Fixes:

• Plupload (version 1.5.4), which WordPress uses for uploading media.
• SWFUpload, which WordPress previously used for uploading media, and may still be in use by plugins.

vSWFObject, which WordPress previously used to embed Flash content, and may still be in use by plugins and themes.

• Limited privilege escalation where a site administrator could deactivate network-wide plugins when running a WordPress network under particular circumstances, disclosed by Jon Cave of our WordPress core security team, and Adam Backstrom.
• Cross-site scripting vulnerability when making URLs clickable, by Jon Cave.
• Cross-site scripting vulnerabilities in redirects after posting comments in older browsers, and when filtering URLs. Thanks to Mauro Gentile for responsibly disclosing these issues to the security team.

Changelog: From WordPress 3.3.1
Download: WordPress 3.3.2

WordPress 3.4 Beta 3

• 90 bugs have been fixed since beta 2

Changelog: From WordPress 3.4 Beta 2
Download: >WordPress 3.4 Beta 3

What’s New

• Theme Customizer with Previewer
• Flexible Custom Header Sizes
• Selecting Custom Header and Background Images from Media Library
• Better experience searching for and choosing a theme

Under-the-hood Changes

• New XML-RPC API for external and mobile applications
• New API for registering theme support for custom headers and backgrounds
• Performance improvements to WP_Query by splitting the query (Please test!)
• Internationalization improvements (improved performance and locale support)
• Performance and API improvements when working with lists of installed themes
• Support for installing child themes from the WordPress Themes Directory

Download: WordPress 3.4 Beta 1

With all our major tickets closed, we are very close to a release candidate. In Beta 4 we’ve fixed a bunch of bugs, cleaned up the UI, added real text in some of the screens that still had placeholder text in Beta 3 (post-update screen, the Dashboard welcome area, new feature pointers), and generally tightened things up. We updated to jQuery 1.7.1 and addressed a LOT of bugs.

View: Full Changelog From Beta 3
Download: WordPress 3.3 Beta 4

No new features has been added instead beta 3 has over 200 bug fixes since beta 2.

View: Full Changelog From Beta 2
Download: WordPress 3.3 Beta 3

• Updated the Blue theme
• Fixed IE7 and RTL support
• Improved flyout menu styling and fixed several glitches
• Finished the Pointers implementation
• Landed the Welcome screen
• Improved contextual help styling
• Tweaked the admin bar a little more
• Fixed a bunch of bugs

View: Full Changelog From Beta 1
Download: WordPress 3.3 Beta 2

WordPress 3.3 is ready for beta testers.

As always, this is software still in development and we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site — set up a test site just to play with the new version. If you break it (find a bug), please report it, and if you’re a developer, try to help us fix it.

If all goes well, we hope to release WordPress 3.3 by the end of November. The more help we get with testing and fixing bugs, the sooner we will be able to release the final version. If you want to be a beta tester, you should check out the Codex article on how to report bugs.

Here’s some of what’s new:

• Media uploader
• Improved admin bar
• Fly out admin menus

Remember, if you find something you think is a bug, report it! You can bring it up in the alpha/beta forum, you can email it to the wp-testers list, or if you’ve confirmed that other people are experiencing the same bug, you can report it on the WordPress Core Trac. (We recommend starting in the forum or on the mailing list.)

Theme and plugin authors, if you haven’t been following the 3.3 development cycle, please start now so that you can update your themes and plugins to be compatible with the newest version of WordPress.

Download: WordPress 3.3 Beta 1

Check out the list of known issues or if you want to switch your blog over to the beta, try the WordPress Beta Tester Plugin.

Download: WordPress 3.1 Beta 2

Snippet:

If all goes well, we hope to release WordPress 3.1 to the world at large by the end of the year, though that is (as always) subject to change/dependent on how the beta period goes. The more help we get with testing and fixing bugs, the sooner we will be able to release the final version.

Some of the new features to check out include:

• Post Formats (#14746)
• Theme Search (#14936)
• Internal Linking (#11420)
• Admin Bar (#14772)
• Ajaxified Admin (#14579)
• Updated Tiny MCE (#12574)
• Multi-taxonomy Queries (#12891)
• Custom Post Type Index Pages (#13818)
• Admin CSS Cleanup (#14770)
• User Admin (#14696)
• Network Admin (#14435)
• Password Reset Redux (#5919)

There are also some known issues: things that aren’t *quite* finished, but that weren’t worth holding up the beta release. They will be fixed before 3.1 is released for general use. Note that as things get fixed, the beta release will update nightly. What you should know:

• Fatal error: Call to a member function is_page() on a non-object in /wp-includes/query.php. is_page() may be any conditional tag. This issue occurs when a theme or plugin is doing something wrong. Some code is checking the value of a conditional tag before we actually set up the Query, which means they don’t work yet. In 3.0, they silently failed and always returned false. In 3.1 Beta 1, this is throwing a fatal error. This will be handled in the final release, so use this opportunity to fix your plugins. (#14729)
• All known issues slated for fixing before launch are listed in Trac. Please check this list to see if a bug is already on the list before reporting it.

