August 18, 2016
Here at SplitMango we use a host of different content management solutions for clients. For some eCommerce clients, Shopify is the way to go. For other clients WordPress is the best solution to manage the large amounts of data they have for their businesses.
For those clients one of the services we offer is keeping their websites safe and update to date with the current versions of software. WordPress is constantly evolving system, continually getting easier and removing vulnerabilities found in older versions. Often time this updates are very minor, but yesterday’s update was a little more substantial. WordPress 4.6 “Pepper” comes with a few updates will make editing and manage a WordPress a little easier.
WordPress 4.6 “Pepper”
So what do you have to look forward in this new version of WordPress? Take a look.
Better Theme Management:
The WordPress Dashboard can fill up fast, will Post Types, Plugins, Menus and Themes it can be difficult to tell how you got to where you are and how to get the next place you want to go. WordPress 4.6 Pepper cleans this up by allowing you to manage your themes in once place. From the themes or plugin area of the Dashboard you can update, activate and install themes without leaving the page you are on.
Faster Dashboard:
Your designers and developers have gone through a lot of work in order to create an amazing website for your users. If they have done their work properly your site loads fast and your users love it. WordPress 4.6 Pepper works hard to do the same thing for your site’s administrators. In this latest update the Dashboard uses your computer’s system fonts. This allows the site to load without having to load any new ones. Super cool.
Drafts saved to the browser:
Blogging takes your full attention. You work hard, carefully crafting your posts and pages. It’s really disappointing when you try to update your page only to realize your internet went out while you were writing and you’ve lost everything. WordPress 4.6 Pepper helps solve this problem, work is saved in your browser as a draft while you work so if something does happen to your connection everything is fine.
Validation updates to the editor:
Finding out your wrote a broken link in the comments section from one of your readers feels bad. In WordPress 4.6 Pepper, links will be validated as your write!
Should You Update?
The short answer is “Yes*”. The asterisk is really important though. Most WordPress websites aren’t built on Vanilla WordPress. Many sites integrate plugins from different developers in order to extend the functionality of WordPress to do some amazing things.
Although, most of these plugins are built to be future proof, some fail to anticipate the way WordPress is going to change. Well built WordPress themes don’t rely too heavily on plugins, their developers know plugins increase the risk of the site breaking when you update either the plugin or WordPress. That’s why a custom WordPress design is worth it over plugin based alternatives. It’s very important to check into each of your sites plugins and see if the developer has updated the plugin to work with the latest version of WordPress.
If your plugins are good to go, we highly recommend you update to WordPress 4.6.