Introduction
Everyone reading this article may feel that they know what WP is, but many WordPress developers do not. WordPress has been around for 20 years, and it is perhaps the most popular Content Management System (CMS) currently in existence. It is currently responsible for 53% of all new websites. I have been involved with WordPress development since 2019 (when WordPress 5.2 was released), and I have seen it evolve from a small community of highly skilled individuals into a larger community of casual programmers and entrepreneurs.
WordPress is a free and open-source Content Management System (CMS) written in PHP, using MySQL or MariaDB database. WP is the most popular CMS in the world, and according to the WP.org user statistics, its website traffic in December 2014 was 14.0 million (171 million page views) and its monthly traffic was 1.2 million (6 million page views).
WordPress is free, so you don’t need to be a developer to create your website. WordPress has a fairly simple platform that allows anyone to add a blog, forum, auction, or website without much trouble. However, the software comes with certain restrictions. If you want to add “crap” into your blog (e.g., meta-tags, a custom header, or install a theme), then you need to know how to code your way around. If you want to add functions such as counters, filters, or search engines then you need to get comfortable with JavaScript.
And, finally, if you want to be able to put Google Analytics or RSS feed generators on your blog (or if you need to write code for your themes), then you need to study a lot of HTML code. If you don’t have an in-depth knowledge of all of these intricacies, you might get stuck.
WordPress become born out of a choice for an elegant, well-architectured private publishing tool constructed on PHP and MySQL and authorized below the GPL. It is the legit successor of the b2/cafelog. WordPress is a present-day software program; however, its roots and improvement move lower back to 2001. It is a mature and strong product. There also are numerous publish release variations with enhancements for protection, malicious program fixes, and stability.
Features Over Time:
There are several versions of the WordPress CMS over the past 20 years, which are as follows:
Note: –
The reason I have added this version list is to let you know which features are available in WordPress by default. So, we should use them properly and avoid the use of external plugins/themes/addons. If you are new to WordPress, it will be difficult to understand it but if you are already WordPress Developer you know what I am talking about. This list helps us know about the top features of WordPress over time. So, please do read it.
2001
b2/cafelog was released through Michel Valdrighi.
2003 – Announcement: 0.7 (preliminary)
Version 0.7 (Preliminary) Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little fork b2 and create WordPress. This preliminary launch covered a texturize engine, hyperlinks supervisor, XHTML 1.1 compliant templates, a brand-new management interface, the capacity to do guide excerpts, and new templates.
2004 – Announcements: 1.0, 1.2
Version 1.0 (Davis) becomes the legit 1.0 bringing browser set up, seek engine permalinks, more than one class help, a smart improving technique, and import enhancement for transferring from different structures to WordPress. Support becomes delivered to the admin experience for modifying posts and feedback in addition to the beginning of many different functions to be progressed on withinside the future.
Version 1.2 (Mingus) delivered plugins, hierarchically class help, OPML import and export in addition to introductory language help. Features like automated thumbnail creation, more than one replacement carrier pinging, and password encryption additionally had been highlighted.
2005 – Announcements: 1.5, 2.0
Version 1.5 (Strayhorn) delivered a Theme system and featured the advent of static pages, carrying WordPress to be poised as a content material control system. A new subject has become to be had to show off how the newly deployed Theme system may be prolonged and utilized. Hundreds of hooks have been made to be had, taking into consideration the integration of plugins to key elements of WordPress. The WordPress Plugin Repository become created taking into consideration a collaborative surrounding among Plugin Developers and customers.
Version 2.0 (Duke) become delivered with chronic caching, a brand new user role system, and a brand new backend UI. WYSIWYG modifying introduced a higher experience generating content material which additionally covered inline photographs, video, and document uploads. Post previewing allowed to check posts earlier than being made live on websites. Plugin hooks have been more advantageous to permit functions extension through plugin builders. Theme features have been delivered to beautify themes with code, much like plugins.
2007 – Announcements: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
Version 2.1 (Ella) delivered a brand new UI, autosave, spellings checking, and different new functions. Enhancements delivered capacity to replace content material and code editor, placing pages as the front webpage, including no-indexing to the complete webpage for search engine privacy, XML uploading enhancements, and the addition of the non-public pages function. MySQL queries noticed a competitive optimization and re-write. Other developer additions covered new hooks and APIs, language enhancements, and pseudo-cron scheduling.