Download: WordPress 3.1 Beta 1

Things to test:

• Revised menu user interface
• Changes to the WordPress exporter and importer to make it more flexible

Download: WordPress 3.0 Beta 1

Remember when I posted earlier about the Twitter account, and I said that hopefully you’d find out later today what has been keeping us all so busy? Beta testers, this is your moment: the WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 has arrived!

This is an early beta. This means there are a few things we’re still finishing. We wanted to get people testing it this weekend, so we’re releasing it now rather than waiting another week until everything is finalized and polished. There’s a ton of stuff going on in 3.0, so this time we’re giving you a list of things to check out, so that we can make sure people are testing all the things that need it.

You Should Know:

• The custom menus system (Appearance > Menus) is not quite finished. In Beta 2, the layout will be different and a bunch of the functionality will be improved, but we didn’t want to hold things up for this one screen. You can play with making custom menus, and report bugs if you find them, but this is not how the final screen will look/work, so don’t get attached to it.
• The merge! Yes, WordPress and WordPress MU have merged. This does not mean that you can suddenly start adding a bunch of new blogs from within your regular WordPress Dashboard. If you’re interested in testing the Super Admin stuff associated with multiple sites, you’ll need some simple directions to get started.
• We’re still fiddling with a few small things in the UI, as we were focused on getting the more function-oriented code finished first. For example, we’re getting a new icon for the Super Admin section.

Things to test:

• Play with the new default theme, Twenty Ten, including the custom background and header options.
• Custom Post Type functionality has been beefed up. It’s really easy to add new types, so do that and see how it looks!
• WordPress MU users should test the multiple sites functionality to make sure nothing broke during the merge.

Already have a test install that you want to switch over to the beta? Try the beta tester plugin.

Testers, don’t forget to use the wp-testers mailing list to discuss bugs you encounter.

We hope you like it! And if you don’t, well, check back when beta 2 is ready.

Download: WordPress 3.0 Beta 1

I tested my plugins on WordPress 2.9 Beta 1 and it all works without any problem. I don’t think I will have time to release any updates till I get back from my holiday at the end of December 2009. Having said that, the current version of my plugin should work fine with WordPress 2.9 as well.

Download: WordPress 2.9 Beta 2
View: Changes Since Beta 1

Download: WordPress 2.8 Beta 2

This site is running the development versions of all my plugins, so it should work with WordPress 2.8. Please let me know if you encounter any bug.

Download: WordPress 2.8 Beta 1

• Numerous style improvements and refinements.
• All admin notices now go under the page title.
• PHP Notice fixes.
• Dashboard widget options now properly save.
• Menu fixes.
• New design for Quick Edit.
• Canonical feed URL fixes.
• Walker fixes.
• An update for Hello Dolly.
• Plugin installer updates.
• Numerous font updates.
• Updated login logo.
• Switch position of “Save Draft” and “Preview” buttons in publish module.
• File upload support for MS Office 2007+ file formats.
• Media upload buttons won’t show if the user doesn’t have the upload capability.
• Canonical redirects only do yes-www or no-www redirection for domains.
• Shift-click checkbox range selection improvement.
• Add New User page now separate.
• Tag suggest only suggests tags (not other taxonomy terms).
• QuickPress shows “Submit for Review” if user cannot publish.
• Private posts/pages, and password-protected posts/pages are rolled into new “Visibility” section of publish module.

I got a feeling beta 3 will be a last beta and an RC1 will hit us next week.

Download: WordPress 2.7 Beta 3

Here are the changelog since beta 1:

• The Upload button didn’t always show. Fixed.
• JS on the Dashboard broke for blogs with no comments, causing several UI elements to “freeze”. Fixed.
• Recent Drafts Dashboard module didn’t show correct times. Fixed.
• Various Autosave fixes.
• Redirect after deleting a page from the editor went back to the deleted page. Fixed.
• Fixed loading of translations for default TinyMCE plugins.
• Added avatars to the edit users list.
• Added some missing translations.
• Fixed some validation errors.
• Fixed some PHP warnings and notices.
• Handle inconsistent file permissions during auto upgrade
• Change Publish box layout to better accommodate internationalized text
• Fix quick editing of the last page in the Edit Pages list
• Fix Screen Options for IE
• Fixes for choose tag from tag cloud
• Rewrite rules fixes for certain hosts
• Don’t check for updates on every page load
• Easier post box dropping
• Preview fixes
• RTL fixes
• Fixed broken wp-mail
• Plugin update and install fixes
• First draft of contextual help tab

Download: WordPress 2.7 Beta 2

You can do the automatic upgrade via WP-Admin -> Tools -> Update.

