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The latest version of WordPress, version 4.4 Clifford, was released on December 9*, 2015. Through a host of beta releases and updates, the much anticipated new WordPress was finally released.

WordPress 4.4 Clifford comes your way with quite a few new features, here we take a look at some of them,

EMBEDS

Up until now, the embedding feature on WordPress was limited to only a few particular sites that were listed by WordPress. WordPress users could automatically embed facebook status, tweets by putting in the URL of a post. But come WordPress 4.4 Clifford, you will now be allowed to add embeds from nearly any site that supports oEmbed.

Upon adding any plain URL from any other site, it will automatically be embedded.

Another significant change is that WordPress is that it itself has become an oEmbed provider. That is, now you can embed WordPress posts to other sites. Although, you do have the option to make your site unavailable for embedding. You will have to install the disable embeds plugin to do so.

Earlier the embedding feature was accessible through a plugin, but now is a part of the core. Those that were using the plugin earlier will not have to do so, thus improving the speed of the site.

THE DEFAULT THEME: TWENTY SIXTEEN

Since quite a few years now, WordPress has been coming up with a default theme annually. This version’s default theme, Twenty Sixteen, is already available for download.

The theme was designed by Takashi Irie, who also designed twenty fourteen and twenty fifteen.

Twenty Sixteen comes in with custom colour option and default colour schemes(default,  dark, grey, red and yellow), and also custom background and header option. It boasts of a mobile first approach.

The theme also features multiple menu positions(for site navigation and other social links) and a social menu.

RESPONSIVE IMAGES

People access the internet through various devices. This leads to a lot of hassle on the part of the viewer, and the developer.

Version 4.4 addresses this problem with the launch of responsive images, as per which, WordPress will now load an appropriate image, based on the viewers device.

With user’s browsers serving as appropriate size, the uploaded images will be automatically cropped out.

This will not only help increase the speed, but provide users with a better experience.

Apart from these, the version also has a host of developer based features. Here we highlight some of them,

REST API

The JSON-based Rest API now comes as a part of the WordPress core. It will allow WordPress developers to creat new APIs or work on existing APIs.

With the API infrastructure now a part of the core, end points are still available through plugins. Authors can utilise REST API by adding custom end points.

COMMENTS QUERYING

The comments’ performance issues in the default WordPress theme have often led users to use alternate commenting platforms.

WordPress 4.4 Clifford finally pays heed to this issue and things are looking upside.

The new version queries the required number of comments and splits the queries.

TAXANOMY TERMS METADATA

WordPress 4.4 Clifford features the inclusion of metadata for Taxonomy terms. Version 4.4 has brought Taxonomy term metadata to the core of WordPress. Metadata can now be associated with terms in Taxonomies.

IMPROVED TITLE GENERATION

WordPress until now used wp_title() for title generation. Version 4.4 has replaced it with a more comprehensive way to generate titles.

Plugin authors can now check for theme support and have a few new filters available that will allow them to change or replace the title in a reliable way.

Overall version 4.4 has many new features for the users to be excited about. This features will certainly improve the performance of the sites and add a more sturdy base to work with.

Learn More about WordPress 4.3.1

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