Ticket #41526: rev1.txt

<span style="font-weight: 400">WordPress 4.9 Beta 1 is now available!</span>

<b>This software is still in development,</b><span style="font-weight: 400"> 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 4.9, try the </span><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/"><span style="font-weight: 400">WordPress Beta Tester</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can </span><a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-4.9-beta1.zip"><span style="font-weight: 400">download the beta here</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> (zip).</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">WordPress 4.9 is slated for release on </span><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/4-9/"><span style="font-weight: 400">November 14</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, but we need your help to get there. We’ve been working on making it even easier to customize your site. Here are some of the bigger items to test and help us find as many bugs as possible in the coming weeks:</span>
<ul>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Drafting (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39896"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39896</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">) and scheduling (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/28721"><span style="font-weight: 400">#28721</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">) of changes in the Customizer. Once you save or schedule a changeset, when any user comes into the Customizer the pending changes will be autoloaded. A button is provided to discard changes to restore the Customizer to the last published state. (This is a new “linear” mode for changesets, as opposed to “branching” mode which can be enabled by filter so that every time  user opens the Customizer a new blank changeset will be started.)</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Addition of a frontend preview link to the Customizer to allow changes to be browsed on the frontend, even without a user being logged in (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39896"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39896</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Addition of autosave revisions in the Customizer (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39275"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39275</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">A brand new theme browsing experience in the Customizer (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37661"><span style="font-weight: 400">#37661</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Gallery widget (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41914"><span style="font-weight: 400">#41914</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">), following the media and image widgets introduced in 4.8.</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Support for shortcodes in Text widgets (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10457"><span style="font-weight: 400">#10457</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Support for adding media to Text widgets (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40854">#40854</a>).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Support for adding oEmbeds outside post content, including Text widgets (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/34115"><span style="font-weight: 400">#34115</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Support for videos from providers other than YouTube and Vimeo in the Video widget (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/42039"><span style="font-weight: 400">#42039</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">)</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Improve the flow for creating new menus in the Customizer (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40104">#40104</a>).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Educated guess mapping of nav menus and widgets when switching themes (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39692"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39692</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Plugins: Introduce singular capabilities for activating and deactivating individual plugins (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38652https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38652"><span style="font-weight: 400">#38652</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Sandbox PHP file edits in both plugins and themes, without auto-deactivation when an error occurs; a PHP edit that introduces a fatal error is rolled back with an opportunity then for the user to fix the error and attempt to re-save. (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21622"><span style="font-weight: 400">#21622</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Addition of dirty state for widgets on the admin screen, indicating when a widget has been successfully saved and showing an “Are you sure?” dialog when attempting to leave without saving changes. (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23120">#23120</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41610">#41610</a>)</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400">As always, there have been exciting changes for developers to explore as well, such as:</span>
<ul>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">CodeMirror editor added to theme/plugin editor, Custom CSS in Customizer, and Custom HTML widgets. Integration includes support for linters to catch errors before you attempt to save. Includes new APIs for plugins to instantiate editors. (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/12423"><span style="font-weight: 400">#12423</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">)</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Introduction of an extensible code editor control for adding instances of CodeMirror to the Customizer. (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41897">#41897</a>)</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Addition of global notifications area (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35210"><span style="font-weight: 400">#35210</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">), panel and section notifications (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38794"><span style="font-weight: 400">#38794</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">), and a notification overlay that takes over the entire screen in the Customizer (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37727"><span style="font-weight: 400">#37727</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">A date/time control in the Customizer (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/42022"><span style="font-weight: 400">#42022</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Improve usability of Customize JS API (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/42083">#42083</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37964">#37964</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36167">#36167</a>).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Introduction of control templates for base controls (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30738">#30738</a>).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Use </span><span style="font-weight: 400">WP_Term_Query</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> when transforming tax queries (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37038"><span style="font-weight: 400">#37038</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Database: Add support for MySQL servers connecting to IPv6 hosts (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41722"><span style="font-weight: 400">#41722</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Emoji: Bring Twemoji compatibility to PHP (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35293"><span style="font-weight: 400">#35293</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">). Test for any weirdness with emoji in RSS feeds or emails.</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">I18N: Introduce the </span><span style="font-weight: 400">Plural_Forms</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> class (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41562"><span style="font-weight: 400">#41562</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Media: Upgrade MediaElement.js to </span><span style="font-weight: 400">4.2.5-74e01a40</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> fixing missing </span><span style="font-weight: 400">mejs.MediaElement</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> reference (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39686"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39686</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Media: Use max-width for default captions (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/33981"><span style="font-weight: 400">#33981</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">). We will want to make sure this doesn’t cause unexpected visual regressions in existing themes, default themes were all fine in testing.</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Media: Reduce duplicated custom header crops in the Customizer (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21819"><span style="font-weight: 400">#21819</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Media: Store video creation date in meta (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/35218"><span style="font-weight: 400">#35218</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">). Please help test different kinds of videos.</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Multisite: Introduce </span><span style="font-weight: 400">get_site_by()</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40180"><span style="font-weight: 400">#40180</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Multisite: Improve </span><span style="font-weight: 400">get_blog_details()</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> by using </span><span style="font-weight: 400">get_site_by()</span><span style="font-weight: 400"> (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40228"><span style="font-weight: 400">#40228</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Multisite: Improve initializing available roles when switch sites (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38645"><span style="font-weight: 400">#38645</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Multisite: Initialize a user's roles correctly when setting them up for a different site (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/36961"><span style="font-weight: 400">#36961</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">REST API: Support registering complex data structures for settings and meta</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">REST API: Support for objects in schema validation and sanitization (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38583">#38583</a>)</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Role/Capability: Introduce capabilities dedicated to installing and updating language files (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/39677"><span style="font-weight: 400">#39677</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Remove SWFUpload (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41752"><span style="font-weight: 400">#41752</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Users: Require a confirmation link in an email to be clicked when a user attempts to change their email address (</span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/16470"><span style="font-weight: 400">#16470</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">).</span></li>
        <li style="font-weight: 400"><span style="font-weight: 400">Core and the unit test suite is fully compatible with the upcoming release of PHP 7.2</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-weight: 400">If you want a more in-depth view of what major changes have made it into 4.9, </span><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/4-9/"><span style="font-weight: 400">check out posts tagged with 4.9 on the main development blog</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, or look at a </span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&amp;resolution=fixed&amp;milestone=4.9&amp;group=component&amp;order=priority"><span style="font-weight: 400">list of everything</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> that’s changed. There will be more developer notes to come, so keep an eye out for those as well.</span>

<b>If you think you’ve found a bug</b><span style="font-weight: 400">, you can post to the </span><a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta"><span style="font-weight: 400">Alpha/Beta area</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400"> in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, </span><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/reports/"><span style="font-weight: 400">file one on WordPress Trac</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, where you can also find </span><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major"><span style="font-weight: 400">a list of known bugs</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">Happy testing!</span>

<i><span style="font-weight: 400">Without your testing,
</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400">we might hurt the internet.
</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400">Please help us find bugs.🐛</span></i>