WordPress 4.5 "Coleman" Released

Some nice improvements in this one

[not2easy]

I was updating and editing today when I saw that WP 4.5 was now available. This is the Coleman update and it includes things to make WP edits and improvements simpler. I went over to the WP Blog: [wordpress.org...] where more goodies were revealed. You can now view your site during edits and preview mobile, tablet, and desktop views directly in the customizer UI.

Smart image resizing is integrated to deliver optimized images up to 50% faster.

Javascript library updates now include jQuery 1.12.3, jQuery Migrate 1.4.0, Backbone 1.2.3, and more.

There are more improvements that include inline linking made easier, go have a read if you're waiting for the right update.

[ergophobe]

This got me excited:

Smart image resizing is integrated to deliver optimized images up to 50% faster.

I was hoping this meant multiple actual sizes and integration of the srcset attribute to deliver small, optimized images on mobile. What it actually means is

changing the default quality in WP_Image_Editor from 90 to 82.

[make.wordpress.org...]

Since I would pretty much never save an image intended for the web at 82, let alone 90, the base image I'm uploading is already dramatically more optimized than that.

[not2easy]

WP has never been kind to image quality. Image optimization is kind of like any other part of development ( the old "fast - accurate - cheap: pick any two.."). ;)

[ergophobe]

I've tried some plugins that do let you use the srcset attribute and the picture element and they were more trouble than they were worth. I was hoping this would be built in because, in general, I find that features like that get refined nicely if they are part of the core distro.