Small business favorite publishing platform WordPress has just announced its first maintenance release — 4.8.1 — since the release of its latest update in June.
August 2017 WordPress Maintenance Release
Named after American jazz pianist and composer William John “Bill” Evans, WordPress 4.8 “Evans” was released June 8 and has already been downloaded more than 13 million times. The maintenance release includes 29 fixes and enhancements for making WordPress more intuitive.
What is Under the Hood of 4.8?
The latest update,the work of 346 contributors, includes improved media widgets for images, audio, video and rich text, improved links and a news section.
Image Widget
With this new widget, adding an image has been simplified even further. All you have to do is insert your image within the widget setting, and it will appear automatically on your blog or site.
Audio Widget
Whether it is music, your podcast or another audio file, you simply upload it to the Media Library, go to the widget settings, select your file, and you can post it.
Video Widget
Videos can now be added to a sidebar on your site with a new video widget. You can post videos with promotional items for your small business, welcome visitors to your site and more.
Rich Text Widget
This widget has rich-text editing capabilities so you can add it anywhere and start editing, formatting and adding links.
Link Boundaries
Adding or editing a link, although relatively simple, is unnecessarily labor intensive. The process usually involves several tries as text next to the word you want to link to also ends up getting linked. Link Boundaries gets rid of this by streamlining the process.
WordPress Events and News
This feature will provide information on the latest community and group meetings around the world. With more than 400 cities taking part in these events, you will now be able to find out where WordCamps and official WordPress Meetups near you are taking place.
Update for Developers
For developers, the update includes more accessible admin panel headings along with removal of core support for WMV and WMA files, multisite updates, text-editor JavaScript API, media widget API, and more.
Do You Have a WordPress Site?
If you do, it is extremely important to update to the latest version. Security, speed and SEO efforts should be made easier by installing it. Before you update to 4.8.1, create a complete WordPress back up.
Getting WordPress 4.8.1
If your site supports automatic background updates, you will likely have received both the 4.8 update and the 4.8.1 maintenance release automatically — without doing a thing. Otherwise, you can download WordPress 4.8.1 here, or go to your dashboard and click Update Now. Additional release notes can be found here.
When you download the latest version, make sure you also go over the WP Engine’s upgrade policy for your site.
WordPress Photo via Shutterstock
