This week has seen the launch of WordPress 4.7, which brings with it a mammoth set of new features (see the field guide for just how many!), and Twenty-Seventeen – in our opinion the best bundled theme yet!
In additional to all the new features for developers (we’re thinking REST API & Post Templates), there are some really nice new features for end users too – here are some of our favorites:
Custom CSS with Live Preview
You can now make CSS changes with live previewing, thanks to a feature that’s available by default in WordPress Core! Editing CSS code, saving, and then refreshing your page is no longer needed – simply add your custom CSS in the panel, and see how you site looks. When you’re happy click Save & Publish, and your ready to go.
Customisation Icons
When you enter customisation mode now you can see lots of little blue circles (see below) where placeholder content is being used, and have the opportunity to change it quickly and easily. This gives you the opportunity to arrange the you content in different ways without making any living changes to the site, until you click that Save & Publish button.
Video Headers
Perhaps one of the best changes to help make your site look better, is the addition of video header support – no longer are you tied to using static header images. Videos can either be grabbed from YouTube, or uploaded to your own site, in a MP4 format.
PDF Previews
We work with lots of clients who upload and serve PDFs through WordPress, but previously we just saw an icon in the Media Library. With WordPress 4.7 this has changed, and PDFs will appear just like images and videos in the media library.
These are just some of the awesome new features available in WordPress 4.7 – with everything else too this is one of the best updates the team have released, and we look forward to making more beautiful websites with WordPress here at DOWO!