Lester Chan's WordPress Plugins

WordPress 3.9 Beta 1 has been released!

Changes

• We updated TinyMCE, the software powering the visual editor, to the latest version. Be on the lookout for cleaner markup. Also try the new paste handling — if you paste in a block of text from Microsoft Word, for example, it will no longer come out terrible. (The “Paste from Word” button you probably never noticed has been removed.) It’s possible some plugins that added stuff to the visual editor (like a new toolbar button) no longer work, so we’d like to hear about them (#24067). (And be sure to open a support thread for the plugin author.)
• We’ve added widget management to live previews (the customizer). Please test editing, adding, and rearranging widgets! (#27112) We’ve also added the ability to upload, crop, and manage header images, without needing to leave the preview. (#21785)
• We brought 3.8?s beautiful new theme browsing experience to the theme installer. Check it out! (#27055)
• Galleries now receive a live preview in the editor. Upload some photos and insert a gallery to see this in action. (#26959)
• You can now drag-and-drop images directly onto the editor to upload them. It can be a bit finicky, so try it and help us work out the kinks. (#19845)
• Some things got improved around editing images. It’s a lot easier to make changes to an image after you insert it into a post (#24409) and you no longer get kicked to a new window when you need to crop or rotate an image (#21811).
• New audio/video playlists. Upload a few audio or video files to test these. (#26631)

Developer Related Changes

• The load process in multisite got rewritten. If you notice any issues with your network, see #27003.
• We now use the MySQL Improved (mysqli) database extension if you’re running a recent version of PHP (#21663). Please test your plugins and see that everything works well, and please make sure you’re not calling mysql_* functions directly.
• Autosave was refactored, so if you see any issues related to autosaving, heartbeat, etc., let us know (#25272).
• Library updates, in particular Backbone 1.1 and Underscore 1.6 (#26799). Also Masonry 3 (#25351), PHPMailer (#25560), Plupload (#25663), and TinyMCE (#24067).
• TinyMCE 4.0 is a major update. Please see TinyMCE’s upgrade guide and our implementation ticket for more. If you have any questions or problems, please open a thread in the support forums.

Download: WordPress 3.9 Beta 1

WordPress 3.0 Beta 1 has been released. WordPress 3.0 is set to be released on 1st May 2010.

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