WordPress 4.8 is slated for release early next month on June 8, 2017. Beta 2 is available now for all sites.
When will the update be deployed?
WordPress.com VIP: We will be pushing incremental updates such as bug fixes leading up to the public release with the bulk of the enhancements pushed out during the week of June 5, 2017.
VIP Go: The release will be deployed to all Go sites on Monday, June 12, 2017.
Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.
What is being added or changed?
This release is smaller and focused on three key enhancements:
- An improved visual editor experience, with a new TinyMCE that allows you to navigate more intuitively in and out of inline elements like links. (Try it out to see, it’s hard to describe.)
- Several new media widgets covering images, audio, and video, and an enhancement to the text widget to support visual editing.
- A revamp of the dashboard news widget to bring in nearby and upcoming events including meetups and WordCamps.
You can find a more detailed walkthrough of these updates on WP Tavern. As with all major releases, this 4.8 includes a number of bug fixes and smaller improvements.
This release also lays the groundwork for the Gutenberg editor project, which is aiming to provide a block-based rich editing experience within WordPress that is equally effortless and powerful. Note that Gutenberg is not slated for release until next year and contributions are always welcome.
What do I need to do?
We highly recommend updating your local development environments to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track trunk (i.e. bleeding edge) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos. (If you’re using VVV, one of the default sites will already be tracking trunk. For Chassis users, you can switch your install to switch over to a separate checkout.)
Keep an eye out for a sample testing plan that we’ll be sharing soon, which your teams can use to guide your internal QA and testing as you prepare for this release.
What if I find Issues?
If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release, please open a support ticket with details and we will be happy to help.
WordPress VIP Lobby 