Version 4.6 of WordPress, named “Pepper” in honor of jazz baritone saxophonist Park Frederick “Pepper” Adams III, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.6 help you to focus on the important things while feeling more at home.
Streamlined Updates
Don’t lose your place: stay on the same page while you update, install, and delete your plugins and themes.
Native Fonts
The WordPress dashboard now takes advantage of the fonts you already have, making it load faster and letting you feel more at home on whatever device you use.
Editor Improvements
Inline Link Checker
Ever accidentally made a link to https://wordpress.org/example.org? Now WordPress automatically checks to make sure you didn’t.
Content Recovery
As you type, WordPress saves your content to the browser. Recovering saved content is even easier with WordPress 4.6.
Under The Hood
Resource Hints
Resource hints help browsers decide which resources to fetch and preprocess. WordPress 4.6 adds them automatically for your styles and scripts making your site even faster.
Robust Requests
The HTTP API now leverages the Requests library, improving HTTP standard support and adding case-insensitive headers, parallel HTTP requests, and support for Internationalized Domain Names.
WP_Term_Query and WP_Post_Type
A new WP_Term_Query class adds flexibility to query term information while a new WP_Post_Type object makes interacting with post types more predictable.
Meta Registration API
The Meta Registration API has been expanded to support types, descriptions, and REST API visibility.
Translations On Demand
WordPress will install and use the newest language packs for your plugins and themes as soon as they’re available from WordPress.org’s community of translators.
JavaScript Library Updates
Masonry 3.3.2, imagesLoaded 3.2.0, MediaElement.js 2.22.0, TinyMCE 4.4.1, and Backbone.js 1.3.3 are bundled.
Customizer APIs for Setting Validation and Notifications
Settings now have an API for enforcing validation constraints. Likewise, customizer controls now support notifications, which are used to display validation errors instead of failing silently.
Multisite, now faster than ever
Cached and comprehensive site queries improve your network admin experience. The addition of WP_Site_Query and WP_Network_Query help craft advanced queries with less effort.
The Crew
This release was led by Dominik Schilling, backed up by Garth Mortensen as Release Deputy, and with the help of these fine individuals. There are 272 contributors with props in this release. Pull up some Pepper Adams on your music service of choice, and check out some of their profiles:
A5hleyRich · Aaron Jorbin · achbed · Adam Silverstein · Adriano Ferreira · afineman · Ahmad Awais · Aki Björklund · Alain Schlesser · Alex Concha · Alex Dimitrov · Alex King · Alex Mills · Alexis Soucie · alexvandervegt · Alice Brosey · Ana Aires · Andrea Fercia · Andrea Gandino · Andrew Nacin · Andrew Ozz · Andrew Rockwell · Andrija Vučinić · Andy Fragen · Andy Meerwaldt · Andy Skelton · Anil Basnet · Ankit K Gupta · anneschmidt · Arunas Liuiza · Barry · Barry Ceelen · Bernhard Kau · Birgir Erlendsson (birgire) · bobbingwide · bonger · Boone B. Gorges · Brad Touesnard · Brandon Kraft · brianvan · Bruno Borges · Bryan Petty · Bryan Purcell · Chandra Patel · Chaos Engine · Chouby · Chris Mok · Chris Olbekson · chriscct7 · Christoph Herr · Christopher Finke · Cliff Seal · clubduece · cmillerdev · Craig Ralston · crstauf · dabnpits · Dan · Daniel Bachhuber · Daniel Hüsken · Daniel Kanchev · Daniele Scasciafratte · dashaluna · Dave Warfel · David A. Kennedy · David Anderson · David Brumbaugh · David Cavins · David Herrera · David Mosterd · David Shanske · Dennis Ploetner · Derek Herman · Devin Price · Dion Hulse · Doug Wollison · Drew Jaynes · Earle Davies · EFAREM · Ella Iseulde Van Dorpe · Eric Andrew Lewis · Erick Hitter · Fabien Quatravaux · Faison · Felix Arntz · flyingdr · Foliovision: Making the web work for you · francescobagnoli · Frank Bueltge · Frank Klein · Fredrik Forsmo · Gabriel Koen · Gabriel Maldonado · Gary Pendergast · gblsm · geminorum · George Stephanis · Hardeep Asrani · Helen Hou-Sandí · Henry Wright · Hugo Baeta · Iain Poulson · Ian Dunn · Ignacio Cruz Moreno · Inderpreet Singh · Ionut Stanciu · Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) · J.D. Grimes · James Huff · James Nylen · Janne Ala-Aijala · Jasper de Groot · javorszky · Jean-Paul Davoutian · Jeff Farthing · Jeffrey de Wit · Jeremy Felt · Jeremy Green · Jeremy Herve · Jeremy Ward · jerrysarcastic · Jesin A · Jip Moors · Joe Dolson · Joe Hoyle · Joe McGill · Joel Williams · Johan Falk · John · John Blackbourn · John James Jacoby · John P. Green · John_Schlick · Jon (Kenshino) · Jonathan Brinley · Jonathan Wold · Jonny Harris · Joost de Valk · Joseph Scott · Josh Pollock · Joshua Goodwin · jsternberg · Juan Aldasoro · Juhi Saxena · julesaus · Juliette Reinders Folmer · Justin Sainton · Kazuto Takeshita · Kelly Choyce-Dwan · Kevin Hagerty · Kira Song · Kite · kjbenk · Konstantin Kovshenin · Konstantin Obenland · Kurt Payne · latz · Laurens Offereins · Luke Cavanagh · Marcel Pol · Marius L. J. · Mark Jaquith · Mark Uraine · martin.krcho · Mathieu Viet · Matt Miklic · Matt Mullenweg · Matthew Batchelder · mattyrob · Mayeenul Islam · mdwheele · medariox · Mehul Kaklotar · Meitar · Mel Choyce · Michael Arestad · Michael Arestad · Michael Beil · Michael Moore · Michael Wiginton · Miina Sikk · Mike Bijon · Mike Hansen · Milan Dinić · Morgan Estes · Mustafa Uysal · Nícholas André · Nextendweb · Niall Kennedy · Nick Halsey · Nikhil Chavan · Nilambar Sharma · Ninos · Noah · noahsilverstein · odyssey · ojrask · Olar Marius · ovann86 · pansotdev · Pascal Birchler · Paul Bearne · Paul Vincent Beigang · Paul Wilde · pavelevap · pcarvalho · Peter Westwood · Peter Wilson · PeterRKnight · Petter Walbø Johnsgård · Petya Raykovska · Pieter · Pollett · postpostmodern · Presskopp · prettyboymp · r-a-y · Rachel Baker · Rafael Angeline · raffaella isidori · Rahul Prajapati · Rami Yushuvaev · Rian Rietveld · Rich Tape · Robert D Payne · Robin Cornett · Rodrigo Primo · Ronald Huereca · Ruud Laan · Ryan McCue · Ryan Welcher · Samantha Miller · Samir Shah · Sara Rosso · Scott Basgaard · Scott Kingsley Clark · Scott Reilly · Scott Taylor · screamingdev · Sebastian Pisula · semil · Sergey Biryukov · shahpranaf · Sidati · Silvan Hagen · Simon · smerriman · Soren Wrede · southp · Stanko Metodiev · Stephane Daury (stephdau) · Stephen Edgar · Stephen Harris · Steven Word · Sudar Muthu · Swapnil V. Patil · Taco Verdonschot · Takashi Irie · Tammie Lister · Taylor Lovett · theMikeD · Thiago Loureiro · thomaswm · Thorsten Frommen · Tim Nguyen · Timothy Jacobs · Travis Northcutt · Ulrich · Unyson · Viktor Szépe · Viljami Kuosmanen · Vishal Kakadiya · vortfu · Vova Feldman · websupporter · Weston Ruter · wp_smith · wpfo · Xavi Ivars · Yoav Farhi · Zack Tollman · zakb8
Special thanks go to Jerry Bates for producing the release video and Hugo Baeta for providing marketing graphics.
Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 4.6. Their efforts make it possible to use WordPress 4.6 in 52 languages. The WordPress 4.6 release video has been captioned into 43 languages.
If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog. Thanks for choosing WordPress. See you soon for version 4.7!