What’s new in WordPress 3.8

 A new released of WordPress 3.8 in December focused on improving the user interface for WordPress admin with a lot of visual improvements. Here we will show you what’s new in WordPress 3.8 and how you can try some of these features right away.

There are already plenty of proposed features for WordPress 3.8 available for testing and development purposes as plugins. However, since most of them are highly experimental, it is not
recommended to use them on a production site.

User Interface For WordPress Admin & MP6 Plugin

The User Interface team at WordPress has recently presented a new but secret idea about how the admin interface can be reshaped. They shared this idea in the form of a plugin which is code-named MP6. The goal of MP6 is to rethink the WordPress user interface by simplifying it.It is official now.

The current default admin interface comes with only two default color schemes but MP6 improved admin user interface with flattened icons and beautiful color schemes. You can choose a color scheme from Users » Profile. 

New Live Previews of Themes

Themes screen of new WordPress has not much text. It brought theme experience plugin (codename Thx38) into core. This will transform the theme screens in WordPress admin area. It has larger theme screenshots and a clutter free user interface. Theme search is moved to the top right corner of the screen. To try this as a plugin on WordPress 3.7 or earlier, you would need to install MP6 plugin first. 

New Lighter Dashboard

The dashboard also become lighter in WordPress 3.8. Dashboard will have fewer and more relevant widgets.
For example, the incoming links widget will be removed. ‘Right now’ widget will be replaced by ‘Activity’ widget. QuickPress on the dashboard screen will be renamed to Quick Draft and will be much simpler.

An Easier Widget Area Chooser

Widgets allows theme developers to build themes with multiple widget ready areas, so the users can create their own website layouts.It's easier way for users to drag-drop elements into their sidebars and other widget ready areas. With multiple widget ready areas and tons of widgets to choose from, sometimes it becomes difficult to drag and drop a widget into the right sidebar but WordPress 3.8 has solved this problem with new User Interface for the widgets screen. The new Widgets screen will allow users to easily choose the sidebar they want to add a widget to without dragging it across different sidebars. The new widget interface will be cleaner, clutter free, and visually appealing.

New Default Twenty Fourteen Theme

Twenty Fourteen will be the new default theme for next year which is expected to be released in WordPress 3.8. It is a magazine style theme with support for featured content to be prominently displayed across the site. If your site does not use featured images, Twenty Fourteen makes sure that it looks pretty out of the box without featured images as well.