WordPress 4.7 (“Vaughan”) was released on December 6, 2016. This is a major release and the last major release scheduled for 2016. Besides the usual bug fixes and security patches, there are some exciting new improvements and features that have been added. Ill highlight some of the larger items below. If you would like to see the full official release notes, click here.

New 2017 Default Theme

Every year WordPress adds a new default theme nicknamed after the year.  It usually highlights some of the new features added to the platform throughout the previous year.  While most of my clients utilize custom themes, its always worth it to take a look at this theme and note any of the new features or concepts you like for possible integration into your site.  Some of the feature highlights to this theme is video headers, starter content support, additional customizer options and inline editing directly in customizer.

PDF Previews

Media library now takes screenshots of the first page of PDF documents uploaded.

Custom CSS Live Preview

You can now see live previews directly in the customizer while adding your custom CSS.

Language Control in Admin Dashboard

You can now specify language preference within the administrator dashboard.  While you still will need to download and install language packs, you can now toggle it within your user profile.

Post Editor Improvements

Keyboard shortcuts are now noted within dropdowns, underline button has been removed and heading dropdown has been moved to the top.  Strikethru and horizontal line buttons have been moved to the kitchen sink.  Know that if you need additional editor options, there is a plugin we can install that will enable all editor options.

Post Type Templates

For all of you utilizing and needing custom post type functionality, the customer facing UI display has just gotten much easier to work with.  Now instead of being forced to use custom page templates for each post type, we can now specify specific templates for different types of content.

Rest API Content Endpoints

A Rest API has been slowly added to the core over the last year.  This is exciting as it allows easy data access for external systems.  Should you have any needs for your website to communicate with external systems such as a CRM, Accounting Platform, etc this rest API is great news for you.

Should you have any questions about the above and/or how you can leverage with your website site, leave a comment!

–Colin