WordPress 3.7 Beta 1

Looks like when I am in Thailand for a holiday over the weekends, WordPress 3.7 Beta 1 is released! WordPress 3.7 will be a short one, with its final version coming in October 2013 and immediately after that, WordPress 3.8 will be targeted for release by end of the year. WordPress 3.8 will be where most of the features are!

One of the features in 3.7 that I am looking for is “Automatic, background updates”. It updates itself in the background, just like Google Chrome! When is the last time you notice Google Chrome is updating? Not me!

3.7 Beta 1 will keep itself updated. That’s right — you’ll be updated each night to the newest development build, and eventually to Beta 2. We’re working to provide as many installs as possible with fast updates to security releases of WordPress — and you can help us test by just installing Beta 1 on your server and seeing how it works!

Some other stuff:

  • If you’re running WordPress in another language, we’ll automatically download any available translations for official WordPress importers and the default themes. (More to come here.)
  • Our password meter got a whole lot better, thanks to Dropbox’s zxcvbn library. Again, subtle but effective. Strong passwords are very important!
  • Search results are now ordered by relevance, rather than just by date. When your keywords match post titles and not just content, they’ll be pushed to the top.
  • Developers should check out the new advanced date queries in WP_Query. (#18694)
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WordPress 3.1 RC2

WordPress 3.1 RC2 has been released! I am pretty sure by end of this week or latest next week, we will be able to see WordPress 3.1 out the door!

The second release candidate for WordPress 3.1 is now available. The requisite haiku:

Rounding up stragglers

Last few bugs for 3.1

Go test RC2

As I outlined in the announcement post for RC1, release candidates are the last stop before the final release. It means we think we’re done, and we again have no bugs to squash. But with tens of millions of users, many server configurations and setups, and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s still possible we’ve missed something.

Beta 1 came on Thanksgiving, RC1 on Christmas, and RC2 on New Year’s Day. We won’t be waiting for another holiday for the final release, though, so if you haven’t tested WordPress 3.1 yet, now is the time!

Select changes since RC1:

  • The security fixes included in WordPress 3.0.4
  • Fix issues related to handling a static front page
  • Fixes and enhancements for the pagination buttons
  • Fix searching for partial usernames
  • Properly reactivate plugins after editing them
  • Always show the current author in the author dropdown when editing a post
  • Fixes for attachment taxonomies
  • Fix node removal for the admin bar
  • Fix the custom post type show_in_menu argument
  • Various fixes for right-to-left languages
  • and a few dozen more changes

If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

Download: WordPress 3.1 RC2

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