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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WordPress 2.8 Released

WordPress 2.8 has been released!

Here is the quote from Matt:

I’m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 “Baker,” is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker.

Major New Improvements
First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.

The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.

If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.

If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.

Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.

Download: WordPress 2.8

View: WordPress 2.8 Changelog

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