The upcoming WordPress version is 4.4 with some important features.
WordPress 4.4 scheduled to release on 8th December 2015.
There are few more scheduled for beta releases:
– On 22nd October 2015, WordPress 4.4 Beta 1 will be released.
– On 28nd October 2015, WordPress 4.4 Beta 2 will available for download and testing..
– On 4th of November 2015, WordPress 4.4 Beta 3 will available for download and testing..
Upcoming features of WordPress 4.4
1. Responsive images:
Exciting updates support for responsive images to serve appropriate image sizes by default to all users.
WordPress will now load an appropriate image based on user’s device and screen size. This is done by using “srcset” attribute. This attribute allows client’s browsers to display an image based on device capabilities.
Low-resolution images look unimpressive on devices with larger screens. This compels site owners to use better quality images which increase the page size and effects download speeds.
The srcset attribute is added on the fly and is not stored in the database.
All post images, featured images, attachment pages, and image galleries will be responsive. This will greatly improve page speeds and user experience on WordPress sites.
2. WordPress Embeds:
WordPress 4.4 allowing users to easily embed content from other websites as like YouTube and Twitter by just pasting its URL in a single line.
WordPress 4.4 will support nearly all sites that support the oEmbed standard. Now you can start the embedding rich media easily!
Any oEmbeds consumer can embed posts from WordPress blogs. This means that WordPress has also become an oEmbed provider.
3. Developer Features:
a. REST API:
A JSON-based REST API for WordPress is now part of WordPress 4.4 core.
The API has two parts – infrastructure and endpoints and only the infrastructure part is available as part of WordPress 4.4 core. The endpoints are still made available only with a plugin.
b. Taxonomy Term Meta Data:
WordPress 4.4 has now included metadata for Taxonomy terms. Terms in taxonomies (like categories and tags or any custom taxonomy) can now have meta data associated with them.
Those who use a plugin to implement term metadata should prepare to move following this post here.
c. Document Title Output:
WordPress 4.4 has replaced the wp_title() with title-tag ( add_theme_support( ‘title-tag’ )) without breaking backwards compatibility with WordPress 4.0 and older, theme authors can check if the callback function exists and add a shiv in case it does not. Check link for detail.
d. Improved Comments performance:
Comments’ performance will be improved by only querying required number of comments and splitting the queries () in upcoming WordPress version 4.4.
Comment form fields output will be changed. The comment textarea will move to the top for logged-out users when replying and improve keyboard/focus navigation, but also aims to make it easier for end users to leave comments on WordPress sites.
e. Multisite Momentum:
Like taxonomy and comments, the multisite features gains a new class, WP_Network. Additionally, there are now *_network_option functions which make it easier to use multiple networks.
4. Twenty Sixteen:
WordPress 4.4 comes with a new default theme for Twenty Sixteen (2016).
Traditional blog layout, one sidebar and content area.
Five color schemes Default, Dark, gray, red and yellow.
It supports custom header and two menu locations.
Let us know in the comments what new feature are you most excited about and what you were expecting in the upcoming feature.