Version 3.8

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On December 12, 2013, WordPress Version 3.8, named for Charlie Parker, was released to the public. For more information on this enhancement and bug-fix release, read the WordPress Blog, the Release Post, and see the Changelog for 3.8.

For Version 3.8, the database version (db_version in wp_options) changed to 26691, and the Trac revision was r26861.

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Highlights 

  • Introduces a new, modern admin design
    • A fresh, uncluttered design
    • Clean typography with Open Sans
    • Superior contrast and large, comfortable type
    • Responsive interfaces throughout
    • Refined, theme management
    • Smoother, click-to-add widget management
  • New Default Theme – Twenty Fourteen
    • Easily create a responsive magazine website with a sleek, modern design.
    • Feature your favorite homepage content in either a grid or a slider.
    • Use the three widget areas to customize your website, and change your content’s layout with a full-width page template and a contributor page to show off your authors.
  • For Developers
    • External Libraries have been updated.
    • Better RTL support

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What’s New 

General 

  • Replace PNG-based plugins ratings stars with Dashicons for performance gains
  • Improved help tab text in various screens
  • Clicking “Check Again” on the Updates screen now provides more immediate feedback

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Dashboard 

  • Consolidate several Dashboard widgets to improve readability
  • Replace the ‘Right Now’ widget with the new and improved ‘At a Glance’ widget

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Appearance 

  • Introduce 8 new admin color schemes
  • Improved readability throughout using Open Sans typeface (where supported)
  • Responsive Toolbar for smaller-screen devices
  • Leverage Dashicons instead of icon sprites for crisper experience on all resolutions
  • Big RTL improvements throughout
  • Make the dashboard more usable on any size device with responsive all the things
  • Improve the login screen experience for Internet Explorer 8 users
  • Improve Quick Edit experience for non-English users
  • Improve the Menus experience for mobile users

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Themes 

  • New Default Theme — Twenty Fourteen
  • Make it possible to check for any post format assigned to a post with has_post_format()
  • Better custom background theme support defaults, can now specify ‘default-repeat’, ‘default-position-x’, and ‘default-attachment’ arguments for background images.
  • Tags for width changed to layout: responsive-layout, fluid-layout, and fixed-layout
  • New tag: accessibility-ready to denote a theme is aware of accessibility best practices such as color contrast, keyboard navigation, and form/link focus. See WP theme accessibility guidelines.
  • Theme screenshots’ size have increased from 600 × 450 to 880 × 660.

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Widgets 

  • New click-to-add interface for adding widgets to sidebars
  • Improved interface for devices of all resolutions
  • Better drag-and-drop experience

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Accessibility

  • Make list table row actions keyboard accessible
  • Improve color contrast throughout the admin

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Multisite 

  • Improved performance when deleting users in Multisite

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Under The Hood 

General 

  • Heartbeat performance and API improvements
  • A $taxonomy argument was added to each of the adjacent post functions.
  • Define $is_nginx in vars.php
  • Apply capital_P_dangit() to the wp_title filter
  • Make sure ajaxurl is defined in the Customizer
  • validate_active_plugins() now checks the manage_network_plugins capability instead of is_super_admin()
  • Allow passing false for the meta_box_cb argument in register_taxonomy() to turn off the meta box display entirely
  • Make it easier to target video shortcodes by adding a wp-video class to the parent container
  • Add CSSMin, SASS, CSSJanus, and jsHint to build tools for core development

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Bug Fixes 

  • Fix bug where top-level categories were only redirecting if they had no children
  • Fix bug in wp_get_object_terms() where returned were strings not integers
  • Fix a bug where passing a null value to meta_query resulted in wonkiness with the comparison operator
  • Fix “‘wp_signups’ already exists for query” error after updating a Multisite network
  • Fix bug in get_bookmarks() caused by missing parentheses
  • Fix comment_notification_recipients filter behavior so that it is still respected even on comments left by the post author
  • Fix a date comparison error in dashboard_relative_date()
  • Fix keyboard accessibility for row actions in list tables.
  • Fix no-js and accessibility modes in in the Widgets screen
  • Fix a bug where menus could still be assigned to a non-existent theme location
  • Silence jQuery Migrate errors in the General settings page

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Multisite 

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Classes 

  • Introduce WP_Screen::remove_option()
  • Introduce WP_Screen::remove_options()
  • Introduce WP_Screen::get_options()

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Functions 

  • Introduce wp_dashboard_quick_press()
  • Introduce wp_dashboard_site_activity()
  • Introduce wp_dashboard_recent_posts()
  • Introduce wp_dashboard_recent_comments()
  • Introduce wp_dashboard_primary_output()
  • Introduce wp_heartbeat_set_suspension()
  • Introduce wp_star_rating()
  • Introduce get_theme_update_available()
  • Introduce wp_prepare_themes_for_js()

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Actions & Filters 

Actions 

  • Introduce automatic_updates_complete

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Filters 

  • Introduce automatic_updates_debug_email
  • Introduce wp_prepare_themes_for_js

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External Libraries 

  • Add a copyright notice to zxcvbn (password strength meter) script

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Deprecated 

  • screen_icon()
  • get_screen_icon()
  • wp_dashboard_incoming_links_output()
  • wp_dashboard_secondary_output()
  • wp_dashboard_incoming_links()
  • wp_dashboard_incoming_links_control()
  • wp_dashboard_plugins()
  • wp_dashboard_primary_control()
  • wp_dashboard_recent_comments_control()
  • wp_dashboard_secondary()
  • wp_dashboard_secondary_control()
  • no_update_actions()

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Miscellaneous 

  • Many unused images were removed from core. See the full list
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