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WordPress 4.5 – Coleman

The new WordPress version 4.5 is here, bearing the name of legendary jazz saxophonist Coleman “The Hawk” Hawkins and smooth and subtle changes to its users.

On user’s end, there are several optimizations which follow a consistent tendency we see from the WordPress development team in recent versions: creating a seamless writing flow. They have introduced the following formatting shortcuts for a more streamlined experience:

1scrWordPress Coleman

Inline links: when you need to insert a link, you can just mark the desired word or phrase and click on the link option to see the link field directly in your text.

Three dashes make a divider: save time and set a dividing line by simply typing three dashes into your text.

Backtick text into code: enclose any text you type in the Visual field in backticks and it automatically turns into code.

You can also preview how the site would look on a mobile device directly from the Appearance > Customize section with the help of the buttons in your bottom corner.

WordPress 4.5 Coleman

There is also the option of easy insertion of a logo, in case your template supports it.

The new WordPress version also comes with plenty of optimizations on the development backend, especially focused on generated images. Thanks to several modifications on the Coleman version, they load with up to 50% faster than with any previous releases. WordPress 4.5 increases the compression for custom image sizes by changing the quality in the Image editor from 90 to 82. As explained by the WordPress developers, this significantly reduces the size with no visible reduction in image quality. The websites which use ImageMagick now have reduced file sizes by resizing images in a more efficient way and by stripping extraneous metadata. In addition, the implementation of function wp_get_upload_dir() is said to reduce runtime to 1/3 of the previous 4.4.

Extensive additional work has been applied to the Customizer – the WordPress framework for live previewing changes. So far, in order for each change to be applied, the entire preview had to be reloaded from the server, which took a great amount of time and lagging. The Customizer in “The Coleman”, however, allows settings to use an alternative method which permits JavaScript to preview without any communication with the server at all. This means the change is previewed right away, without rewriting your PHP code in JavaScript, providing a better user experience and faster performance.

WordPress 5.4 also delivers JavaScript Library updates, better embed templates, and script loader improvements. So update your site now to enjoy a performance as smooth as jazz.

Iva Kitipova

Iva is an opinionated and witty read-head. She's got various interests – writes music reviews, takes pictures and loves French. Her idea of happiness is to be able to travel to lots and different places – meeting interesting people along the way. She loves the opportunity to speak to people from all over the world and her job gives her just that.

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