PS: I would always recommend manually upgrade instead of automatic upgrade as it is more prone to errors.

Here is a demo of the plugin in action.

You can download it from here:

Do remember to read the readme.html

I have already applied for this plugin on the WordPress repository. Still waiting for a reply.

*UPDATE* Committed the plugin, SVN is at http://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/wp-commentnavi/

Also, the development of WordPress 2.7 is 2 weeks behind and hence 10th November will not be the release date for the final version, but rather a release candidate. The final version is expected to be at the end of November 2008.

Speaking of the final release, it will not be available on November 10th as originally scheduled. We are two weeks behind schedule at the moment. We need a little more time to finish the visual design, do a round of user testing against that finished design, and do a proper round of public beta testing. Our plan is to keep working as if Nov. 10 is still the release date. However, instead of releasing the final 2.7 on the 10th, we will make a release candidate available instead. The release candidate is intended to be a high-quality, almost-finished release that we are comfortable recommending for broad use. After Nov. 10, the focus will be on fixing high impact bugs turned up by those of you testing the release candidate. I suspect 2.7 will be ready for final release by the end of November. A specific date will be set as we progress through the public beta cycle and get a feel for how solid the release is.

I had spent the whole night yesterday making my plugins work wells with WordPress 2.6 and perhaps even WordPress 2.7 while maintaining the backward compatibility with WordPress 2.5.

All my 15 plugins are available at the Downloads Page under Beta Scripts. It used to be 16 plugins, but I stopped developing WP-Wap and hence it became 15.

Do help me test it out either on WordPress 2.5 or WordPress 2.6 Beta. They should work just fine for both versions.

This site is running all 15 of them and it is based on WordPress 2.5. If you found any of my plugins that are not working well on this site, do let me know as well. I will update this site to WordPress 2.6 when RC1 comes out.

If everything goes fine, I will release the updates 2 days after WordPress 2.6 is being released.

PS: My mom always nag at me to get a job especially during my 3 months (summer holidays) from May to August. But I told her by developing plugins, I can get donations as well. If you really like my plugins and appreciate my effort that I have put into it, do drop me a donation. My Paypal email is lesterchan AT gmail DOT com. Thank You =)

Both of us have came to a conclusion that if you move your /wp-content/ folder to elsewhere, you may need to manually specify the path to wp-config.php in the respective plugins that make use of them as there is no 100% way of guessing the path to wp-config.php.

So my recommendation is DO NOT MOVE the /wp-content/ folder. It is OK to move wp-config.php to a level higher, but try not to touch /wp-content/.

With regards to my plugins, I will release a .01 update bringing the version to 1.31 and 2.31 for the respective plugins. This update will make sure that the plugin will work for BOTH WordPress 2.5 and WordPress 2.6. That is right, I will maintain backward compatibility with WordPress 2.5 for the next update as WordPress 2.6 is just a minor release.

When WordPress 2.7 comes out in November 2008, I will bump all the versions to 1.40 and 2.40 respectively and I will remove the backward compatibility feature to WordPress 2.5.

Now on the extreme top menu on the extreme right, there is a link called “Speed up!” which links to Google Gears.

In the Dashboard, right under “Right Now”, there is a comment break down added to it. Here is an example: “You have 1 post, 1 page, contained within 1 category and 0 tags. Current comment break down: 1 total, 1 approved, 0 spam and 0 awaiting moderation.”

When you write a page or post, underneath the “Save” and “Published” button, there is a word count indicator.

The display of themes under “Available Themes” has also changed a little.

Now back to serious business.

I am still deciding whether or not to maintain WordPress 2.5 compatibility for the next wave of updates for my plugins as WordPress 2.6 introduces a lot of constants like “WP_PLUGIN_URL”, “WP_PLUGIN_DIR”
“WP_CONTENT_DIR”, “WP_CONTENT_URL”, etc.

2 potential issues that would break my plugin in WordPress 2.6 and I will be unable to fix it unless I find another way to do the AJAX, “Allow wp-config.php to exist one level up from WordPress root directory”
and “Allow wp-content directory to exist in a custom location (not relative to ABSPATH)“.

Argh! WordPress 2.5 has the shortest development cycle!