Helios Solutions

WordPress Specialists Reveal What to Expect in WordPress 4.8

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

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!