Having surpassed numerous versions of beta testing with flying colours, web-developers alike are looking forward to the official release of WordPress 4.5 which is set to land on Tuesday 12th April.

Although this may not mean much to you as a reader right now, as a Cheshire web design agency, we have a large volume of clients who’s website is built using the WordPress platform. Because of this, we feel it is our duty to highlight some of the new, upcoming features for both web-developers and for clients of ours who may want to update their website in the near future.

In this article, our Cheshire web design team will highlight just some the major features of what’s coming from responsive previews to short codes inside our WordPress 4.5 review.

Responsive Preview

Arguably the most important feature of the new release, WordPress 4.5 is set to introduce a very cool responsive preview which will allow you to see what your website looks like on any mobile, tablet or desktop format.

Selflessly speaking as a web-developer, this will save a large chunk of time of endless checking and testing on our phones and tablets thanks to a simple click of a button.

When in the customizer, you can simply click on the device icon at the bottom and switch between devices to give you an instant understanding of how your website performs on any device.

Email Address Login

Let’s face it we've all done it before…. For numerous security reasons, you will have so many different usernames and passwords for so many different websites; it becomes a frustrating challenge to recall what your password was or how to reset it.

Although it may be hard to remember your password, you will never forget your email address. Following in the footsteps of just about every social media site, WordPress 4.5 is set to allow users to login using their email address. Since each WordPress user on your site will already have an email addresses associated with their account, hopefully this will save you time retrieving any details.

Theme Logo Support

Although this feature has already been introduced to clients who use our WordPress platform since 2014, the ease of adding your own custom logo has been something we have taken for granted until now.

Many different WordPress themes, including our own, allow users to easily upload a custom logo using their own personal options panel. For users on the core platform, it has almost become a house of mirrors to identify how to do this…. From the dashboard, users have to currently head to Appearance >>> Customize >>> Site Identity. In WordPress 4.5, users will be able to perform this task through the customizer.

In-Line Editing Shortcuts

If you read our introduction to WordPress 4.3, or have played around with newer versions of the platform then Inline Text Shortcuts should be something you should be familiar with.

Inside the WordPress 4.5 update, we are again introduced to more shortcuts to indicate code and how to quickly style text into italics or bold. One great time saving shortcuts has to be the hyperlink shortcut. By highlight the text, simply press CTRL+K, or COMMAND+K for you Apple users out there, and this will allow you to insert hyperlinks into your post with ease. Although this allows users to quickly add formatting, users do have the option to disable this feature.

Optimise Image Resizing

For users of the current WordPress update, you will know first-hand of the introduction of responsive image scaling so images will look consistently great across any mobile, tablet or desktop device. Taking this idea on step further, WordPress 4.5 is upgrading this functionality by allowing users to easily shrink images up to 50% with no discernible quality loss. Speaking as a Cheshire web design agency, again this is another time consuming feature we look forward to testing…

The Verdict

Overall, I must admit I’m impressed with some of the new features inside the latest update. Speaking as a Cheshire web-design agency, time is often the key and many of these features will help deliver a more efficient delivery. From a user’s point-of-view, the image resizing and short codes should help you grow in confidence in looking to add content without any obstacles that 4.4 may present.

Looking for a rebuild or moving your website to WordPress? No problem! We are a Cheshire based web-design agency who is passionate about WordPress & DotNetNuke. Why not give us a call on 01565 653616 for a no obligation quote now.