WordPress 4.9: What new features can you expect?

WordPress 4.9 is under development and is expected to be released on 14th November, 2017. So let’s learn what new features you can expect in the new version. Remember that some of these features may not be available in the final release.

Save and Schedule Theme Changes

WordPress 4.9 will launch the feature of saving theme customization as draft. Therefore, after this release, you won’t be forced to make the customizations live. That’s not all! Additionally, you’ll be able to share the preview of how your site will look like with people who can’t access the customizer. You will be able to do this by sharing a URL to the intended users.
Just like the schedule feature you have in the posts, you will have schedule option for your theme changes as well. You can specify the date and time you want your theme customization to go live.

Gallery Widget

WordPress 4.9 will introduce a gallery widget. It is a completely new widget in WordPress. This widget will let you create a native WordPress gallery. Like every other widget, you can add it to any widget ready areas.

Media Button in Text Widget

WordPress 4.8 brought visual and plain text editors for the text widget. However, you still had to write HTML code for adding images. This shortcoming will be fixed in WordPress 4.9. The text widget will come with an “Add Media” button.

Enhanced Code Editor

The upcoming version will bring an enhanced code editor for a better code editing experience. It will have features like syntax highlighting, code suggestions, and auto-completion. If you don’t like syntax highlighting feature, you can disable it from your user profile page as well. You will see these features while editing codes in custom CSS, theme editor, or plugin editor. Moreover, this improvement will automatically fix common mistakes that cause syntax error.

Other Changes

Here are a few other noteworthy features that may come with WordPress 4.9.

  • Better mapping for theme menus and navigation widgets after switching themes. (#39692, #39693)
  • Recursively search for files in plugin and theme editors. (#6531)
  • Removal of SWFUpload library from the core. (#41752)

In Conclusion

We hope you have now got a fairly good idea about what you can expect in WordPress 4.9. What is the feature that you like the most? Or is there something you don’t like about the new version? Feel free to share your opinions in the comment section below.

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