Since 2012 has passed. it is good to make a nice recap of what was improved, added and removed from WordPress last year. Judging from outside the development area, there was not too much visible changes that affected the core WordPress users. However, during the last year, a lot of changes were made to the backend. Now, it is easier to make better wordpress themes and plugins. I will also make a detailed report of what was changed in the last year.

The most important changes:

  • Theme customizer
  • Twenty Twelve Theme
  • Admin panel improved design
  • An upgraded API for plugin and theme developers.

The theme customizer now allows a wordpress site administrator to changes to the layout directly from the administration panel. All changes can be reviwed before making it to live. However, to benefit of this advantage you need to have a theme that support this features. With this update, any theme developer can make it very easy for users to make changes in the layout, wihtout hassle. Despite most of the wordpress users have to update their themes to work with this feature, I hope that in a short time all themes will come with in this way by default.

Here is a screenshot of twentytwelve theme:

This template is more simple than the previous versions ( I can hardly undestant how far can they go with simplicity ).

The new admin panel design provedes a better interface and a better home for every website administrator.

Most changes in the last 2 updates tham came out in 2012 ( 3.4 and 3.5 ) were intented to improve the API for theme and plugin developers. This means that the developers will spend less time to write code, since there is a better API to work with, and more time building the core of the plugin. As you know, WordPress is so popular because of the community. With the basic wordpress you can make a small blog without any options, or a presentation site without a contact form. By adding the plugins provided by the community developers you can practically fo whatever you want with wordpress: membership websites, social bookmarking websites, forums, directories, social networks, etc.

WordPress is already established as the best CMS, but challenges may appear and they have to come with new features every year to stay on top. I hope that in the future they will continue to improve the flexibility and the adaptability of the core, while the community will continue to improve and diversify the plugins and themes.