Version 4.3

On August 18th, 2015, WordPress Version 4.3, named after jazz musician Billie Holiday, was released to the public. For more information on this enhancement and bug-fix release, read the WordPress Blog, and see the Changelog for 4.3.

For Version 4.3, the database version (db_version in wp_options) changed to 33055, and the Trac revision was 33635.

Highlights

  • The Finer Points
    • Resetting Your Password received attention and 4.3 improves the way that passwords are chosen and changed. You start out with a strong password by default and you are given the option to keep it or choose your own. A password strength meter is available as well as the option to hide your password from prying eyes. You will find the new password interface on the password reset screen and the WordPress install screen. WordPress will no longer send passwords via email and the password reset links will expire in 24 hours. Finally, e-mail notifications will be sent out in the event that an e-mail or password is changed.
    • Site owners can now manage their site’s favicon on desktop and mobile. Site Icons work out of the box, are theme independent, and do not require theme support.
    • Multisite Focused Changes
    • The main change to the Editor is that the content for both Visual and Text editors is prepared/escaped the same (we run the textarea content through the JavaScript wpautop() before initializing TinyMCE).
    • Comments are now turned off on pages and custom post types by default.
  • For Developers
    • Fast previewing changes to Menus in the Customizer
    • A new theme template has been added to the Template Hierarchy. The singular.phptemplate follows the rules of is_singular and is used for a single post, regardless of post type. It comes in the hierarchy after single.phppage.php, and the variations of each. Themes that used the same code for both of those files (or included one in the other) can now simplify down to the one template.
    • Changes to Customizer Panels and Sections
    • New Customizer Media Controls
    • The Site Icon API is fairly straightforward.
    • PHP7 is slated for release later this year. One of the changes is that PHP4 style constructors are deprecated. In order to prepare WordPress to support PHP7, these constructors have been deprecated in WordPress core.
    • Old Distraction Free Writing code has been removed (the code has not been used in the core since 4.1). Plugin authors have had two releases to update their code. If it is essential to your plugin, the files in 4.2 can still be reused and improved.

What’s New

General

Posts

  • Formatting Shortcuts while using visual editor.
    • Use * or – to start an unordered list.
    • Use 1. or 1) to start an ordered list.
    • Use ## for H2 and ### for H3 (etc, through H6).
    • Use > to transform text into blockquote.

Media

Comments

  • All new pages that you create will have comments turned off by default.

Appearance

  1. Menus can now be managed with the Customizer, which allows you to see “live” preview changes without changing your site for visitors until you are ready.
  2. Customizer improvements including enhanced accessibility, smoother menu creation and location assignment, and the ability to handle nameless menus.
  3. Take control of another piece of your site with the Site Icon feature. You can now manage your site’s favicon and app icon from the Admin area.
  4. Customize link added in the toolbar to swiftly make changes to your site.

Users

  • Better Passwords. Password field will be automatically filled with a strong password, while adding new users and resetting the password.

Install Process

Multisite

Accessibility

Under The Hood

General

JavaScript

Bug Fixes

A total of 180 bugs reported against previous versions of WordPress were fixed.

Multisite

Classes

What’s New

Customizer API
List Tables
Miscellaneous

Deprecated

Functions

What’s New

Deprecated

Actions & Filters

New Actions

New Filters

Deprecated

External Libraries

Miscellaneous

First published

Last updated