WordPress 4.6 Update is Here. So, what is New?

Seeing how WordPress is a weapon of choice for most bloggers, there is a good chance that updates may change the game entirely. This is why those who consider blogging to be their livelihood must closely read the notes about all the changes in the features of this platform. Seeing how WordPress 4.6 update has just arrived, it was about time that we learned what kind of change this brings. Here are few pointers we recognized during the beta.

1.   Broken Links Detection

To start off with something truly huge, WordPress 4.6 detects broken links in the editor. As this is something bloggers all over the world were troubled with, it may make life in the blogosphere much easier. This detector can recognize broken URLs and notify you about them on time. Whenever you add a bad link, the editor will make a tooltip with a warning to check the link before you proceed. However, some point out that the drawback of this feature is that it recognizes only the links that are truly broken. For example, pages with a 404 error will not be classified as bad. To make the long story short, this broken link detector is mostly there to prevent copying mistakes, which basically makes it a spell checker for URLs.

2.   Standardizing Metadata Registration

All the additional data that comes attached to posts, users and comments is jointly called metadata. In the 4.5 version, there were a lot of complaints about the absence of the method for of registering the meta key’s public state. Luckily, in the 4.6 version, this was finally changed and now it is more accessible to the code (both core and extending). This will allow the code to make better decisions on what to do and how to behave around metadata. However, the work of WordPress developers is still far from over and this is something we can expect to be improved in the near future.

3.   Shiny Updates

During the installation, update or deletion of various plugins or themes for WordPress, what you got so far were elaborate details of these processes which, as a user, you clearly did not benefit from. Luckily, in this update, we have another thing to look forward to – the Shiny Updates feature. The way it works is quite simple: Instead of the confusing and disruptive update lines, Shiny Update notifies you only about some major things that occur. In this way, what you get to see are only the most important results. From the technical side, this may not be a significant upgrade, but it more than improves the overall user experience.

4.   Return to the Native System Fonts

In order to gain its unique look that came to be its trademark, WordPress used Open Sans font in the admin area. However, this visual aspect of the platform affected its performance quite negatively, since it forced WP to rely on the external third party source. In turn, it mildly affected the speed of the admin area. The good news is that this will no longer be tolerated since WordPress decided to revert back to use its native system fonts. Still, it must be notified that this change affects only the admin area of the WP and not your content, which will remain in the font you intended for it.

5.   Is It a New CMS Now?

Well, no actually, and this is the best part of it. The main reason behind WP’s popularity is its simplicity, which allows its users to build a site easily. All these new features are meant to do is enhance the way WP functions at the moment and not change it in its essence. Installation, changing theme and uploading content have remained completely as they were. For this reason, apart from these few positive upgrades, most people won’t even notice that there were any changes made. Just as it was supposed to be.

Conclusion:

What we can see from all these changes is that, while being heavily focused on resolving technical issues, improving the overall user experience is still a paramount for a WordPress team. While some unjustly feared that all of these changes might make WordPress more complicated to use, now we can see that this is not the case. New features, like the one with the broken link detection, just go on to show us that with each update, WP is becoming more and more user-friendly.

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