WordPress 4.5 Is Out But Maybe You Should Wait

Version 4.5 of WordPress, named “Coleman” in honor of jazz saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard.

There are many new features in 4.5 that will help writing or building your website but maybe you should wait a few day before upgrading.

There are a lot of changes there that might break your website. You should give a few days to WordPress to fix any bugs (wait for a minor release) and maybe more importantly wait for your favorite plugins to make any necessary changes to support properly the new release.

You should also check if your current theme supports the new WordPress version. In my case it doesn’t. Not yet anyway. I think that there is some conflict with the new smart image resizing feature. All my images vanished after I made the upgrade.

I tried to update, and go against my advice of waiting at least a few days before jumping into any update, because of some frustrating bugs. The lesson for me now is that it is better to have a few bugs than to have no website at all. 🙂

Themes and plugins are issuing numerous updates in the past 24 hours…

If you are determined to make the upgrade then backup all your WordPress files and your database before making the leap. Be ready to downgrade to the previous version of WordPress if everything goes to hell or restore from a backup.

Here are some of the new features in version 4.5:

• Inline Linking – Stay focused on your writing with a less distracting interface that keeps you in place and allows you to easily link to your content.
• Formatting Shortcuts – Do you enjoy using formatting shortcuts for lists and headings? Now they’re even more useful, with horizontal lines and “code”
• Live Responsive Previews – Make sure your site looks great on all screens! Preview mobile, tablet, and desktop views directly in the customizer.
• Custom Logos – Themes can now support logos for your business or brand. Try it out with Twenty Sixteen and Twenty Fifteen in the Site Identity section of the customizer.
• Smart Image Resizing – Generated images now load up to 50% faster with no noticeable quality loss.
• Selective Refresh – The customizer now supports a comprehensive framework for rendering parts of the preview without rewriting your PHP code in JavaScript.
• Script Loader Improvements – Better support has been added for script header/footer dependencies. New wp_add_inline_script() enables adding extra code to registered scripts.
• Better Embed Templates – Embed templates have been split into parts and can be directly overridden by themes via the template hierarchy.
• JavaScript Library Updates – jQuery 1.12.3, jQuery Migrate 1.4.0, Backbone 1.2.3, and Underscore 1.8.3 are bundled.

Here is a video with the some of the new features in WordPress 4.5: