WordPress for Android 5.5 Debuts New Visual Editor, Adds User Management

WordPress for Android version 5.5 was released today and introduces a completely rewritten visual editor. The new editing experience offers the same styling tools as the web version of WordPress but places them in a thumb-friendly toolbar at the bottom.

The visual editor is the default when you open the app to create a new post, but the HTML editor is still available via a link on the bottom right. Bolding text, creating blockquotes, and adding and removing images is now much easier to do when using the mobile app.

User Management Added for WordPress.com Sites, Not Available for Self-Hosted Sites

Version 5.5 also adds user management under the site configuration section via a new ‘People’ menu item. I found ‘People’ to be an odd term to use for managing users, as it seems it could easily be confused with followers or subscribers. The word ‘users’ seems to more naturally indicate those who have permissions on the site. However, WordPress.com has already gone this route and may have done customer studies that prompted this selection. In any case, because Automattic funds the development of the mobile apps, the experience is built to match WordPress.com. The ‘People’ menu item may be somewhat unfamiliar to self-hosted users, but so far this feature has only been rolled out for WordPress.com sites.

The update should already be available to Android devices. If you want to see what’s on deck for 5.6 or log an issue, check out the app on GitHub. All the code is open source and open to contribution from the community.