WordPress 4.0 is not in the middle, it's at the top.

I'm sure the title of this post will not be a big deal to anybody who isn't a child of the 1980s, but here's a little knowledge about culture for you - you're welcome.

WordPress v4.0 has been launched on the 4th of September, with two members from The WooTeam ( myself and Mike Jolley) being part of the 275 people who contributed to the release. Much was said about WordPress 4.0 specifically in relation to the apparent release date that the number suggests, and so we thought it would be beneficial to take a take a look at the features available in the new version and discover the difference that it brings to our everyday life.

What's in WordPress 4.0?

Every WordPress release comes with a plethora of enhancements, features, fixes as well as general improvements. This release was no different and with v4.0 the number of tickets included was seven11 tickets in total every ticket is the release of a brand new feature, improvement to an existing feature, or a fix for the broken function.

These are the main enhancements that WordPress 4.0 has to offer: 4.0:

• Enhanced grid and details views of the library's media collection
• Improved media embedding in articles (YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
• Improvements to the post editor, including a toolbar that slides down the page when you type
• An improved plugin search with attractive and visually pleasing results for searches

You can see a full overview of the 711 closed tickets that were included in the update on the WordPress Core Trac.

Where are the *new* capabilities?

When you review the feature list that is in the above list, you'll see the majority of these are upgrades or enhancements to already-existing (already functioning) features. The result was a large number of people to criticize v4.0 as an update which isn't sufficient for the famed significant milestone it is (more about that later) But the thing that a majority of users do not realize is that these enhancements serve to refine WordPress in order to make it a greater platform for creating and publishing work.

Pippin Williamson has made many excellent observations about this already, so there's no need to repeat that just to point out that once you've worked with WordPress 4.0 for a short time, you'll see that the 'additions have become so useful that you'll be unable to comprehend what you did without them until now.

As a plugin author I am a huge fan of the brand new plugin search page and, as a blogger, the new post editor is legitimately game-changing. The improvements alone are an important new version for WordPress.

What's the fuss over the version number?

Most software projects use semantic version numbering - it implies that the release of a 4.0 release will be significantly more substantial than v3.9 and would most likely alter the software in a major way. WordPress doesn't work in a way like it does, instead treating 4.0 just like 3.9 as well as 4.1 (you can read more about WordPress' version numbering system in this article). This, in conjunction with the impressive enhancements that it offers, puts paid to those who claim that WordPress 4.0 4.0 has been "hugely uninspiring".

What's new in WordPress 4.1?

I can't say exactly what the main feature set of WordPress 4.1 is, however when you look through the tickets that are earmarked to be released for this 4.1 milestone then you'll get an idea of what to expect. As usual there will be fixes and improvements to the existing features, as well as numerous additional features that could enhance WordPress even further.

Want to get involved in WordPress core development? Take a look at the following list of excellent first-time bugs for new contributors.