Blog

WordPress 4.4: What’s New?

This past week we celebrated the release of WordPress 4.4. Let's take a look at some of the new features being offered.

This past week we celebrated the release of WordPress 4.4. Lead by Scott Taylor, this new version boasts great benefits for both users and developers. Head to your site’s Pantheon dashboard to do a one click update for WordPress 4.4 in order to take advantage of these new features.

WP API in Core: Phase One
The game-changing inclusion of the WP API into WordPress core allows developers to easily build decoupled WordPress sites which provides a clean separation between the frontend and the backend. For more information on this approach check out our upcoming webinar on decoupled WordPress sites and the official blog announcement of the feature.

New Default Theme: Twenty Sixteen
The new default theme is a modern, minimalist design that looks great on all devices and offers a number of optional color customizations. Check out the blog announcement here.

Responsive Images: Performance for All
With the srcset attribute now in core, browsers will automatically choose the image most appropriate for the device being used. This allows mobile devices to receive smaller images which transmit quicker, or retina devices to receive larger images which provide more detail. Check out the blog announcement here.

Taxonomy Updates: Term Metadata
A lot of improvements to the taxonomy component ship with 4.4, the most significant being term meta which allows the storing of arbitrary data about taxonomy terms. You can now categorize your content in any way you like! Check out the blog announcement here.

Role Reversal: WordPress as oEmbed Provider
4.4 opens WordPress as an oEmbed provider, allowing oEmbed consumers to embed rich content (such as a post preview) from WordPress sites by simply linking to the content. Check out the blog announcement here.

There’s a lot more under the hood, and we can’t wait to see what comes next. Try it on Pantheon today, and look out for WordPress 4.5 coming to a site near you next year!