Version 2.2 (Getz) introduced higher Atom feed help and speed optimizations for plugins and filters. Widgets advent laid the basis for transferring extra functions into layout, which furnished a base for plugin functions extension. Protection becomes delivered on activating plugins, checking for mistakes/errors before successful activation. phpMailer become delivered which additionally furnished help for SMTP Mail. Database collation manipulation and plenty of code notation enhancements have been additionally a part of this launch.
Version 2.3 (Dexter) provided tagging, replace notifications, quiet URLs, and a brand new taxonomy system. Core replace notifications have been delivered permitting customers to higher preserve tune of whilst new launch updates have been to be had. The jQuery model becomes up to date bringing speed increases. Canonical URL fixes have been delivered and a brand new $wpdb->prepare() syntax help rolled out taking into consideration more secure MySQL queries.
2008 -Announcements: 2.5, 2.6, 2.7
“Winner of InfoWorld’s “Best of open supply software program awards: Collaboration””
Version 2.5 (Brecker) become launched with a brand new management UI layout by Happy Cog and delivered the dashboard widget system and the shortcode API.
Version 2.6 (Tyner) constructed on 2.5 and delivered publish revisions and Press This. Usability observes become accomplished on 2.5 over the summer, leading to the improvement of the Crazyhorse prototype, and the subsequent launch.
Version 2.7 (Coltrane) redesigned the management UI to enhance usability and make the admin device greater customizable. 2.7 additionally delivered automated upgrading, integrated plugin set up, sticky posts, remark threading/paging/replies, and a brand new API, bulk control, and inline documentation.
2009 – Announcements: 2.8, 2.9
“Winner of Open Source CMS Awards’ “Overall Best Open Source CMS””
Version 2.8 (Baker) delivered an integrated theme installer and enhancements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and normal speed (which include a brand new Widget API) (and drag and drop). There have been substantial speed upgrades relative to fashion and scripting. A new CodePress editor delivered syntax highlighting to the Dashboard based code editor. Screen Options have been delivered to the Admin with a purpose to personalize user interplay with the objects getting used and the capacity to filter the others.
Version 2.9 (Carmen) (140+ Contributors) become an improvement extensive launch introducing photograph modifying, a Trash/Undo function, bulk plugin updating, and embed help permitting included third party content to seamlessly combine with content material. There have been additionally substantial batch updating compatibility enhancements, remark framework enhancement, editor upgrades, user profile, registration and automation enhancements, gallery objects utilization throughout more than one posts advent and higher hooks and filters for excerpts, smilies, HTTP requests, user profiles, creator hyperlinks, taxonomies, SSL help, tag clouds, query_posts, and WP_Query.
2010 – Announcement: 3.0
“Winner of digitalsynergy’s “Hall of Fame CMS class withinside the 2010 Open Source””
Version 3.0 (Thelonious) (218 Contributors) become the main launch, it delivered custom publish types, made custom taxonomies easier, delivered custom menu control, delivered new API’s for custom headers and custom backgrounds, delivered a brand new default subject called “Twenty Ten” and merged former WordPress MU (permitting the control of more than one web sites) to be a part of WordPress Core, renamed to Multisite. Bulk plugin updates have been similarly streamlined from the preceding launch. Theme builders noticed the advent of the latest APIs permitting implementation of custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus, publish types, and taxonomies without document modifying. An initiative to feature contextual assist going ahead noticed its begin.
2011 – Announcements: 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
“Winner of InfoWorld’s “Bossie award for Best Open Source Software””
Version 3.1 (Reinhardt) (180+ Contributors) delivered Post Formats and the Admin Bar. A redesigned linking workflow becomes delivered to greater effortless paintings with present posts and pages. The beginnings of a streamlined writing interface have been delivered. The import/export system become overhauled and there have been many question enhancements to permit appearing to carry out superior taxonomy and custom fields queries.
Version 3.2 (Gershwin) made WordPress quicker and lighter, this model upgraded minimal necessities to PHP five.2.four and MySQL five.zero.15, and delivered a brand new completely HTML5 default subject called “Twenty Eleven” The Dashboard layout become refreshed and the formerly delivered Admin Bar noticed additions. This launch featured the advent of a Distraction-Free Writing mode. The Comments Moderation display become progressed for approvals and replies. The replace technique becomes streamlined, making updates a good deal quicker with delivered stability.
