Coming Changes in WordPress 4.5

What’s happening?
WordPress 4.5 will be released soon. This post is to help you understand changes behind the scenes, and highlight important updates.

For customers on WordPress.com VIP, incremental updates to 4.5 have already started. WordPress.com merges in core code from oldest to newest revisions, and the next big update will come early next week. More about the WordPress.com VIP codebase.

For customers on the VIP Go platform, your sites will be upgraded from 4.4 to 4.5 on April 12, the official release date.

What version is WordPress.com?
WordPress.com has wrapped the merge of 4.4 and has started bringing code over from 4.5. However, there are a few components that still have not merged onto WordPress.com.

  • Since WordPress.com automatically handles images in a way that reduces the need for resizing, the core changes to responsive image handling are currently disabled.
  • Term splitting for VIPs is in progress and nearing completion. Once this is complete for all VIPs, we will enable the termmeta API. Watch for an announcement regarding this change soon – note that code containing calls to termmeta functions can be committed now since the functions exist on WordPress.com, however these may not work as expected until the API is fully enabled.

What should I look out for in 4.5?
Here’s what to look out for with the upgrade to 4.5.

What about WP-API on WordPress.com?
WordPress core is currently working on an API, known as the WP-API. It was first introduced as a plugin, and parts of it are starting to make its way into core. If you’d like to, please contribute to the API on Github.

We are getting ready for WP-API on WordPress.com. At this point, the REST infrastructure is in core, which means it is also on WordPress.com. The endpoints are not yet in core, but are being worked on in the WP-API plugin.

On VIP, we will enable a small subset of sites to begin testing and building custom endpoints off the core REST infrastructure. If you are interested in participating, please open a ticket and let us know clearly what you are hoping to test / build. We will prioritize requests from folks who will contribute back to the WP-API plugin. Eventually, we hope to have WP-API in the VIP Shared Plugins repository, and available for all of our customers.

How should I test?
The easiest way to test is to use our VIP Quickstart development environment. It automatically sets you up with an SVN checkout of trunk (and auto-updates hourly while the VM is running). You can also use the Beta Tester plugin to easily update beta releases and test.

What if I have questions?
We’re planning on discussing termmeta and WP-API on Wednesday’s Developer Town Hall (sign up for the video conference). As always, if you have any questions about the 4.5 updates, please open a ticket with our support team.