14 DAY TRIAL // As soon as the 4.2 version of WordPress was released, the team in charge of the tool already started working on its 4.3.x branch. With the pre-announced release date of July 1 for the first Beta version getting closer and closer, developers and webmasters are now starting to ask themselves: What's coming next?
Taking a closer look at the WordPress project tracker, we were able to extract a few features that might end up being part of the upcoming 4.3 branch.
WordPress theme customizer partial refresh
Since WordPress develops its upcoming features as plugins first and then decides if they should be integrated in the core or not, the first feature that stood out to us was the Customize Partial Refresh plugin, which adds the ability to refresh small parts of a theme without reloading the entire page.
While this might not be something visible to all users, it's a small UX improvement that makes testing changes to a theme much smoother and less time-consuming.
A UI focused on the mobile experience
This has been a focus for the WordPress team for some time, with mobile support already being available for a couple of versions now.
Version 4.3 will add better mobile support for the whole admin UI, but it will also focus more on the network admin. If you don't know what that is, it's the page where WordPress is managed when working in multi-site mode.
Better passwords = better security
Another focus point for the new version will be to change the way passwords are chosen in WordPress during and after installation, also giving users the option to have WordPress generate a new password for them.
Additionally, the password strength meter messages will also be enhanced, since the team considers them too short and uninformative as they are right now.
Menu customizations in the theme customizer
This new feature can already be tested if you want to, as it is available as the Menu Customizer plugin.
Basically, it allows users to customize menus right inside the theme customizer, without having to go to a separate page in the admin backend.
A JSON REST API anyone?
This one has a long way to go before making it into the WordPress core. It was on the project tracker, and we decided to list it here, even if we don't believe it will be ready in time for 4.3. But who knows, maybe Santa will be coming early this year.
You can use it right now as the WP REST API (WP API) plugin.