WordPress

WordPress 4.7.1 Security and Maintenance Release WordPress 4.7 has been downloaded over 10 million times since its release on December 6, 2016 and we are pleased to announce the immediate availability of WordPress 4.7.1. This is a security release for all previous versions and we strongly encourage you to update your sites immediately. WordPress versions 4.7 and earlier are affected by eight security issues: Remote code execution (RCE) in PHPMailer – No specific issue appears to affect WordPress or any of the major plugins we investigated but, out of an abundance of caution, we updated PHPMailer in this release. This issue was reported to PHPMailer by Dawid Golunski and Paul Buonopane. The REST API exposed user data for all users who had authored a post of a public post type. WordPress 4.7.1 limits this to only post types which have specified that they should be [ more… ]

WordPress 4.7 “Vaughan” Version 4.7 of WordPress, named “Vaughan” in honor of legendary jazz vocalist Sarah “Sassy” Vaughan, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.7 help you get your site set up the way you want it. Introducing WordPress 4.7 Presenting Twenty Seventeen A brand new default theme brings your site to life with immersive featured images and video headers. Twenty Seventeen focuses on business sites and features a customizable front page with multiple sections. Personalize it with widgets, navigation, social menus, a logo, custom colors, and more. Our default theme for 2017 works great in many languages, on any device, and for a wide range of users. Your Site, Your Way WordPress 4.7 adds new features to the customizer to help take you through the initial setup of a theme, with non-destructive [ more… ]

Moving Toward SSL We’re at a turning point: 2017 is going to be the year that we’re going to see features in WordPress which require hosts to have SSL available, just as Javascript is an almost necessity for smoother user experiences and more modern PHP versions for performance, SSL just makes sense as the next hurdle our users are going to face. SSL basically means the link between your browser and the server is encrypted. SSL used to be difficult to implement, and often expensive or slow. Modern browsers, and the incredible success of projects like Let’s Encrypt have made getting a certificate to secure your site fast, free, and something we think every host should support by default, especially in a post-Snowden era. Google also weighs SSL as a search engine ranking factor and will begin flagging unencrypted sites [ more… ]

WordPress 4.7 Release Candidate The release candidate for WordPress 4.7 is now available. RC means we think we’re done, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WordPress 4.7 on Tuesday, December 6, but we need your help to get there. If you haven’t tested 4.7 yet, now is the time! To test WordPress 4.7, you can use the WordPress Beta Tester plugin or you can download the release candidate here (zip). WordPress 4.7 is a jam-packed release, with a number of features focused on getting a theme set up for the first time. Highlights include a new default theme, video headers, custom CSS, customizer edit shortcuts, PDF thumbnail previews, user admin languages, REST API content endpoints, post type templates, and more. We’ve made quite a few refinements [ more… ]

WordPress 4.7 Beta 4 WordPress 4.7 Beta 4 is now available! This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.7, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip). For more information on what’s new in 4.7, check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, and Beta 3 blog posts, along with in-depth developer guides on make/core. We’ve made about 60 changes in the last few days for beta 4, including tweaks to Twenty Seventeen, custom CSS, and the REST API content endpoints. Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! If you think you’ve found a bug, [ more… ]