Version 3.3 (Sonny) made WordPress greater pleasant for novices with welcome messages and function pointers. Improvements covered a brand new drag and drop uploader, progressed co-modifying help, navigation and toolbar enhancements, and higher contact help for iPad and different tablets.
2012 – Announcements: 3.4, 3.5
Version 3.4 (Green) delivered the Theme Customizer and previewer, permitting to check and take a look at subject revisions previous to making use of them. The Media Library become prolonged to help the usage of photos to populate custom headers and to pick out the peak and width of the photos. Image captioning noticed enhancements to help HTML. With this launch, Twitter “tweets” have been made to layout a pleasant show through losing the URL into the editor. There have been many developer enhancements, which include XML-RPC, a custom header API, and overall performance enhancements to WP_Query.
Version 3.5 (Elvin) delivered the brand new media supervisor and the brand new default subject called “Twenty Twelve” with attention to the cellular show. The focus becomes additionally located at the glide for importing images and growing galleries. The Admin Dashboard noticed the approaching of a Retina-geared-up show with excessive decision graphics.
2013 – Announcements: 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
Version 3.6 (Oscar) delivered a brand new default subject called “Twenty Thirteen” integrated Audio and Video help, dynamic and scalable Revisions, progressed Autosave and Post Locking. Audio and video enhancements covered local help for audio and video embeds, an integrated HTML5 media player, a brand new API for assisting metadata (along with ID3 tags), and enhancement to present oEmbed vendors Spotify, Rdio, and SoundCloud.
Version 3.7 (Basie) (211 Contributors) delivered automated updates for renovation and protection updates, a more potent password meter, and more advantageous language help and car set up of language files.
Version 3.8 (Parker) (188 Contributors) delivered a brand new mag fashion default subject called “Twenty Fourteen” The Admin panel become overhauled with a sparkling present-day appearance and new vector icons. Color schemes have been additionally made to be had to be carried out to the Admin experience. The Widget segment become additionally streamlined for less complicated use.
2014 – Announcements: 3.9, 4.0, 4.1
Version 3.9 (Smith) (267 Contributors) progressed the media revel in and delivered stay widget and header previews. The Visual Editor become progressed for speed, accessibility, and cellular use. Image and media enhancements covered including the capacity to add photos thru drag and drop from computing devices and photograph modifying enhancement. Audio and video playlist help become delivered in addition to Gallery previews from withinside the editor. Themes have become browsable from the Appearance segment.
Version 4.0 (Benny) (275 Contributors) delivered a grid view for the media library and for putting in plugins. Previews for embedded content material along with Twitter and YouTube have become to be had from withinside the editor even as getting ready content material. Editor writing enhancements covered increasing the editor with content material for a less complicated revel in. The Plugin segment becomes more advantageous to expose greater elements and offer a higher seek revel in.
Version 4.1 (Dinah) (283 Contributors) delivered a refreshed Distraction Free Writing mode, language set up from the Settings display (to replace among forty one-of-a-kind languages with help from Google’s Noto font family), and a lovely new default subject, “Twenty Fifteen” Developer enhancements covered the addition of superior metadata question conditional logic.
2015 – Announcements: 4.2, 4.3, 4.4
“Winner of CMS Critic Award’s “Best CMS for Personal Websites””
Version 4.2 (Powell) (283 Contributors) delivered emoji help, uploaded prolonged character support, and switched database encoding from utf8 to utf8mb4. Plugin updates have become dynamic from one web page without reloading. Two new oEmbed vendors have been delivered (Tumblr, Kickstarter). Theme switching has become to be had via the Customizer. This model additionally covered developer question enhancements.
Version 4.3 (Billie) (246 Contributors) delivered integrated web page icons help and delivered formatting shortcuts withinside the visible editor. Live Menu previews have become to be had from the Customizer. Password procedures have been progressed for protection in addition to List Views withinside the Admin panel.
Version 4.4(Clifford) (471 Contributors) delivered responsive photos, embeddable posts, and a brand new default subject, “Twenty Sixteen” oEmbed help become delivered for WordPress posts with wealthy previews and show in addition to 5 new vendors (Cloudup, Reddit Comments, ReverbNation, Speaker Deck, and VideoPress). Developer enhancements covered the integration of the REST API structure, question enhancements for feedback, Term Metadata, and new Objects (Term and Network) for greater predictable delivered interplay functionality inside code.
