WordPress 2.8 Beta 1
Just when I thought testing and upgrades were going to slow down for a while, the new beta version of WordPress, 2.8, has been released for download. For those of you who like to keep up to date, then you can download and play around with the new version. I probably wouldn’t run it ona live site just yet, however if you have a test hosting account lying around then I suggest you give it a go. Just make sure you report any bugs back to the WP team!
New features include:
- New Theme Installer routines
- Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
- Add Documentation(function) lookup to Theme and Plugin editors
- Use “Custom Header” for menu text and revise Default theme to reflect change
- Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
- Make tags accessible without Javascript on the edit screen
- Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
- Don’t notify post author of own comments
- Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns as set via the Screen Options tab
- Make titles into links in Dashboard Right Now module (this was in 2.7.1)
- Improved Admin icons (grey-to-transparent shadows)
- Update Blue Admin Color Scheme
- Press This improvements UI, quoting fixes, plus ability for Contributors to use Press This
- Add column “Rating” in Administration > Links > Edit
- Improve installer to help people entering wrong email addresses
- Improved Widget user interface
- Allow editing of all plugin files (Ticket 6732)
- Improved Plugin search (this was in 2.7.1) on Administration > Plugins > Add New
- Per Page option for plugins
- Move “Install a plugin in .zip format” to new Upload tab under Administration > Plugins > Add New
- Show absolute date instead of relative date for scheduled posts
- Fix tags suggest for post quick edit and bulk edit
- Permalink editor changes and fix for pages
- Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
- Add toggle all button to the Gallery tab in the uploader
- Support more than one gallery on the same page
- Add per page option to Screen Options for comments, posts, pages, media, categories, and tags
- Overhaul of LiveJournal importer (also add define WP_IMPORTING)
- Import category descriptions for Administration > Tools > Import > WordPress
- Show Tools menu for all users so they can access Turbo
- Check for new version when visiting Administration > Tools > Upgrade
- Fix most popular link category list
- Add description field for tags
- WAI-ARIA landmark roles to added to WordPress Default theme
- “Choose a city in the same timezone as you” for Timezone in Administration > Settings > General
- Remove My Hacks option from Administration > Settings > Miscellaneous
- Hide email addresses from low privilege users on Administration > Comments
- In upgrade process, provide better explanation for database upgrade message
- Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
- Make user_nicenames unique during registration
- Add “Send this password to the new user by email” option to Administration > Users > Add New
- Don’t set user’s Website url to http:// in Administration > Users > Add New
- Hide things that need to be available to screen readers via offscreen positioning
- Use invisible class for hiding labels and legends
- Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers
For a more complete list of features check out the 2.8 Codex. Download WordPress 2.8 Beta 1 here.
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