The much awaited WordPress 4.0 named “Benny” is finally midst our company. Its Beta testing had begun during the month of May 2014 and in roughly about three months we finally get to see the real thing.

Development of WordPress in the past decade:

WordPress entered the World Wide Web as a bubbling blogging platform in the year 2003 and within a decade of its presence, transformed into a complete Content Management System. As a CMS, WordPress has been wildly successful, and by wildly I mean that its competitors (Drupal and Joomla) are nowhere near as popular and sought for as WordPress.

With such popularity, you’d think that that WordPress 4.0 would be openly welcomed within the WordPress community, but things are a little bit murkier than they should be.

The thing is that the modifications made in the WordPress 4.0 model which has come after around three years seem too miniscule to be assigned to such an important milestone.

To those critics who think that these new modifications are not what all they are perked up to be I would like to say that in terms of changes, WordPress has a been very different from its competitors. It has developed little by little making the transition process for the WordPress community as effortless as effortless can be.

Lets checkout these modifications and decide for ourselves if they make our WordPress enriched lives better than before.

Modification 1: Media Library

WordPress has always aimed at making their standard platform easy to use for novices.  These current modifications are aimed at doing just that. The new changes in their media library give you a grid view of all your media files.

 

Unlike their previous reverse chronology list, this is way better and more intuitive for users.

With a grid view, you can quickly select any image and make the required modifications to it. Here checkout the new image selection page.

 

In this new window you even get the option to move back and forth between images, isn’t this way better than before where you had to go back to the media gallery to select to different image.

With these tiny modifications, your library management becomes more intuitive and less time-consuming.

Modification 2:  Plugin Search Directory

With over 30,000 plugins to search from, looking for the right plugins in the pre-WordPress 4.0 era was slightly more complicated. The search panel had a list view, and users had to go through all the plugins before selecting the right one.

The developers have now made a more intuitive search panel by posting all the plugins in a thumbnail view. Each thumbnail gives the following details.

1. Plugin name
2. Install/ Installed now
3. Name of the company that created the plugin
4. Ratings
5. Number of downloads
6. Brief description
7. The WordPress version that the plugin is compatible with

These details allow users to go instinctually for a plugin that is best suited for their needs. Here checkout the new plugin searches view.

Modification Number 3: Text Editor

Although, this modification is minor, but this one slight change has made the lives of WordPress bloggers very easy and hassle free. Editing blogs on WordPress will now become a task that bloggers will look forward to.

The editor will not expand to fit your content. And no matter how far you scroll the options bar on top will remain static, giving writers a simpler typing experience than before.

 

These changes may seem minor, but to regular bloggers these tiny fixes mean a lot.

 

Modification 4: Embedding images and videos

Another new feature that makes blogging through WordPress more intuitive how they have changed the way videos are embedded. With this new edition, you get to see how the video will appear right in your text box before clicking on the publish button or going to a separate window to view a preview.

This gives writers better visualization. This visual is even valid for posting tweet links, as well as College Humor videos.

 

Modification 5: Language Settings

As WordPress has become a global platform, it was natural that they should introduce a language option for developers all over the world.

Now users can simply pick the language they are comfortable working with instead of going through the trouble of finding a language plugin or making configurations and changes to the CMS code.

This is a significant step that WordPress has made in terms making its product more global.

 

Are the new changes worth the hype?

To an outsider these changes may seem minor, but for regular users these are some pretty significant modifications. WordPress developers do not believe in upgrades that completely overhaul their CMS.

Instead, their focus has been on continual minor modifications that make it easy for website owners to adapt. Making massive changes on a platform that is used by millions of people would be counterproductive as most consumers usually prefer stability in the midst of change.

Keep a lookout for WordPress 4.1

For cautious users who don’t want to encounter any bugs and issues after upgrading to WordPress 4.0, the logical step would be to wait for the WordPress 4.1 version which should be out in a couple of months.

WordPress has a simple philosophy to introduce elements in its core structure which will be used by all of its users. It leaves other modifications to its plugins, and that is where the real magic happens.