WordPress 3.6: inside the features of the upcoming version.
at the new features and ideas that WP 3.6 is expected to bring.
We have learned from Helen Hou-Sandi that the post formats UI will be revised to help users
get a better understanding of each format. The goal
here is to standardize the usage of post formats across themes. This means that
developers will no longer need to form a set of assumptions and use custom
fields when dealing with post formats in WordPress. In addition as of now, the
list of inspirational sources includes: CF Post Formats, WP.com and of course Tumblr.
Regarding the Add New Post page, henceforth multiple tabs, will allow you
to select the required post format. In addition each post format will have its
own settings, such as “Source” for Quote post format and “Gallery Shortcode”
for galleries.
Regarding Post Revisions (a way to keep track of
changes made to your posts) henceforth WordPress 3.6 intends to further
fine-tune this feature.
Visual Comparison showing Post Revisions in WP 3.6: The current list of
suggested changes to this feature include author attribution and comparison, also
a better user interface that will help end users get a quick visual overview of
the changes made to a particular post.
Autosave
and Post Locking
Autosave is one of the least appreciated, though most important, features
in any writing tool: after all, no one likes losing their hard work due to a
browser crash, right?
Sadly, many WP users have had issues trusting WP’s autosave capabilities —
to the extent that some people generally write their content elsewhere,
possibly in HTML editors or word processors, and then paste the same in
WordPress, instead of using WP’s editor directly.
Enhanced Autosave Settings in WordPress 3.6: Mistakes and errors should be
recoverable, to quote Mark Jaquith. This means that a lot is being done to enhance the autosave mechanism in
WordPress:
- WP Heartbeat API: An API that will send requests to the server every 15 seconds, and trigger events on receiving the response.
- Post Locking: A feature that can help prevent loss of data due to simultaneous editing of a post.
- Autosave (to local storage): This can prevent loss of data from the interval between two saved (to database) post revisions.
- Login Expiry: This will prevent loss of data due to cookie expiration.
Twenty
Thirteen: none resemble with its predecessors in terms of
appearance: WP 3.6 is focusing on better blogging, and improvements in the post
formats section. You can Read more about it, or check out the demo.
Editorial
Workflow: here WordPress 3.6 is expected to come with many new
changes and improvements made to the editorial workflow, especially for
multi-author blogs. Henceforth if you are running a magazine site, you can
expect to easily add post statuses such as Pitch, In Progress, and Expired. Etc.
This also the editorial workflow improvements will be made in the API, thereby
making things easier for plugin developers who wish to extend the editorial
workflow.
Menus:
version 3.6 is likely to come with some UI improvements.
Menu Usage Breakdown at WP.com :brings Some suggested changes include the addition of accordion styling to menu
items, better RTL languages support and improved
cross-browser compatibility. You can catch a glimpse of the suggested
changes here.
Finally, regarding the Code Maintenance, Bug
Gardening and Architecture section, apart from caching
and performance tweaks, there will be many other updates to the WP core, such
as:
- WordPress 3.6 is heading towards PDO extension for supporting database connections. This makes sense because mysql_* functions are deprecated in PHP. As a developer, you will need to make use of the native wpdb class to interact with the database so as to remain compatible with future PHP versions.
- Beyond that, in wp_terms, the UNIQUE constraint will be removed from the slug. This is being dubbed as preparation for future taxonomy architecture changes.
- In terms of caching, many tweaks and changes are being proposed. For example, get_term_by() calls will not be cached.
- There is also a possibility of using wp_cache_get_multi() — though this has not been accorded top priority.
You can Share your thoughts with us in the comments below! And also stay updated with the latest changes by
following the Make WordPress Core.