2016 – Announcements: 4.5, 4.6, 4.7
Version 4.5 (Coleman) (298 Contributors) delivered inline hyperlinks, delivered formatting shortcuts, and responsive previews in Customizer to preview on cellular, pill, or computing device. Additionally, help become delivered for Custom Logos, clever photograph resizing for speed development, and script loading enhancements for based scripts from the header and footer.
Version 4.6 (Pepper) (272 Contributors) introduced substantial speed modifications to Multisite with cached and complete web page queries to enhance the community admin revel in. Theme addition, activation, and plugin updates have been tailored to a one display technique. Local draft saving to browser become delivered. Native fonts have been additionally made to be had for use from the running system for speed enhancement.
Version 4.7 (Vaughan) (482 Contributors) arrived alongside facet a brand new subject with present-day elements (which include starter content material) with video header help. New Customizer functions permit modifying CSS with stay previewing. REST API endpoints permit for machine-readable outside get entry to for more advantageous third party interplay. Page template capability becomes spread out to all publish types. Bulk moves moreover have been branched out with custom choice help. The Customizer persisted extension to help car saving of drafts. This become an interesting launch for WordPress because the variety of participants considerably extended with this launch.
2017 – Announcements: 4.8, 4.9
Version 4.8 (Evans) (346 Contributors) introduced an array of the latest widgets (photograph, video, audio, and wealthy textual content). Adding hyperlinks progressed substantially placing barriers around groupings of textual content to keep away from mismatching. WordPress occasion streams have become seen withinside the Admin Dashboard. Developer upgrades have been delivered for delivered accessibility, API advent to make the editor greater transportable to one-of-a-kind regions thru plugins.
Version 4.9 (Tipton) (443 Contributors) targeted user revel in and delivered the capacity to shop layout drafts for evaluation and alteration previous to publishing. Design locking rolled out, defensive more than one designer to override modifications in progress. This becomes additionally the advent factor of code syntax checking and blunders reporting withinside the Admin revel in. A legit callout for participants and testers went out for the Gutenberg project.
2018 – Announcement: 5.0
Version 5.0 (Bebo) (432 Contributors) delivered a brand new block primarily based editor with a show-off subject (Twenty Nineteen). Support for the conventional editor become maintained and the network translated the discharge to help a complete of 37 languages.
2019 – Announcements: 5.1, 5.2, 5.3
Version 5.1 (Betty) (552 participants) targeted polish, mainly through enhancing the overall performance of the editor. In addition, this launch paves the manner for a higher, quicker, and greater steady WordPress with a few vital gears for web page directors and builders.
Version 5.2 (Jaco) (389 participants) delivered greater strong gear for figuring out and solving configuration troubles and deadly mistakes. For each web sites builder and those dealing with their websites through themselves, those gear can assist get the proper facts approximately an internet site whilst needed.
Version 5.3 (Kirk) (711 participants) increased and subtle the block editor delivered in WordPress five. zero with new blocks, greater intuitive interactions, and progressed accessibility. New functions withinside the editor boom layout freedoms, offer extra format alternatives and fashion versions to permit designers whole manipulate the appearance of a web web page. This launch additionally introduces the Twenty Twenty subject giving the user greater layout flexibility and integration with the block editor.
2020 – Announcements: 5.4, 5.5, 5.6
Version 5.4 (Adderley) (595 participants) delivered greater methods to make posts and pages come alive together along with your great photos, to carry your site visitors in, and preserve them engaged, with the richness of embedded media from the net’s pinnacle services. This model additionally delivered greater speed anywhere withinside the management dashboard and web sites frontend.
Version 5.5 (Eckstine) (809 participants) delivered speed, seek, and protection enhancements to WordPress. The block editor additionally obtained numerous enhancements with blocks patterns, inline photograph modifying, and a modern block directory. In addition to that, this launch additionally made huge modifications for builders; withinside the REST API, to the dash icons, surroundings variables, etc.
Version 5.6 (Simone) (605 participants) brings you infinite methods to set your thoughts loose and convey them to life. With a brand-new default subject as your canvas, it helps an ever-developing series of blocks as your brushes. Paint with words. Pictures. Sound. Or wealthy embedded media.
2021 – Announcements: 5.7, 5.8
Version 5.7 (Esperanza) (481 participants) With this new model, WordPress brings you sparkling colors. The editor allows you to figure in some locations you couldn’t earlier than without stepping into code or hiring a pro. The controls you operate maximum are proper in which you want them. Layout modifications that have to be simple, are even easier to make.
