The latest and greatest version of the WordPress software — 3.3, named “Sonny” in honor of the great jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt — is immediately available for download or update inside your WordPress dashboard.
WordPress has had over 65 million downloads since version 3.0 was released, and in this third major iteration we’ve added significant polish around the new user experience, navigation, uploading, and imports. Check out this short video that summarizes the things we think you’ll find are the cat’s pajamas:
Introducing WordPress 3.3 "Sonny"
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For Users
Experienced users will appreciate the new drag-and-drop uploader, hover menus for the navigation, the new toolbar, improved co-editing support, and the new Tumblr importer. We’ve also been thinking a ton about what the WordPress experience is like for people completely new to the software. Version 3.3 has significant improvements there with pointer tips for new features included in each update, a friendly welcome message for first-time users, and revamped help tabs throughout the interface. Finally we’ve improved the dashboard experience on the iPad and other tablets with better touch support.
For Developers
There is a ton of candy for developers as well. I’d recommend starting your exploration with the new editor API, new jQuery version, better ways to hook into the help screens, more performant post-slug-only permalinks, and of course the entire list of improvements on the Codex and in Trac.
Roll the Credits
The Credits tab on the new About WordPress screen in the WordPress dashboard provides recognition for contributors to each release, but we like to thank them here as well.
The third (and hopefully final!) release candidate for WordPress 3.3 is now available. Since RC2, we’ve done a handful of last-minute tweaks and bugfixes that we felt were necessary.
Our goal is to release version 3.3 early next week, so plugin and theme authors, this is your last pre-release chance to test your plugins and themes to find any compatibility issues before the final release. We’ve published a number of posts on the development blog that explain important things you need to know as you prepare for WordPress 3.3. Please review this information immediately if you have not done so already.
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. Or, if you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. Known issues that crop up will be listed here, but let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a quiet Sunday so we can get these new features into your hands early next week!
Last year we wanted to do a video town hall, but ran into technical and scheduling difficulties. This year we’re planning ahead, and will definitely make it happen. We’re currently taking questions, and will record a series of town hall-style videos where we answer your questions. Ask about the roadmap, code, community, contributing, WordCamps, meetups, themes, plugins, features, you name it. No topic (as long as it is about WordPress) is off limits, and we’ll do our best to answer as many questions as we can while we are together. The videos will be posted to this blog and archived at WordPress.tv.
Last year the people who were in attendance also posted pictures and updates to Twitter using the #wptybee tag. We’ll use the same tag this year, so if you’re interested in following along, add it to your Twitter client as a search.
The second release candidate for WordPress 3.3 is now available!
As the first release candidate was well-received, we think we’re really close to a final release. Primarily, we’ve ensured that new toolbar (the admin bar in 3.2) has a consistent appearance across all browsers, and the API for developers is now final. You can check our bug tracker for the complete list of changes.
Plugin and theme authors, please test your plugins and themes now, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release. On our development blog, we’ve published a number of posts that explain important things you need to know as you prepare for WordPress 3.3.
If you haven’t tested WordPress 3.3 yet, now is the time — please though, not on your live site unless you’re adventurous. Once you install RC2, you can visit About WordPress page (hover over the WordPress logo in the top left) to see an overview of what’s to come in WordPress 3.3 (and what to test, of course).
If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. Or, if you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. Known issues that crop up will be listed here.
Release Candidate stage means we think we’re done and are about ready to launch this version, but are doing one last check before we officially call it. So take a look, and as always, please check your themes and plugins for compatibility if you’re a developer.
Stayed up late tonight,
Hammering toward RC1.
Now with more icons!
With all our major tickets closed, we are very close to a release candidate. In Beta 4 we’ve fixed a bunch of bugs, cleaned up the UI, added real text in some of the screens that still had placeholder text in Beta 3 (post-update screen, the Dashboard welcome area, new feature pointers), and generally tightened things up. We updated to jQuery 1.7.1 and addressed a LOT of bugs.
If you are a plugin or theme developer (or distributor), please test against Beta 4 to ensure there are no issues.
If you find any problems, please report them as usual. Many thanks!
Thought 3 was the last?
Ha ha! Beta 4 is here –
Better get testing!
We need your opinion! One of the features we’re adding to WordPress 3.3 (currently in beta 3) is intended to reduce widget pain. Say you’re using Theme A and you have a handful of widgets set up. You switch to Theme B, and it has different widget areas, so you add/remove/edit your widgets. Then you realize that you hate Theme B. “This theme doesn’t represent my innermost soul!” you cry to the heavens. You switch back to Theme A, but because it had different widget areas, now your widgets are messed up. Argh, right? Not for long!
Imagine being able to change themes and modify widgets as needed, and if you decided to go back to your old theme, it would return your widgets to how they were the last time you had that theme activated. Sounds good, yeah? The problem we’re facing is deciding how long to save the old widget configuration, since there are so many potential workflows. If you changed From Theme A to Theme B and added more widgets over the next few weeks, if you switched back to Theme A after a month, would you still expect it to go back to the widgets from a month ago? At what point does it go from handy timesaver to unexpected widget mangler? What do you think?
Today is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the (20)eleventh year, and in several parts of the world, it is a holiday related to war. In the U.S., where I live, it is Veterans Day, which honors military veterans. In much of Europe, today is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day, commemorating the armistice signed at the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918 that ended the fighting on the Western Front in World War I.
Whether serving in the military, living in an area of unrest or attack, having friends or family in the fray, or just being human enough to think war sucks (there’s really no gentler way to say that, is there?), war impacts most people in the world today.
The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing. Sometimes we’re fortunate enough for that to mean providing a platform for communication that helps people work toward peace in their communities and around the world. Sometimes it means providing a platform for keeping people informed and aware of the other things that are happening around the world, including the horror of wars and revolutions.
At WordCamp San Francisco in August, one of the most popular and well-respected sessions was led by Teru Kuwayama of Basetrack.org. On this day of remembrance, I thought it would be good to share the video of his presentation. Not only is it a very cool example of how WordPress can be used in unexpected ways (this is not your father’s Oldsmobile usual blog), it’s a reminder of how much work still needs to be done to move from war to peace. So here is Taking WordPress to War: Basetrack.org. Peace out, yo.
Testers, Beta 3 is now available! You know the drill: use a test install, see what you can break, and report any bugs you find. There have been 200 commits since Beta 2, but at this point, betas are not adding new features — it’s all about fixing bugs, making things a little prettier, and editing text strings.
As always, plugin and theme authors, PLEASE test your code against the beta so you can catch any incompatibilities now rather than after your users update their WordPress installation and find bugs for you. This time we really mean it, especially if your plugin uses jQuery. We’ve now updated to jQuery 1.7 in core, so please please pretty please check your plugins and themes against beta 3.
These silly haikus –
With so many releases,
I run out of words.
