This week saw the release of WordPress 3.9: Smith. This upgrade makes a giant leap in the media editing process into a more intuitive and enjoyable experience.
We will be upfront with you. We already upgraded all our sites to WordPress 3.9, and we are loving it. Actually, if your website is hosted with us, you are already updated…ta daaa! Here’s why we loved WordPress 3.9 and (we think) so will you:
Media Editing got so much easier
Drag and Drop images inside your editor.
Dropping images is not a new concept in WordPress, but this upgrade goes a step further and lets you drop images inside the editor. You still get the new media screen, but this feature makes adding images a faster experience.
Edit your images inside your post editor
Yeah, I know! Neat! Finally you can resize your image by dragging control points. Remember when you had to choose a percentage to resize your image? No more, you can visually choose the size that best fits your content. Also, all the tools you need to modify your images pop up without leaving the editing screen.
Preview beautiful galleries
One thing I didn’t like about previous versions of WordPress is that you didn’t know right away how your galleries will look like in your final post. WordPress 3.9 allows you to see how your galleries will look like right away by displaying the gallery in the editor exactly how it will look like in the final post.
Manage your widgets from the Theme Customizer
To be honest, Ive never used the Theme Customizer very much in previous versions of WordPress. That might change now. Now you can manage your widgets from the Theme Customizer, which lets you see how your widgets will look like in realtime. No more saving changes and reloading your website to preview them.
There’s a simpler yet powerful theme browser
I love the new theme browser. Now you can see small thumbnails of new themes along with a quick preview of how it will look once you install it. Browsing new themes in the WordPress.org repository is so much easier, now you need to be careful not to waste too much time diving into all the great free options WordPress.org has available.
Before you dive into WordPress 3.9
Excited with what’s new in WordPress 3.9? Great! But remember, this is a major upgrade. Before you hit that upgrade button you should backup your data and make sure your themes and component are compatible with the new version of WordPress. We’ve found that if you have been upgrading regularly your themes and plugins, you shouldn’t have much trouble upgrading to 3.9.
Want to make sure your upgrade proceeds without much hiccups? We can help you…drop us an email!