An Update with You in Mind
Gear up for a more intuitive WordPress!
Version 4.8 of WordPress, named “Evans” in honor of jazz pianist and composer William John “Bill” Evans, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.8 add more ways for you to express yourself and represent your brand.
Though some updates seem minor, they’ve been built by hundreds of contributors with you in mind. Get ready for new features you’ll welcome like an old friend: link improvements, three new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, an updated text widget that supports visual editing, and an upgraded news section in your dashboard which brings in nearby and upcoming WordPress events.
Exciting Widget Updates
Image Widget
Adding an image to a widget is now a simple task that is achievable for any WordPress user without needing to know code. Simply insert your image right within the widget settings. Try adding something like a headshot or a photo of your latest weekend adventure — and see it appear automatically.
Video Widget
A welcome video is a great way to humanize the branding of your website. You can now add any video from the Media Library to a sidebar on your site with the new Video widget. Use this to showcase a welcome video to introduce visitors to your site or promote your latest and greatest content.
Audio Widget
Are you a podcaster, musician, or avid blogger? Adding a widget with your audio file has never been easier. Upload your audio file to the Media Library, go to the widget settings, select your file, and you’re ready for listeners. This would be a easy way to add a more personal welcome message, too!
Rich Text Widget
This feature deserves a parade down the center of town! Rich-text editing capabilities are now native for Text widgets. Add a widget anywhere and format away. Create lists, add emphasis, and quickly and easily insert links. Have fun with your newfound formatting powers, and watch what you can accomplish in a short amount of time.
Link Boundaries
Have you ever tried updating a link, or the text around a link, and found you can’t seem to edit it correctly? When you edit the text after the link, your new text also ends up linked. Or you edit the text in the link, but your text ends up outside of it. This can be frustrating! With link boundaries, a great new feature, the process is streamlined and your links will work well. You’ll be happier. We promise.
Nearby WordPress Events
Did you know that WordPress has a thriving offline community with groups meeting regularly in more than 400 cities around the world? WordPress now draws your attention to the events that help you continue improving your WordPress skills, meet friends, and, of course, publish!
This is quickly becoming one of our favorite features. While you are in the dashboard (because you’re running updates and writing posts, right?) all upcoming WordCamps and official WordPress Meetups — local to you — will be displayed.
Being part of the community can help you improve your WordPress skills and network with people you wouldn’t otherwise meet. Now you can easily find your local events just by logging in to your dashboard and looking at the new Events and News dashboard widget.
Even More Developer Happiness 😊
More Accessible Admin Panel Headings
New CSS rules mean extraneous content (like “Add New” links) no longer need to be included in admin-area headings. These panel headings improve the experience for people using assistive technologies.
Removal of Core Support for WMV and WMA Files
As fewer and fewer browsers support Silverlight, file formats which require the presence of the Silverlight plugin are being removed from core support. Files will still display as a download link, but will no longer be embedded automatically.
Multisite Updates
New capabilities have been introduced to 4.8 with an eye towards removing calls to
is_super_admin(). Additionally, new hooks and tweaks to more granularly control site and user counts per network have been added.
Text-Editor JavaScript API
With the addition of TinyMCE to the text widget in 4.8 comes a new JavaScript API for instantiating the editor after page load. This can be used to add an editor instance to any text area, and customize it with buttons and functions. Great for plugin authors!
Media Widgets API
The introduction of a new base media widget REST API schema to 4.8 opens up possibilities for even more media widgets (like galleries or playlists) in the future. The three new media widgets are powered by a shared base class that covers most of the interactions with the media modal. That class also makes it easier to create new media widgets and paves the way for more to come.
Customizer Width Variable
Rejoice! New responsive breakpoints have been added to the customizer sidebar to make it wider on high-resolution screens. Customizer controls should use percentage-based widths instead of pixels.
The Squad
This release was led by Matt and Jeff Paul, with the help of the following fabulous folks. There are 346 contributors with props in this release, with 106 of them contributing for the first time. Pull up some Bill Evans on your music service of choice, and check out some of their profiles:
