It was announced late yesterday night that WordPress 2.8 had been released. There have been improvements made to themes, widgets, and taxonomies. There were also over 790 bugs fixed.

The WordPress team also released a video tour of WordPress 2.8, where they go over things like the new widget admin area, as well as syntax highlighting in the theme and plugin editors (which I mentioned previously).

I’ll be upgrading the demo server to 2.8 later today to check if there are any bugs with the free WordPress themes, although I’m not expecting anything major.

Have you upgraded to 2.8 yet? How do you like it?

At the last WordCamp in San Fransisco, apparently Matt Mullenweg announced that the codebase of WordPress and WordPress MU (multi-user) would be “merging.”

What exactly this means, and when exactly it’s going to happen, I’m not sure. WordPress 3.0 is the version number floating around when it’s supposed to be introduced. Again, this is uncertain at the moment.

Andrew over at WP Fun also pointed out that Habari already has this feature built in. I believe Movable Type also has a similar multiple blog features as well.

Personally, I like normal WordPress even though I have multiple WordPress blogs. It just makes sense to keep them separate just in case I ever need to move any. I realize this may not be the most efficient way to run multiple WP blogs, but it’s not that big of a deal to me to keep them maintained.

Although this isn’t likely to take place for a couple more versions, how do you feel about this merger? If anyone has any more information on this, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Update (June 2, 2009): Okay, maybe myself and a bunch of other people are confused on this whole “merger” thing. Lorelle just posted this on the Blog Herald about what Matt may have really meant when he mentioned the “merger.” Maybe it’s not the self-hosted WordPress software that is getting changed, but the actual WordPress.org website that will be integrated into WordPress MU. Again, I think it’s probably best to wait for an “official” clarification from Matt, but thought this would be worth updating the post with.

It was just announced yesterday that WordPress 2.8 Beta 1 had been released. There are a ton of new changes, which you can see on this page of the Codex. Here’s just a sampling from that list:

• New theme installer routines
• Improved widget user interface
• Add CodePress syntax highlighting to theme and plugin editors
• Add Documentation (function) lookup to theme and plugin editors

For a visual preview of WordPress 2.8 theme editor with syntax highlighting and function lookup, check out this screenshot (click to enlarge).

Remember, it’s probably not a good idea to test these out on production blogs, so keep your testing either offline or on a non-production site. To any of you who have tried the beta, how do you like it?

It was just announced that WordPress 2.6.3 has been released due to a security issue in something called Snoopy. Snoopy is something that grabs the feeds that are displayed in your dashboard. It’s supposed to be a relatively minor risk. If you don’t want to download the whole upgrade, you can get the following 2 files from the release post:

• wp-includes/class-snoopy.php
• wp-includes/version.php

And replace them. I just upgraded and it was a pretty painless process.

It was just announced on the WordPress development blog that 2.6.2 has been released. If you allow user registration, it’s highly recommended you upgrade immediately.

In versions 2.6.1 and earlier, it’s possible for one to create a username that is then able change the password of another user. Although this randomly generated password isn’t revealed to the attacker, it’s still an annoyance if your password gets randomly changed constantly.

Anyway, go ahead and upgrade WordPress ASAP, especially if you have open registration enabled.

It was just announced today that WordPress 2.6.1 has been released. While this release is not mandatory, it fixes over 60 bugs including:

• Better support for international users and RTL (right to left) text
• Several permalink fixes for IIS users
• Image insertion problems in IE fixed

Remember, this upgrade is not required if you’re happy with WordPress 2.6 as it is. It was just released to address some of the bugs in the 2.6 branch. Try to ignore the “WordPress 2.6.1 is available!” message in your admin panel if you choose not to upgrade.

It was just announced on the WordPress development blog that WordPress launched a new theme directory. This will be similar to the official WordPress plugin repository, which hosts thousands of WordPress plugins. Here are steps to follow to upload your theme to the new WordPress theme directory.

• You can login with your WordPress.org account.
• Make sure your theme meets the requirements.
• Upload your theme here in .zip format.
• Themes will have to pass a manual review before going live.

Since the old “official” WordPress theme viewer (themes.wordpress.net) has been dysfunctional for so long, theme authors have been distributing themes on their own websites. Hopefully in the future this can become a centralized source of free WordPress themes. So far it seems like no new themes have been approved.

It was announced today that WordPress 2.6 has been officially released. Here are a few features in the new version of WordPress:

• Post revisions - Manage older post saves, very useful for multi-author or collaborative blogging
• Google gears - Designed to speed up your WordPress admin panel
• PressThis - Easily blog about something from wherever you are on the web
• Theme previews - Preview a theme before it goes live
• Bulk management of plugins, easily activate and deactivate in bulk

And much more. The below video will illustrate some of these new features included in WordPress 2.6.

I have not tested the themes here with WordPress 2.6 yet, but I don’t expect there will be any issues. If you notice a problem with the themes and 2.6, feel free to let me know.

Have you upgraded to 2.6 yet? How do you like it?

It was recently announced by Ryan Boren, that WordPress 2.6 Beta 1 has been released. Here are some things you should know:

• They are targeting a mid-July release.
• It will have post revisions.
• Theme previewing, which I guess will make this plugin obsolete.
• Improved SSL support for the administration panel
• Ability to relocate content directory
• Ability to relocate config file (with database and other sensitive configuration information)
• You can bulk delete, activate, and deactivate plugins
• Customizable default avatars

Complete list is here, along with a download link if you want to test it out. Remember, this is not the final release - and is not recommended to be used on production blogs.

Breaking news. It’s only been a month and WordPress 2.5.1 has already been released. It’s recommended to upgrade soon for “one very important security fix.” In addition, it also addresses over 70 other bug fixes including various fixes to the administration panel and media uploader.