Version 5.8 (Tatum) (530 participants) The energy of blocks has come to each the Block Widgets Editor and the Customizer. The Query Loop Block makes it viable to show posts primarily based totally on distinctive parameters. You also can use the acquainted block editor to edit templates that preserve your content material. Worth noting that help for Internet Explorer eleven has been dropped as of this launch. WordPress five. eight additionally provides help for WebP photos.
2022 – Announcement: 5.9
Version 5.9 (Joséphine) (624 participants) Full web page modifying arrives and places you on top of things of your entire web page, proper withinside the WordPress Admin. A new default block subject, Twenty Twenty-Two, indicates the big range of visible picks all from the Site Editor. The new Navigation block gives an always-on responsive menu, one which adapts for your user’s display size. Better block controls, the brand new Pattern Directory, a made-over List View, and a higher Gallery block spherical out the brand new tweaks to the publishing glide that will help you say greater, quicker.
Conclusion Of Versions List:
Some new features mentioned above are listed below.
- Steve Nicholas, the creator of the website Best WordPress Themes announced that he was leaving his site hosting provider to focus on WordPress development.
- Nicholas released the first stable release of WordPress 3.0.
- It contains several improvements but does not contain any new features.
- The ability to use React as a theme design framework, a redesigned media area, improved support for rich media, and other features were added.
- It introduced several changes, including enhanced support for background processing, the addition of a “My Site” area, the ability to mark images with “recommended”, or “private” tags, and improved browser compatibility.
- The theme system also gained the ability to let users manually edit the default settings of certain aspects of the themes, such as the menus, header, footer, and light and dark styles, or with an unmodified theme.
- Several features were included, such as the ability to add extra copyright information to a featured image, better spellchecking, and a notification system for updating the site over the Internet.
- Adding support for Booking.com and Wix.com websites.
- Included the ability to edit images and the ability to edit widgets.
- Features automatic time zones for faster server speed.
- Included an ability to download themes and plugins without having to go through an installer, automated backups, and a new permissions system.
- The interface was updated to support Material Design.
- Included a “social media sharing” button, which allows users to add sharing buttons to each post.
- Included “Article description editing”, which allows users to re-write their article’s description.
- “Plugins and Customizer” in a separate plugin folder, increasing the modularity of WordPress.
- Introduced an auto-update feature, which allows users to automatically update to the latest version of WordPress without having to visit the WordPress install page each time, a global search feature, and a news feed.
- Included the ability to include a title, a summary, and a shortcode in a post and support for “Bookmarks” to allow users to share a page across the web.
- Adding “E-commerce” to the list of WYSIWYG editing options.
- Introducing “Content images”, which allow users to add watermark to each image in a WordPress post or a photo gallery.
- Included a “Support Center” and a new “Merged Posts” option, which allows users to automatically merge multiple posts into one with the click of a button.
- Adding an edit link to the content, tags, and categories pages.
- Included a home page redesign, which featured a redesigned sidebar and gallery, a new “Show on Homepage” button, and a user menu.
- Included “Smart articles”, a feature that automatically ranks content based on the number of backlinks, number of comments, and other factors.
- WordPress became the first blog platform to use a ranking algorithm.
- Ability to use a custom theme for Gutenberg’s Customizer which allowed for the creation of a new layout.
- Support for Wix.
- Support for Premium and Pro editions for WordPress.
- Adding an RSS Feeds toggle and the ability to exclude categories from WordPress.com menus.
- Features more automatic security updates increased support for Shopify, PayPal, and Gumroad themes, and further control over page spacing and offsetting.
- Adding the ability to use custom layouts and larger post titles.
- Ability to add a keyword filter to pages.
- Automattic announced that the next release of WordPress would be based on the open-source Gutenberg Editor.
- Includes “Editable post names by copy/pasting, clicking, or via the menu” editor options, and “Hover over type names to preview” editor options.
- Includes “Move the content to other posts or post categories”, “More responsive webpage tops” editor options, and “Touch focus on post titles to preview” editor options.
- Including “Navigation and Related Content” edit options.
- Released version, included:
- Comments on themes, plugins, and themes authors can be posted to them via the User Forum.
- Reference
- Resources
- Other official websites
- Official documentation
- web helpdesk
- Text
- Flash
- Spoonfed
- Gutenberg
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