Aug
27
Are you ready WordPress 2.3? The new version is now in feature freeze and the first public beta of WordPress 2.3 is scheduled to be released today.
According to Ryan Boren:
WordPress 2.3 went into feature freeze last night in preparation for its eventual release on September 24th. From now on we’re concentrating exclusively on testing and bug fixing. We are scheduled to release the first public beta of 2.3 this coming Monday, August 27th. We’ll be doing a new beta release every Monday and bug hunts every Wednesday. On September 17th we enter a hard freeze and release the first release candidate.
WordPress 2.3 includes several new features including tagging, improved post and draft management, and plugin upgrade notification. It will be interesting to see how tagging has been implemented in the new version.
A calendar of events for the release can be found here.
I’m excited and a little nervous at the same time. I’m using wordpress 2.1 so I know it’s time to upgrade but I’m scared upgrading will cause an error in my blog and people will no longer be able to view it. I will just have to get some step by step instructions on how to upgrade and hopefully I won’t run into any problems. Thanks for the notice on the upcoming new version!
The people over at Wordpress codex write very specific upgrading instructions with every release, which will help you upgrade without many problems: http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended
You could try the auto update plugin mentioned in David’s recent post of plugin winners.
plugin upgrade notification, that will definitely be useful
I’m not exactly sure what a feature freeze is, but it sounds to me like they are going to stop adding stuff to it and just work on the bugs? Is that right?
I won’t update until I hear word that it’s okay to and people haven’t had any troubles with it….
That’s right… no more new features in this version. There will be a few beta version released to help find bugs and you can look for a final release around this time next month.
I’m like you, I wait a few days after a release and if it sounds like things went well for others then I upgrade my test sites…. if that goes well, I upgrade here.
Upgrading to any newer version of WordPress can break many things, some of them not obvious for a while. Plug-ins and widgets don’t necessarily work with all versions. Often the authors of these resources abandon or delay the upgrade path. Add on toolbars such as WysiwygPro often break with upgrades. So, having used and upgraded WordPress for almost 2 years now, I can only tell you to beware. What is even more annoying is upgrading, getting things working, only to have a “security fix” suddenly issued which starts the process all over again.
Just make sure to do backups before you do any upgrades, this way you can revert back easily if you have too! I only upgrade after a few weeks also, I don’t ever do it right away.
Now that is exciting. However I don’t think I can take another update … LOL
Darin
i am looking forward to the new features
Looking forward to this new update, it’s great to see stuff like tagging being included as well now. Definitely a great addition in my opinion which I will be using all too well.
Wondering though what sort of other features we can be expecting after 2.3 though, it’s always such a nice surprise XD.
I certainly wont be upgrading until the new version has been well tested after a public release. Perhaps after the second or third revision I will take the plunge. Until then, I am happy keeping my 2.2.x up-to-date.
- Martin Reed