Version 4.2 of WordPress, named “Powell” in honor of jazz pianist Bud Powell, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.2 help you communicate and share, globally.

An easier way to share content

Clip it, edit it, publish it. Get familiar with the new and improved Press This. From the Tools menu, add Press This to your browser bookmark bar or your mobile device home screen. Once installed you can share your content with lightning speed. Sharing your favorite videos, images, and content has never been this fast or this easy.

Extended character support

Writing in WordPress, whatever your language, just got better. WordPress 4.2 supports a host of new characters out-of-the-box, including native Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, musical and mathematical symbols, and hieroglyphs.

Don’t use any of those characters? You can still have fun — emoji are now available in WordPress! Get creative and decorate your content with 💙, 🐸, 🐒, 🍕, and all the many other emoji.

Switch themes in the Customizer Browse and preview your installed themes from the Customizer. Make sure the theme looks great with your content, before it debuts on your site.

Even more embeds Paste links from Tumblr.com and Kickstarter and watch them magically appear right in the editor. With every release, your publishing and editing experience get closer together.

Streamlined plugin updates Goodbye boring loading screen, hello smooth and simple plugin updates. Click Update Now and watch the magic happen.

Under the Hood

utf8mb4 support

Database character encoding has changed from utf8 to utf8mb4, which adds support for a whole range of new 4-byte characters.

JavaScript accessibility

You can now send audible notifications to screen readers in JavaScript with wp.a11y.speak() . Pass it a string, and an update will be sent to a dedicated ARIA live notifications area.

Shared term splitting

Terms shared across multiple taxonomies will be split when one of them is updated. Find out more in the Plugin Developer Handbook.

Complex query ordering

WP_Query , WP_Comment_Query , and WP_User_Query now support complex ordering with named meta query clauses.

The Team

This release was led by Drew Jaynes, with the help of these fine individuals. There are 283 contributors with props in this release, a new high. Pull up some Bud Powell on your music service of choice, and check out some of their profiles:

Special thanks go to Siobhan McKeown for producing the release video and Cami Kaos for the voice-over.

Finally, thanks to all of the contributors who provided subtitles for the release video, which at last count had been translated into 30 languages!

Adrian Pop, Alin Marcu, Bagerathan Sivarajah, Besnik, Bjørn Johansen, Chantal Coolsma, cubells, Daisuke Takahashi, Diana K. Cury, DjZoNe, dyrer, Elzette Roelofse, Emre Erkan, fxbenard, TacoVerdo, Gabriel Reguly, Jenny Wong, Gary Jones, Håvard Grimelid, Joachim Jensen, Jimmy Xu, Junko Nukaga, Justina, Kenan Dervisevic, Kostas Vrouvas, Krzysztof Trynkiewicz, Luís Rodrigues, Luis Rull, Mark Thomas Gazel , Marius Jensen, matthee, Mattias Tengblad, Matúš Záhradník, Mayuko Moriyama, Michal Vittek, Milan Dinić, MrShemek, Naoko Takano, pavelevap, Peter Holme Obrestad, Petya Raykovska, Przemysław Mirota, qraczek, Rafa Poveda, Rami Yushuvaev, Rasheed Bydousi, Rhoslyn Prys, Robert Axelsen, Sergey Biryukov, Siobhan Bamber, Stephen Edgar, ک To Have داشتن, Torsten Landsiedel, Victor J. Quesada, Wolly, Xavi Ivars, Xavier Borderie

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 4.3!

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