New WordPress Version: WordPress 4.2 (April 23, 2015)
WordPress has just released WordPress version 4.2, named “Powell” in honor of jazz musician Bud Powell.
Learn about the new WP 4.2 updates, security fixes and software improvements and what to do before updating your WordPress software in this blog post.
WordPress 4.2 is all about improving communication and making the sharing of content easier.
Here are just a few of the changes you will see in the new WP version:
Share Your Favorite Content With New And Improved Press This
Coinciding with the release of version 4.2 is a new and improved “Press This” tool (Tools > Available Tools) …
Press This is a simple app that lets you share your favorite content (e.g. text, images and videos) from any website and create new posts quite easily.
You can add the app to your mobile desktop or your browser bookmarks menu bar.
When visiting a web site, click on Press This to repost content to your site. You can share the latest news stories making headlines online, YouTube videos, Twitter posts, pictures from Instagram, and more …
After grabbing your content, you can then edit it with Press This before you save or publish it to your site.
Extended Character Support
With the continued expansion of WordPress worldwide, WP 4.2 now provides extensive native support for characters used in languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean, as well as mathematical and musical symbols, hieroglyphs and emojis …
Just use your native device keyboard to compose your posts and WordPress does the rest …
Additional WP V. 4.2 Release Notes
Here are some other changes you will see when you next log into your WordPress admin area after updating to WordPress 4.2:
Switch Themes In The Customizer
Now you can browse, switch and customize installed themes from the Theme Customizer …
This allows you to make sure that the theme looks great and works with your content before going live on your website or blog …
More Embeds
Since the release of v. 4.0, WordPress has been allowing users to embed YouTube videos and Tweets simply by pasting links.
With v. 4.2 WordPress continues to add more embed support for “third-party” content with your website …
You can now paste links from Kickstarter.com and Tumblr.com into your content …
Embedding content is as simple as pasting a URL onto its own line in a post.
For a full list of WordPress-supported embeds go here.
Smooth & Simpler Plugin Updates
WordPress has done away with the loading screen when updating plugins and streamlined the plugin updating process …
Now, updating your plugins happens with just “one click” without leaving your Plugins screen …
Additional Enhancements
In addition to all of the above, WordPress 4.2 also includes many other enhancement and bug-fixes.
Important WP Update Tips
We recommend doing the following before upgrading to any new version of WordPress:
- Perform a complete backup of all your WordPress files and database.
- Search online for any problems or issues that other WordPress users may be experiencing with the new version. This includes incompatibilities and conflicts with plugins, themes, and other issues (search Google for something like “WP version 4.2 Powell problems” or “WordPress v.4.2 Powell errors”, then go through some of the results to see what kind of issues and errors users are experiencing).
- Once you have done the above, then upgrade to the new version as soon as possible to ensure that your site remains protected against any security vulnerabilities found in previous versions.
Note: Google recently introduced a new change on April 21, 2015 that will affect the search engine ranking of websites that are not mobile-friendly.
You can read the official announcement from Google here: Official Google Webmaster Blog
Also, you can test to see if your website meets Google’s mobile-responsive criteria using Google’s own Mobile Testing Tool …
Enter the URL of your website into the Mobile-Friendly Test field and click the “Analyze” button to see if your site meets Google’s mobile-friendly criteria …
If your site is not mobile-friendly, consider switching to WordPress as soon as possible to avoid SEO problems …
If you’re already using WordPress, then simply switch to a theme that is mobile responsive (most new WordPress themes are).
Note: All images shown above were sourced from WP v. 4.2 release material.
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