn,who contributed to WordPress core 7 years ago. Now he works at Automattic as VIP Wrangler.

There are four major updates and improvements in the new Beta 1 release that WordPress developers will just love.

1- The new default Twenty Fifteen theme.

I personally think that Twenty Fifteen default theme is great to develop personal websites and blogs, as it offers many customization options.

The theme is very simple yet highly customizable with many post formats available in the post editor.

2- Distraction-free writing in the post editor

Full screen Post Editor is enabled by default in WordPress 4.1 Beta 1. Whenever you start typing in the editor, I think it will be useful for people who love to write and edit without any distraction.

3- Ability to install and change languages from the General settings

Now, this is big! You can select, install and change the language of your entire WordPress site in just a click!

You can do this by logging into your WordPress admin and navigate to Settings > General and choose the language to install under the Site Language dropdown menu.

4- Inline image editing of post images.

Images in the post editor will have inline alignment options whenever you hover your mouse over them. This is a small improvement but I think it will prove to be useful for those who are new to WordPress.

This sums up the visual and usability updates. But there are many improvements coming in WordPress 4.1 Beta 1 that developers will absolutely love!

Changes for the developers

1- Improvements and updates in Query

• WP_Meta_Query
• WP_Tax_Query
• WP_Comment_Query
• WP_Date_Query

For complete documentation visit: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/10/20/update-on-query-improvements-in-4-1/

2- Update in Taxonomy

Finally, in WordPress 4.1 core committers are moving ahead on the taxonomy roadmap. It will really help in solving problems when taxonomies are used as global terms. For complete documentation visit: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/10/20/update-on-query-improvements-in-4-1/

3- Better Title tag handling in themes

Title tag handling in WordPress 4.1, starting with Twenty Fifteen theme has been rewritten. The recommended method is written here: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/10/29/title-tags-in-4-1/

4- Several changes in the Customizer API especially work towards complete JavaScript API

Improvements in the contextual panels and sections have been done. This all point towards a better JavaScript API to work with WordPress. For detailed information about these changes, visit: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2014/10/27/toward-a-complete-javascript-api-for-the-customizer/

This is pretty much it, as always everyone is invited to test and report bugs for the betterment of WordPress. Let us know in the comment section, what features did you like in the upcoming WordPress 4.1 Beta 1?

If you are looking for a live testing environment for WordPress 4.1 Beta 1 then signup here for our optimized website hosting for wordpress platform and install the beta version and test for free.

Ahsan Parwez

Ahsan is the Community Team Manager at Cloudways. He loves to solve problems and help Cloudways' clients in any aspect he can. In his free time, you can find him playing RTS PC games.

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