WordPress Theme And Plugin Authors: Changes in WordPress 4.4

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Hey Everyone,

If you develop themes or plugins for WordPress, there are lots of changes to note in WordPress 4.4, which will be released in the near future (currently on Beta 4). Hopefully, you’re already across these. If not, it’s probably be a good time to look into these changes and make sure they don’t affect your items.

The best place to find out about the changes is the WordPress 4.4: Field Guide. Of particular note are:

Also worth noting:

  • The WP REST API is being added to core in two steps, the first in 4.4, and it can now be used to create Ajax end points for plugins and themes.
  • The deprecation of wp_title, which was scheduled for 4.4, but which has been delayed for now.
  • There are big changes planned for the Shortcode API, which will affect many items, but it’s still in early planning (the latest is here: Shortcode Roadmap Draft Three and Shortcodes roadmap — clarifications).
  • PHP7 is coming soon, so it’s worth checking that your items will work with it (see WordPress and PHP7).

Cheers,
Stephen

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Thanks for this info. Lot of works are waiting for us ahead :frowning:

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Interesting. Didn’t think this would be a huge problem.

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Anyone know if they’re merging this plugin to core https://wordpress.org/plugins/json-rest-api/ ? or something else?

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It will be in core in a two step progress. 4.4 will get the code and 4.5 will get the finalization with endpoints. You can work with API in 4.4 though.

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Not a problem, per se, especially now it’s been delayed. But once it’s deprecated, it will start throwing errors when WP_DEBUG is turned on, and we’ll be soft-rejecting new items for that.

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Thank you @StephenCronin !

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Thanks @StephenCronin I’m really confused about the comment form, should we do something to keep the old arrangement or should follow new change? this and taxonomy metadata are huge changes in WP4.4

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No need to do anything unless your item is manipulating the comment form, in which case you need to check that whatever your doing still works. Apart from that, it is probably a good idea for theme authors to just check that the styling hasn’t messed up at all.

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WordPress 4.4 was released.
More here : http://www.wpbeginner.com/news/whats-new-in-wordpress-4-4/

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Hi everyone,

Please note that an important change also occured in WordPress update API.
Plugin should now be always “packaged” in a folder. If not plugin folder will be renamed… so be aware if you have your own auto update script… just ran into the issue myself !

Have a good day.