WordPress 4.5 shipped this week. As always, I want to give you a quick overview of what’s new and exciting in this latest release.
Inline Linking added to WordPress 4.5
As WordPress continues to develop, the team continues to focus on enhancing the editor to make writing easier. In WordPress 4.5, Inline Linking is added which displays the link box in the editor not in a separate dialog box.
Highlight text that you want to link to, then click the Link icon in the toolbar. This opens a dialog box as shown in the picture.
You can search to link to a page within your site or enter or post a URL to an outside source.
Shortcut Key – If you prefer to stay on the keyboard, you can actually use the keys to select text and the link. Shift + the arrow keys will highlight text in the direction of the key selected. So for example, for me to highlight this text after I have written it, I can hold the shift key and press the back arrow. At that point, to bring up the Link dialog box, I press CTRL + k in Windows, or Command + k on a Mac. This allows you to enter the link without leaving the keyboard and grabbing the mouse.
Inline Editing
Two new, inline editing options have been added, too. Keystrokes can be used to add a horizontal line into your text or to mark your text as code.
To enter a horizontal line in your text, from a blank line, type in three dashes and then press enter.
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To mark text as code (note this is mainly for developers), enter it within back ticks code is here. Note that back ticks are usually found above the tab key on the same key as the tilde. (Between tab and escape).
Preview Your Site on Different Screen Sizes
In the customization tab, you can now see a preview of your site on a variety of screen sizes.
Code Level Updates for Optimization and Performance
And as always, behind the scenes tweaks include further optimization for resizing images and for running scripts.
Time to Update to WordPress 4.5
As always, when a new update ships, it’s time to try updating WordPress. It is critical to have a quality backup before doing this and know what to do to rollback or troubleshoot if the update goes horribly wrong.
Visit my article on Troubleshooting WordPress Updates. It was written when WordPress 4.3 was released, but the information is still accurate.
