WordPress 4.6 is officially released
It is a release that closes over 489 ticket issues. This release is titled “Pepper” after the famous jazz saxophonist Park Frederick “Pepper” Adams.
Dominic Schilling and Garth Mortensen along with 272 other contributors help to make WordPress 4.6 a reality.
As always before you update to the current version make sure to backup your current WordPress database and system files. Before any updates is always good to have a backup in the event that something goes wrong.
Local Testing
If you’re comfortable with local development on your home computer using a local Web server like a MAMP, WAMP or XAMPP, then I recommend first testing out the update on your local system which should be similar to the configuration of your live website that way you can test out the updates and changes and make sure they don’t conflict with any of your current configurations.
Easier updates
WordPress 4.6 now introduces an easier way to update your plugins and themes. Using Ajax enables you to have in page updates which means no more going to another page and watching the update take effect.
Native fonts
WordPress 4.6 now uses native system fonts which means faster loading within the admin section of your dashboard.
Broken link highlighting
WordPress 4.6 also makes it easier to identify poorly constructed URLs and links which may lead to broken links. An improperly formed URL will now be outlined in red so you can fix it.
Browser content caching
WordPress 4.6 now makes it easier for you to not lose your place when you are drafting up a blog post. While WordPress already had an auto save feature, now it will be saving your content in the browser so if you accidentally try to reload the page it will give you an alert showing the difference between your draft copy and the copy stored in the browser.
Developer features
WordPress 4.6 now comes with new developer features:
- enhanced metadata registration
- multisite performance improvements
- resource hints for performance improvements
- customizer validation and notifications
- improved translation loading
- updates to various JavaScript libraries
- and many more features specifically for developers
This update to WordPress has helped to resolve over 489 issues that people presented over previous versions. As mentioned at the beginning of this article before updating make sure to have a copy of your database and files in the event that you have to revert back to the previous version.
Hopefully you enjoyed this article and the video that comes with it that demonstrates and compares the previous version of WordPress with WordPress 4.6.