1naveengiri, 4nickpick, Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, abhishek, Abhishek Kumar, Adam Harley (Kawauso), Adam Silverstein, Adam Soucie, Afzal Multani, Ahmad Awais, Alex Concha, Alex Floyd Marshall, Alex King, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Middleton, Andreas Brain, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Rockwell, Ankit K Gupta, arena, arena94, Arshid, Arun, asalce, Ashley, ashokkumar24, Atanas Angelov, Aurélien Joahny, Barry Ceelen, bcworkz, Bharat Kambariya, Blobfolio, bonger, Boone B. Gorges, Boro Sitnikovski, Brad Touesnard, Brady Vercher, Brandon Kraft, Brandon Lavigne, Brandon Teinert, Bridget Willard, Bunty, Cami Kaos, Carl Alberto, Casey Driscoll, cazm, ccprog, Chandra Patel, Chetan Satasiya, Chirag Patel, Chouby, Chris Klosowski, Chris Mok, chriseverson, Christian Chung, Corey McKrill, Courtney P.K., Cristiano Zanca, csloisel, Curdin Krummenacher, Cyrus Collier, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Llewellyn, Daniele Scasciafratte, Darren Ethier (nerrad), Darshan joshi, darthaud, Daryl L. L. Houston (dllh), David A. Kennedy, David Anderson, David Herrera, David Shanske, david.binda, davidbenton, designsimply, Dhanendran, Dharmesh Patel, Dhaval Parekh, dingo-d, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Dotan Cohen, Dotstore, DoubleH, Doug Cone, DreamOn11, Drew Jaynes, Drivingralle, dspilka, Dugonja, Edwin Cromley, Ejner Galaz, Ella Iseulde Van Dorpe, Elliot Taylor, emirpprime, Eric Andrew Lewis, Erick Hitter, Ethan Allen, Fabien Quatravaux, Felix Arntz, fibonaccina, Florian TIAR, fperdaan, Francesca Marano, Frank Neumann-Staude, Franz Josef Kaiser, fstf, Gabriel Maldonado, Garth Mortensen, Gary Cao, Gary Pendergast, Gennady Kovshenin, George Stephanis, Gustave F. Gerhardt, Helen Hou-Sandí, helgatheviking, Hristo Pandjarov, Ian Dunn, ig_communitysites, Igor Zinovyev, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Irene Strikkers, Ivan Stefanov, ivantedja, J.D. Grimes, Jack Reichert, Jake Spurlock, James Nylen, Jaydip Rami, jazbek, Jeff Bowen, Jeff Farthing, Jeff Paul, Jeffrey de Wit, Jen Miller, Jennifer M. Dodd, Jeremy Felt, Jeremy Pry, jesseenterprises, Jignesh Nakrani, Jimmy, Jip Moors, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, Joe McGill, Joen Asmussen, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jonny Harris, Joost de Valk, Josepha, Josh Pollock, Juhi Saxena, Justin Kopepasah, Justin McGuire, Justin Tucker, K.Adam White, kafleg, Kailey (trepmal), Karine Do, Kathryn, kaushik, Keanan Koppenhaver, keesiemeijer, Kelderic, Kelly Choyce-Dwan, Kite, Kjell Reigstad, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, kostasx, kubik-rubik, KUCKLU, Lance Willett, laurelfulford, Lee Willis, leemon, LewisCowles, LiamMcArthur, Lucas Stark, lukasbesch, Luke Cavanagh, Maedah Batool, Mahesh Prajapati, mallorydxw-old, mantismamita, Marin Atanasov, Mario Aguiar, Mark Jaquith, Mark Uraine, Marko Heijnen, Matheus Martins, MatheusGimenez, Mathieu Viet, mathieuhays, Matias, Matias Ventura, Matt Wiebe, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Haines-Young, mattyrob, Maxime Culea, Mayo Moriyama, Mayur Keshwani, Mel Choyce, Menaka S., Michael Arestad, Michael Nelson, michalzuber, michelleweber, Miina Sikk, Mike Crantea, Mike Hansen, Mike Jolley, Mike Little, Mike Schroder, Milan Dinić, Milind More, Mithun Raval, MMDeveloper, Mohammad Jangda, mohanjith, Monika Rao, Morgan Estes, moto hachi, MrGregWaugh, mrwweb, mschadegg, Muhammet Arslan, Naoko Takano, Naomi C. Bush, Nate Reist, Ned Zimmerman, Nick Halsey, Nicklas Sundberg, Nikhil Chavan, Nitin Kevadiya, Nitish Kaila, nobremarcos, odyssey, page-carbajal, Pascal Birchler, Paul Bearne, Paul Biron, Paul de Wouters, Paul Ryan, pavelevap, Payton Swick, pdufour, Peter Wilson, Philip John, Piotr Delawski, Piotr Soluch, postpostmodern, Pranali Patel, Pratik Shrestha, Presskopp, Priyanka Behera, prosti, ptbello, r-a-y, Rachel Baker, Rafael Ehlers, raggedrobins, Rami Yushuvaev, ramiabraham, ranh, RC Lations, redrambles, Refael Iliaguyev, reldev, rensw90, reportermike, Reuben Gunday, Rian Rietveld, Riddhi Mehta, Rinku Y, Robbie Cahill, Robert O'Rourke, Robin Cornett, runciters, Ryan Boren, Ryan McCue, Ryan Welcher, Sören Wrede, Sagar Bhatt, Sagar Jadhav, Sagar Prajapati, Said El Bakkali, Sal Ferrarello, Samantha Miller, Sami Keijonen, Samuel Sidler, Sanket Parmar, Sathiyamoorthy V, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, Sean Hayes, Sebastian Pisula, Sergey Biryukov, sfpt, sgolemon, Shady Sharaf, shanee, Shashwat, shulard, Siddharth Thevaril, Silvio Endurhn, slbmeh, Stéphane Boisvert, Stanimir Stoyanov, Stephane Daury (stephdau), Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steven, Steven Word, Storm Rockwell, Sudar Muthu, Supercoder, Sybre Waaijer, szaqal21, taggon, Takayuki Miyauchi, Takayuki Miyoshi, Tammie Lister, technopolitica, tejas5989, Tellyworth, terwdan, tharsheblows, theMikeD, thepelkus, Thorsten Frommen, Tim Hengeveld, Timmy Crawford, Timothy Jacobs, timph, tmatsuur, Topher, Travis Smith, triplejumper12, truongwp, Ulrich, Utkarsh, vaishaliagola27, vortfu, Weston Ruter, Wise Builds Software, wpfo, xrmx, ze3kr, and Česlav Przywara.
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 4.8. Their efforts bring WordPress 4.8 fully translated to 38 languages at release time with more on the way.
Do you want to report on WordPress 4.8? We’ve compiled a press kit featuring information about the release features, and some media assets to help you along.
If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog. Thanks for choosing WordPress — we hope you enjoy!