Hi! This is a late Last Week in WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. for the two weeks of March 17-30. Lots going on as we approach RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta)..

BetaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 3 is out, and you can check out the release post here. There are a few big things that have landed that are included. In particular, please test video and audio playlists by uploading more than one file of either, and check to see if you see any oddities in quote formatting, as much of wptexturize() was revamped.

Adminadmin (and super admin):

• Theme Installer: Restore the feature filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output., improve responsiveness, update router, make ‘Upload Theme’ button more consistent with the admin, and avoid theme-count causing filters to jump. [27636] #27055
• Theme Installer: Bring keyboard accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) to the theme install screen and theme action buttons. [27804] #27521
• Dashboard: Restore the update message in the dashboard that was removed in 3.8. [27711] #26664
• Distraction Free Writing: Allow the fullscreen editor’s content area to be responsive. [27821] #27569
• Accessibility: Better focus styles for form elements in the admin. [27741] #27173

WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.:

• Restore highlighting of widgets in preview. [27584] [27702] #27358
• Use WP_Error for errors, and add handling for when user is missing cap to change widgets or is logged out. [27652] #27419

Themes:

• Introduce HTML5 caption support: When supported by a theme via add_theme_support( 'html5', 'caption' ), use figure and figcaption instead of div and p. With HTML5 captions, no longer include extra 10 pixels within inline styles. img_caption_shortcode_width is skipped when the theme supports HTML5 captions. [27668] #26642 #9066
• On attachment pages for audio and video, add support for players. [27622] #27243
• Default Themes: Improve accessibility for keyboard and voice-over interactions. [27594] #27147 [27606] [27607] #24839
• Default Themes: Update editor styles for A/V and Galleries. [27638] [27637] [27641] #27462
• Default Themes: Enable thumbnail support for attachment:audio and attachment:video. Check for theme OR post type support when determining whether to enable Featured ImageFeatured image A featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. UIUI User interface in the admin. [27657] #27460

Media

• There is no more video-playlist shortcodeShortcode A shortcode is a placeholder used within a WordPress post, page, or widget to insert a form or function generated by a plugin in a specific location on your site.. To use video, it is now [playlist type='video' ...]. Core playlist styles removed; the style attribute is still supported, defaulting to light. [27785] [27812] #27552
• Only enqueue the media modal image editor within the admin. [27625] #21811
• Support a caption attribute for audio and video shortcodes. [27640] #27320
• Create a new file, media-audiovideo.js, to house all of the audio and video JSJS JavaScript, a web scripting language typically executed in the browser. Often used for advanced user interfaces and behaviors. code in core, and improve UXUX User experience. [27608] [27631] #27437
• With Plupload, switch to urlstream upload method when the flash runtime is used in non IE browsers. This ensures cookies are sent but limits the maximum file size that flash can handle. By default only IE9 and older use flash, so it would only affect things if a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. disables the html5 runtime. [27662]
• Provide a metaboxMetabox A post metabox is a draggable box shown on the post editing screen. Its purpose is to allow the user to select or enter information in addition to the main post content. This information should be related to the post in some way. to edit audio metadata (initially from ID3) on the “Edit Media” page. [27862] [27862] [27864] [27869] #27574.

TinyMCE:

• Update TinyMCE to 4.0.20. [27603] #24067
• Update tests. It’s now possible to run most TinyMCE tests directly from the cli using PhantomJS. [27679] [27680] #27014
• Playlist Preview: Support playlist views in TinyMCE. [27640] #27320
• Edit Image Modal: Bring back some of the advanced settings. [27797] #27366

