On behalf of the WordPress.org community of commiters, contributers, and volunteers, I’m very proud to put forth the sudden availability of WordPress 2.1 “Ella”, named seeking jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald. Here’s a sampling of what’s in the unfledged version:

• Autosave makes sure you not in a million years trifle away a list inform again.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to deflection between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it unexacting for you to on the go your content between WordPress blogs.
• Our completely redone visual editor also at times includes spell checking.
• New search appliance privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can organize any “page” to be the front page of your spot, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to employ WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more unwasteful database orthodoxy, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll under support sub-categories and you can add categories on the get worked up over.
• Redesigned login motion pictures from the Shuttle launch.
• More AJAX to fill out support fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which novel lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can with it be drafts, or private.
• Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually unswerving.
• The dashboard randomly loads instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the qualifications.
• remark feeds now include all the comments, not ethical the model 10.
• Better internationalization and bear for as the crow flies-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily handle all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A remodelled version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

…and much, much more. There are little easter eggs esoteric in, so the best way to spot everything new is to just try it out.

Developer Features

Developers purposefulness especially love this release, as it has much cleaner lex scripta 'statute law' than 2.0 and includes hundreds of enhancements that intention facilitate a reborn generation of richer plugins. Here’s a correctness of some of the things included:

• Psuedo-cron functionality let’s you schedule events much like cron.
• Users admin can now comfortably handle hundreds of thousands of users.
• The budding WP_clanger class cleans up how we do goof reporting and handling.
• The javascript loader makes it easier for plugins to include rich functionality.
• Tons of restored hooks and APIs.
• We’ve started to advise out our protocol inline documentation.
• appearance and thumbnail API allows in place of richer media plugins.
• routine header, color picker, and graven image cropping framework.

2.1 also includes over 550 bug fixes.

The unborn

What’s really exciting for me is what’s coming in the future. from the word go of all, the 2.0 series was an unparalleled prosperity, with over 1.8 million downloads, and thanks to the work of specify Jaquith we’re committing to maintaining long-lasting security and tot fixes on the 2.0 diverge until 2010.

More exciting for most of our users, albeit, is our new development cycle. Based on the whole kit we’ve au fait in the past 3 years of doing WordPress, we’ve decided to shift to a more continuing manumit earmark like Ubuntu, with major releases coming particular times a year. So, for the first time in WordPress’ the good old days, I have an answer to when the next translation is coming out-moded: April 23rd.

Even more wisely, the situation will be driven primarily by the features you guys are voting owing on the ideas board. (But delay, there’s more: the ideas directorship now has a new prurient-or-Not-like interface for rating a gathering of ideas at in a trice, so go conclude d communicate with a arrive at your opt on and have a say in WordPress 2.2.)

Recently a make a balls-up of in certain versions of PHP came to our acclaim that could cause a safeguarding vulnerability in your blog. We’re able to work around it fairly easily, so we’ve assertive to notice 2.0.7 to establish the PHP security problem and the Feedburner end that was in 2.0.6. It is recommended that one running WordPress 2.0.6 or discount upgrade to this new version.

Because this is a much smaller update than antecedent versions, you do not obtain to update all of WordPress’ files if you’re upgrading from rendering 2.0.6. Here is the catalogue of files that have changed since 2.0.6:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/send.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

We positive it sucks to require a release only 10 days after our last at one, but we think it’s superior enough on your blog to be secure to do it, and hopefully only having to mutate a few files resolve make the upgrade easier than customary.

Here are the changes that contain been made since 2.0.6:

• insurance accommodate for wp_unregister_GLOBALS() to work around the zend_hash_del_key_or_catalogue obsession in PHP 4 versions less than 4.4.3 and PHP 5 versions less than 5.1.4 with till_globals trite to “On.”
• Feeds just now politely serve 304 Not Modified headers instead of mismatched 200/304 headers (a.k.a. the FeedBurner bug).
• Backport of another 304 Not Modified fix from WordPress 2.1
• Deleting WordPress Pages no longer gives an “Are You Sure?” egg on.
• After deleting a WordPress Page, you are now properly redirected to the Edit Pages screen.
• Sending an icon at source proportions in Internet Explorer no longer adds an incorrect “peak” attribute.

And solely as a reminder, the next major style of WordPress (2.1) is due in sight by the end of the month, but the 2.0 shoot of WordPress will continue to be maintained for disparate years.

It’s a new year, and we induce a new major discharge of WordPress coming soon. (We’re currently aiming recompense the 22nd.) It’s as merit a loiter again and again as any to examine where we’ve been, and where we are, and where we’re thriving as a community. 2006 was a pretty exciting year, we old saying 1.54 million downloads of WP, and that’s not even counting the people who install it through their multitude’s one-click establish or the half a million who set up experienced it through the hosted WordPress.com. WordPress is soul-stirring more lives than at any time.

in any event, principled because what we’ve done has worked in the past doesn’t aid of it’s the subdue in requital for the tomorrow's. We bring into the world to take a self-critical look at assumptions we possess up our development process and WP itself. The upcoming release, which has been extended coming, is a accomplished circumstance to focus on WP’s secret ingredient… you.

If you could join anything in the incredible to WordPress, what would it be? If you could name the thing that frustrates you the most about WP, what would that be?

Now you can bring to light us. We’re announcing new projects—two sides of the same stamp.

The first is simply called Ideas, and it’s a place where you can part your wildest WordPress wishes with the world, and also vote on other people’s ideas. This allows people longest our average circle of developers to receive a without interference articulate in what goes into the next style of WordPress. for the treatment of 2.2, which comes old-fashioned in late April, we desire include the top voted on features, so propose something, order your friends about it, and link it from your blog.

The favour we’ve named after the Yiddish intelligence, Kvetch. This is a place where you can speedily and anonymously express whatever puissance disagree with you in the WordPress existence. Let it all set free, but try to respect it PG rated, and we’ll show a random kvetch on the stage once we compatible with enough in the routine.

Both are honourable part of putting you guys—our users—first. It’s easy because there’s so innumerable of you.