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.
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
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
Dashboard
- Consolidate several Dashboard widgets to improve readability
- Replace the ‘Right Now’ widget with the new and improved ‘At a Glance’ widget
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
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.
Widgets
- New click-to-add interface for adding widgets to sidebars
- Improved interface for devices of all resolutions
- Better drag-and-drop experience
Accessibility
- Make list table row actions keyboard accessible
- Improve color contrast throughout the admin
Multisite
- Improved performance when deleting users in Multisite
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
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
Multisite
Classes
- Introduce WP_Screen::remove_option()
- Introduce WP_Screen::remove_options()
- Introduce WP_Screen::get_options()
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()
Actions & Filters
Actions
- Introduce automatic_updates_complete
Filters
- Introduce automatic_updates_debug_email
- Introduce wp_prepare_themes_for_js
External Libraries
- Add a copyright notice to zxcvbn (password strength meter) script
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()
Miscellaneous
- Many unused images were removed from core. See the full list