WordPress 3.8 “Parker” – What’s New In It?

17th Jan 2014 | Posted by Eko S. | No Comments

If you use WordPress, then your world is about to change and you are not alone. Latest statistics show that WordPress powers almost 20% of the web and controls 60% of the content Management System market. So, when large changes are rolling out, there is a lot to mark out.

In the mid of December 2013, the release of WordPress version 3.8, shows that this platform aims to further simplify the web publishing and take this responsibility seriously.

Let’s dive in and take a look at WordPress 3.8 release

#New user interface design:

All the new versions of WordPress follow a pattern that is the releases that odd-numbered include back-end upgrades and the releases that are even-numbered include front-end changes and upgrades. So, there is no surprise that WP version 3.8 has new features. But unless you have paid attention to the beta releases and general talks in community, the scope of these new features may surprise you. This update of WordPress is not only the feature upgrade. It is something that is long-awaited.
A farewell to a low contrast rounded corner UI and skeuomorphic and a hello or a great welcome to a modern, responsive, typographically rich and touch friendly user interface.

Over the past years, a team of WordPress developers have worked on a new user interface named as MP6 and its other cohorts Dashboard, THX38 and the widget area chooser are now together baked into the WordPress core code and hence providing a new administrative experience that is more accessible, easier and works effectively across all screen sizes.

The only best way to get the whole story on the new user interface is to try it for you. Here are some of the finer points of WordPress version 3.8.

The MP6 admin UI is fully responsive that is – as the screen size change, the layout reformats and resizes to give the best user experience. This provides the best user experience to tablet and smart phone users and makes WordPress administration truly mobile out of the box. Since this move to responsiveness, the WordPress tool bar has been changed to touch friendly by making the bars and buttons bigger due to the smaller screen sizes.

When we talk about the font size or type, the new admin UI swaps out the font Arial for the Google’s own font Open Sans which has more space between the letters that improves readability. The new user interface replaces the image based icons for custom Dash icon font to ensure sharp icons and crisp. This new version also comprises of seven color schemes: Default, light, coffee, blue, Ectoplasm, ocean, midnight and sunrise. This new color scheme enables the user to pick an interface that suits their personality and mood and hence provides a more personalized experience.

#2014: A “Magazine Style” Default theme:

WordPress has shipped with a new default theme every year, since 2010. Actually these themes are named after the year of their release. These are mostly released at the end of the year but this time it has come as the new default theme in WordPress version 3.8.

It is basically a magazine styled theme with a focus on featured content sliders and large images. These types of themes have proven to be popular among WordPress users and it aims to answer the need for visual options.

#Improved Theme and widget management:

With the new user interface, the theme and the widget managers have also been updated to provide excellent user experience. The theme manager now provides less cluttered and more intuitive interface. The vertical separation between the themes and active theme is removed and the theme info is moved to modal windows allowing for a quicker overview of all the available themes and more in-depth inspection of theme info. The new widgets user interface allows the user to click on the available widget and select the sidebar area in which the widget should appear.

Summary

WordPress version 3.8 is the latest version of WordPress and has unique features. This provides responsive layout and a color scheme, from which you can choose the color according to your own personality.

- Written by Daniel Asara -

He is a web content writer, working in SEO Rank Smart for more than four years. His areas of specialization are Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Mobile Web Designing and Development, Social Media etc. He use to write the articles for SEO Rank Smart’s official blog. All of his articles are informative and are written following the search engine algorithms. He also like to inspire, educate and entertain online.