The official beta release of WordPress 4.8 will be here today, May12, 2017, anytime! This means we won’t be able to add any new features until the final release of WordPress 4.8. However, we are excited to tell you that the final version of WordPress 4.8 will be here around June 8, 2017, as per the release schedule. This will be the first major release from WordPress this year.
Now, you have a reason to smile. The text widget in WordPress 4.8 is coming with a simple visual and text editor. Now adding links, emphasizing i.e. making text bold or italic, or creating lists can be done easily without having to write any HTML code.
Our WordPress specialists are eager to share the new features they have explored in the beta version using the WordPress Beta Tester plugin.
Visual editor in text widget
Visual editor in text widget
WordPress, by default, comes with a plain text widget with a simple text box which lets you add text and HTML code. If you are not conversant with HTML then you would definitely find it difficult to add links or use basic formatting.
Image widget
The
current version of WordPress lets you display an image in sidebar only if you
use a plugin or write HTML. This will change in WordPress 4.8 as a new image
widget will be introduced.
This will
enable you to easily add images to WordPress sidebar by uploading an image
right from the widget or from the WordPress media library.
Once click on
the “select image” button, the WordPress media uploader popup will open where
you can upload or select an image. You will be able to see a preview of the
image, once it is inserted, in the widget area.
Video widget
WordPress 4.8
will also introduce a video widget similar to the image widget mentioned above.
It will allow you to easily upload video in the WordPress sidebar or display
video from YouTube, vimeo or any other video hosting provider for that matter.
Our WordPress
specialists recommend that you should always use a video hosting provider like
Youtube or vimeo instead of uploading videos to your WordPress site. This is
because uploading a video on your site would cost you bandwidth and you would also
miss the video quality optimization that these hosting sites do for better web
experience. Moreover, it is easy to share embedded videos.
You can just click on the “Select Video” button as shown in
the screenshot above and then click on “Insert from URL” link.
Then paste the URL of the video you want to embed and click
on the “Add to widget” button. The media uploader popup will vanish and you
will see a thumbnail preview of your video inside the widget, as shown in the
screenshot.
News and events dashboard widget
Your current
WordPress news widget which only updates you about WordPress news will be
replaced by a new news and events dashboard widget in WordPress 4.8. This will
also appear on your WordPress dashboard page. However, it will not only contain
information about WordPress news but also about WordPress events near your
location (see screenshot below).
In case,
there are multiple users on your site then this widget will show them events
based on their location. The user’s location will be automatically detected by
sending their timezone, locale, and IP address to api.wordpress.org. However,
you can manually edit the location to view events from any other location.
Are you ready?
You must be
eagerly waiting for this major WordPress release of 2017. Which aforementioned
features you find fascinating? Being an OutsourcingWordPress Development agency based in India, we would love to hear from you!
