WordPress 3 8 – what’s new and why it matters

Agenda
• New User Interface Design
• Improved Theme and Widget Management
• Twenty Fourteen: A ‘’magazine style’’ Default Theme
• Other Noteworthy Updates
• The New is Now
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Introduction
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Do you use WordPress?
If so, your world is about to CHANGE
and you’re not alone.

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Recent statistics show WordPress now
powers:
• Close to 20% of the web
And controls:

• Close to 60% of the Content Management System market.

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So when big changes are rolling
out, there’s a LOT at stake.

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The most recent version of WordPress, version
3.8, shows that the platform (and its developers)
take this responsibility seriously and aim to
further simplify web publishing for everyone.

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Let’s dive in and take a closer look
at the WordPress 3.8 release!

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New User
Interface Design
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New versions of WordPress follow a general
pattern:

• Odd numbered releases are mostly back-end
upgrades

• Even numbered releases carry with them feature
additions, front-end upgrades, and changes

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So it should come as no surprise, that 3.8
has some new features.
But unless you’ve been paying close
attention, the extent of these new features
may SURPRISE you.

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Version 3.8 is not just a feature upgrade.
It is a long awaited facelift.

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Farewell to the
skeuomorphic, low
contrast rounded corner
user interface of old.

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Hello to a responsive,
modern, touch-friendly,
typographically-rich user
interface.

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Responsive UI:

Desktop
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Tablet

Mobile

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Over the past year:
A team of developers headed by WordPress

co-creator Matt Mullenweg, have been working
on a new user interface, codenamed “MP6”.

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The MP6 UI aimed to solve a series of issues:
From responsiveness to high-resolution graphics.
Originally developed as stand-alone plugins, MP6 and its
cohorts DASH (simplified dashboard), THX38 (new theme
experience), and the Widget Area Chooser are now
baked into the WordPress core code.
This provides a whole new administrative experience that
is simpler, more accessible, and works beautifully across all
screen sizes.
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The only real way to get the full story on
the new UI, is to try it for YOURSELF!
As you dig in, let me direct your attention to
some of the finer and less obvious points...

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1.

MP6 admin UI is fully responsive–meaning as screen
sizes change the layout resizes and reformats to provide
the best possible user experience.

This provides tablet and smartphone users––and also Windows 8
users utilizing Snap––a much improved user experience.
Plus it makes WordPress administration truly mobile out of the box.
As part of this move to responsiveness, the WordPress Toolbar has
been subtly changed to be touch friendly by making the bar and its
buttons bigger as screen sizes get smaller.
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2.

On the font side, the new admin UI swaps out Arial
for the Google font: Open Sans.

Open Sans has looser kerning (more space between the letters)
for increased readability.
Just as important but less obvious, the new UI also replaces its
image-based icons for the custom Dashicon icon font to ensure
crisp, sharp icons–regardless of screen resolution.
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3.

And if you don’t like the default charcoal-and-blue
color scheme...

You now have four versions
to choose from:

• Blue
• Default
• Light
• Midnight
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Though to be honest, only Default
and Midnight have a high enough
contrast to be really useful.

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Improved Theme and
Widget Management
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In tandem with the new admin user
interface...
The Theme and Widget managers have
also been updated to provide better user
experiences.

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The Theme Manager has been reworked with
the same minimalist approach as the overall
UI, and now provides a more intuitive and
less cluttered interface.

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Now Gone
• Vertical separation between your active
theme and the themes available to you.
• Theme info is moved to modal windows for
a quicker overview of available themes and a
more in-depth inspection of theme info.
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Theme Manager

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