WordPress team is planning to release the latest version 4.5 in April, 2016. It will be named after a Jazz musician, whose name has not been mentioned yet. For end-users, there are 4 worth-mentioning points:
- Image generation works more efficiently.They promise that image thumbnails will be smaller as uneccessary meta will be removed. You can save up to 50% storage while keeping same quality
- Visual Editor is improved
Not much information about this, but there are two more shortcuts which allow you to insert code and a <hr/> tag faster
- Use `your code` to transform <code>my code</code>
- Use --- to transform <hr />
In addition, inline Link Editting allows you to insert link without opening a popup
- Customizer is improved too
The most significant feature is that you have the ability to preview your site in different screen sizes, so you can check if the theme works well in mobiles or tablets.
In addition, although in Tweenty Sixteen theme, you have seen the logo upload feature. However, in WordPress 4.5 this feature is added by default. - Comment form is refined
Just a little change in the feature. The comment form now enforces the maximum length of each field and the Comment Moderate Screen is refined.
For developers, there aren’t many changes. Backbone and Underscore libraries are updated to latest version. Embed templates are splitted into parts and the term edit page changes (wp-admin/term.php is introduced). So I guess they don’t have to update their themes much.
You can see the Full changes list here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Version_4.5
