The development of WordPress 4.3 lead by Konstantin Obenland has started on April, 28. The main focus of the release is the improvement of WordPress performance on touch screen and small screen devices. Contributors will also modify the admin and superadmin interfaces, paying most attention to responsive list tables.
Customizer design, architecture improvements
Once again the attention is paid to the customizer. Here is the list of modifications:
Editor responsiveness. Main attention will be payed to the toolbar, buttons and the editor itself to improve their performance and appearance on mobile devices.
Partial customizer upgrade. Customize Partial Refresh functional plugin aims at updating the parts of the customizer instead of the reloading of the whole page, in case the parameter was changed without transport=postMessage.
Customizer transactions. It depends on the partial update and includes the redesign of the customizer to make it possible to set options like planned parameters, parameters versions, and draft/approving parameters.
Customizer blocking/multisequencing. It’s also supposed to add the support of blocking/multisequencing of the customizer to disable multiple users to rewrite the each others’ parameters while working with the customizer.
Nick Halsey has also a couple of ideas regarding the customizer improvements, that were started in 4.2 version. He “would like to aim for adding theme install in 4.3, which would require a shiny install process, and shiny updates could work into that well too”. He’s planning to present the tested and functioning solution just before the decision to add possibilities to the WordPress 4.3 version.
Also he’s hoping to renew his work on the customizer interface design, that would allow to separate the navigation from the options interface, by eliminating the accordion that’ll provide better interaction experience. Interesting, how will these modifications (if they’ll be added to the 4.3 WordPress release) will influence theme developers.
Improved passwords in WordPress 4.3
Mark Jaquith will coordinate the process of the improved passwords creation in WordPress 4.3. The discussion will be held on #core-passwords channel in Slack. The first proposition is to allow users to choose to set their own passwords or use those generated by the WordPress.
Jaquith also thinks that the password strength meter (added in WP 3.7) must have some kind of feedback with users. It has to explain why the password is too weak and suggest recommendations to make it stronger.
What he offered is simple feedback, e.g.: ‘too short — add more characters!’, ‘Try adding some numbers and symbols!’. Jaquith also wants to display additional information with the recommendations to improve the password. Password security is also one of the update points. “Let’s not send passwords via e-mail anymore, it’s insecure” - he also stated.
The members are going to launch WordPress 4.3 on August, 18. You may keep up with the schedule of the approximate release dates of the beta versions and release candidates at the WordPresss 4.3 Version Project Schedule.
We used these web sites to prepare the post: Updates from Konstantin Obenland and Wptavern.