Internals

• Masonry: Update Masonry v2/v3 shim from upstream. [27779] [27780] [27781] #27510
• Texturize: Massive performance improvements (~600% faster); better handling of braces, nbsp, double, and weird spaces; 136 new unit tests. [27839] [27844] #22692
• Cookie Session Checks:: Only show test cookie warnings on submit as caching/proxies may intercept the test cookie for GET requests. Introduce a new string for when headers are sent and link them to a new Cookies page on the codex. [27859] #27373
• Object Cache:: Introduce pre_update_option filter, available in update_option(). Allows filtering of any option before its value is (maybe) serialized and updated. [27815] #27504
• wpautop: Remove select and input from wpautop()‘s HTMLHTML HyperText Markup Language. The semantic scripting language primarily used for outputting content in web browsers. blocks list. [27761] #22230
• Heartbeat: HooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. should always receive unslashed data. This affects the privileged hooks; the unprivileged hooks already did so. [27576] #27260
• Customizer: Use esc_url_raw to escape customizer URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org settings to prevent double encoding. [27574] #26569
• Template: Encode spaces in get_template_directory_uri() and get_stylesheet_directory_uri(). [27710] #21969
• Filesystem: Fix getchmod() for direct and ssh2 transports, for directories. [27566] #26598
• Text/i18ni18n Internationalization, or the act of writing and preparing code to be fully translatable into other languages. Also see localization. Often written with a lowercase i so it is not confused with a lowercase L or the numeral 1. Often an acquired skill. Cleanup: Many text changes and updates. Check out all of them in the full log on Trac.
• i18n: In is_serialized(), use substr() rather than array access, for compatibility with multibyte overloading. [27565] #18007
• Postmeta: Return false from metadata_exists() if the get_$type_metadata filter returns a false value. [27562] #22746
• Pagination: Introduce before_page_number and after_page_number arguments for paginate_links(). [27600] #24709
• E-mail: Always decode special characters for email subjects. [27801] #25346
• WP Class: Add post_parent to the private query vars list. Fixes detached media queries. [27782] #27532.
• Post: Use wp_parse_id_list() when parsing exclude_tree in get_pages(). Ensure a URL string, array with string as value, and array with array as value for exclude_tree can be used to specify multiple IDs. [27767] #9153

WP_Query

• Revert the conversion of adjacent post queries to WP_Query. Explanation on the ticketticket Created for both bug reports and feature development on the bug tracker.. Reverts [27285], [27286], [27287], [27288], [27291], [27292], [27293], [27296], [27633], [27634], [27635], and [27692]. See [27836] #26937
• When using WP_Query’s "fields" => "ids" (or "fields" => "id=>parent"), the returned values should be an array of integers, not array of integers represented by strings. [27184] #27252

Multisitemultisite Used to describe a WordPress installation with a network of multiple blogs, grouped by sites. This installation type has shared users tables, and creates separate database tables for each blog (wp_posts becomes wp_0_posts). See also network, blog, site:

• Introduce a ms_site_not_found filter to replace NOBLOGREDIRECT. Bail if there’s no site. [27663] #21143; #27003
• In multisite load, cache the main site lookup query. [27664] #27003
• Ensure the $path is trailing-slashed in domain_exists(). [27717] #20589

For the complete list of commits to trunktrunk A directory in Subversion containing the latest development code in preparation for the next major release cycle. If you are running "trunk", then you are on the latest revision., check out the log on Trac. Interested in helping close out the release? Write or test a patch for 3.9.

Thanks to @adamsilverstein, @adelval, @afercia, @aliso, @aubreypwd, @avryl, @azaozz, @barry, @bcworkz, @celloexpressions, @cgaffga, @Chouby, @chriseverson, @chrisguitarguy, @cramdesign, @danielbachhuber, @dannydehaan, @DavidAnderson, @DrewAPicture, @drozdz, @dustyf, @eatingrules, @ehg, @eightface, @ejdanderson, @eliorivero, @empireoflight, @ericlewis, @ericmann, @ethitter, @fahmiadib, @frank-klein, @gcorne, @grahamarmfield, @GregLone, @hakre, @helen, @jackreichert, @janw.oostendorp, @jartes, @jbkkd, @jdgrimes, @jeremyfelt, @joedolson, @johnbillion, @jorbin, @kawauso, @kovshenin, @kpdesign, @kwight, @lancewillett, @lkwdwrd, @markjaquith, @mattheu, @mattonomics, @matveb, @mauryaratan, @mcsf, @melchoyce, @MikeHansenMe, @miqrogroove, @mordauk, @nacin, @Nao, @Nessworthy, @nofearinc, @obenland, @ocean90, @paulwilde, @pavelevap, @pbearne, @philiparthurmoore, @prettyboymp, @raamdev, @rachelbaker, @ramonchiara, @roothorick, @ryelle, @sabreuse, @sandyr, @SergeyBiryukov, @shahpranaf, @siobhyb, @spmlucas, @stevenkword, @tbrams, @tlovett1, @TobiasBg, @tomauger, @Toru, @vanillalounge, @westonruter, @wonderboymusic, @xknown, and @yoavf for their efforts!

#3-9, #week-in-core