John James Jacoby has announced the availability of bbPRess RC5 for public consumption which brings the release one step closer to being labeled 2.0. In RC 5 you get improved theme compatibility, BuddyPress activity stream behaviour, subscription email sending, and API tweaks for plugin authors. ∞
Get 3.0 While It’s Hot
Today is the day many within the WordPress community have been waiting for. The release of WordPress 3.0. The new release contains menu management, a new default theme, custom post types and taxonomies, bulk upgrader, multi-site capabilities and more. Michael Pick produced a short video summary of the new features in 3.0 that is worth watching.
There are a couple of things that I find interesting regarding the release of 3.0. The first is what the immediate future holds. Instead of going right to work on WordPress 3.1, the team will be taking three months off to get together in smaller teams to work on everything surrounding the WordPress project which is something that has been needed for a few years now. The second is just how many different individuals ended up in the Props section of the release post. Many of the names I recognize but there are quite a few that I don’t which is a good thing.
I’m proud to acknowledge the contributions of the following 218 people to the 3.0 release cycle. These are the folks that make WordPress what it is, whose collaboration and hard work enable us to build something greater than the sum of our parts
While the core of WordPress will be getting a small break, I’m looking forward to everything Otto will be doing for WordPress.org. Here’s to hopefully seeing WordPress.org truly becoming the epicenter of all things WordPress.
BuddyPress 1.2.2 Released
Although the announcement has not yet been published on the BuddyPress blog, the release history page on the site has been updated to show the changes in version 1.2.2. A number of bugs have been fixed such as:
- Fixed inconsistencies with new account activation between WordPress MU and standard WP. All new accounts must now be activated to confirm a valid email is being used.
- Fixed problems with table generation when MySQL strict mode is enabled.
- Fixed issues when visiting pages with restricted access via notification emails when the user is not logged in.
- Fixed bugs with saving empty valued profile fields with multiple options, even when they are not required fields.
You can get the new version from the download page.
WordPress 2.8.1 Beta By End Of The Week
So the WordPress development chat in the dev channel on IRC just took place and here is a brief rundown of the information presented within.
- WordPress 2.8.1 Beta aimed to be release by the end of this week
- WordPress 2.9 Target date is October 31st
- Some fixes to high impact bugs are in.
- Investigate lengthening RC periods depending on RC download numbers
- Promote upgrading to RCs more
- Note that we need help testing with the bazillion plugins in existence
The one thing I took out of the chat is the underlying problem that there are simply too few testers. There needs to be more testing on a scale that matches the kind of environments people use WordPress in when a stable version is released. The same core group of people testing each version are beginning to miss things that other people may have found otherwise. Also, more RC testing on established sites that have plugins would be great as it would provide early detection of plugins which might break due to the new version.
I believe the chat for next week will be focused on WordPress 2.9.
WordPress 2.7.1 Available To The Public
Just moments ago, WordPress 2.7.1 was released to the public. This releases contains 68 fixed tickets. Nothing really in the way of features as this is more like a maintenance release.
To upgrade if you’re using WordPress 2.7, browse to TOOLS-UPGRADE and click on the upgrade button. I would still back everything up just in case.
Consult the list of fixed tickets and the full set of changes between 2.7 and 2.7.1 for details.
By the way, my initial bet was for the release of 2.7.1 for Monday, February 9th. Looks like I lost the bet but I was darn close.
BuddyPress 1.0 Beta2 Now Available
Hot on the heels of the recently released WordPress MU 2.7, BuddyPress 1.0 Beta 2 has been released to the public. Andy states that the release fixes hundreds of bugs since Beta 1 with most of those being fixed by the community.
We’re not quite done yet, so please test this beta as much as possible. Bugs should be reported on the BuddyPress Trac server, but you can also discuss potential issues with other users on the BuddyPress forums.
We’re three days later than expected with this beta. WordPress MU 2.7 was released yesterday, it made much more sense to sync up the release schedules to ensure there were no compatibility problems. The 1.0 release will now be February 12th, exactly two weeks from today.
I’m glad to see that BuddyPress and WordPress MU appear to be synchronizing their releases with the WordPress.org project. Keeping everything on the same page and release schedule I think will make things easier for end users of the software.
WordPress MU 2.7 Now Available
Donncha has announced the release of WordPress MU version 2.7 today. Donncha states that this release is mostly a code sync release but it also contains quite a few bug fixes. The most notable change in WordPress MU is the addition of Viper007bond’s admin bar. Upgrading to the latest release should be as simple as overwriting the old files with the new ones. However, always make a backup copy first before doing anything! Congrats goes out to Donncha and to everyone who submitted a patch for the slickest version of MU to date. (MU now has the same backend design as WordPress 2.7)