Last night Ryan Boren announced the release of WordPress 2.6 Beta 1. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t notice much difference between versions 2.5 and 2.6. The two biggest new features are Post Revisions, which saves a history of edits made to each post, and support for Gears, which greatly speeds up working with the admin screens.
Other changes of note:
- Support for the XML-RPC and Atom client APIs is turned off by default now. If you use an external client for posting, you’ll need to specifically turn these features on, under
Settings/Writing. - Impoved support for SSL access to the admin screens.
- When you are selecting themes, you now get to view a preview of how your site looks with the new theme before commiting to the change.
- The return of the “Press This” bookmarklet (find it in the sidebar of the
Writepage). Drag the link to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar, and use it to quickly post about sites you visit. - More avatar options. The Gravatar service now supports displaying MonsterID, Wavatar, or Identicon icons in place of the default icon for those who don’t have a personalized Gravatar. These options are selectable under
Settings/Discussion. My Easy Gravatars plugin can support this as well, though I’ll probably update it to use the new built-in settings, rather than its own. I’ll write that up later. - Improved plugin management. Active and inactive plugins are now listed separately. You now have the abiliity to “bulk activate” or “bulk deactivate” plugins. You can also delete unused plugins at the click of a button. (Now all we need is the ability to search and install plugins from the Extend directory right from our admin! Maybe in 2.7?)
And there are other assorted improvements, such as updates to the latest jQuery and jQuery UI libraries, updates to the latest TinyMCE editor, improvements to Page and Category management, and as always, general performance enhancements.
It is a beta, so there are still quirks being hammered out (personally, I’ve observed issues with the theme preview, and with deleting plugins). So don’t use this on a “critical” production web site yet. I’m running it here, but obviously, my personal blog isn’t critical, and I’ve always got backups available for when I screw something up. 
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38 Comments
Will there be any problems if the beta will be used on a live blog?
Kevin: no, there shouldn’t be. I’m running the trunk build on my site, and have been for about a year now. There are occasional bugs, but of course bugs are being fixed all the time as well as being added.
But as Dougal says in his article, probably not best to run it on a critical site.
Kevin: Beta = not finished. So, yes, probably.
Didn’t stop me from upgrading though.
Didn’t stop me from upgrading either. Anyways have backed up everything :p
Firefox 3 was released last week, and one of the first things I noticed was that when I make a hard return in the text area box for the content of a post, it moves the page. I find this incredibly annoying and was hoping this was fixed in the “TinyMCE editor” changes mentioned above?
Well, the easiest way before the 2.7 introduces installing of plugins is to use Plugin Central. A good choice.
Does this release included possibility in RSS feeds to have just post text before “Read more” available? This is very important to me, and that feature was changed in Wordpress 2.5.
Is there a (documented) way to disable the XML-RPC and Atom client APIs without having to upgrade?
Hi! Can anyone help me?
I’ve been using a REALLY REALLY OLD version of wordpress for years now. What should I do if I want to upgrade to the latest version? I’m using 1.5.2
Is it going to be a huge ordeal?
Sound like minor change but not bad. I like the new plugin management.
@Carolita The only thing that might be affected should be your layout. Your posts should be fine, your layout might even be fine.
I am sure there will be no problem in running the beta, but I am sure not all plugins will work and hence you might lose some functionality and features on your blog. Better to try it out before going ahead with it.
Sound interesting about this wp beta especially speed up admin screen.. Im waiting to next release..
Wordpress and team always amazes us..isn’t ?
I have a SSL cert for my main blog (https://litwc.com) and I haven’t noticed anything major except the the notes about un-authd content. Is that what Wordpress 2.6 fixes related to that… or am I missing something?
Mind I don’t normally use SSL for admin.
PS – I was having some weird issues with OpenID, they had changed since i last commented on your site, and was refusing to auth. I finally had to post with a URL and then edit to add it.
Testing my OpenID login
carolita, see http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended for detailed instructions to upgrade a 1.5 installation to 2.5.1. I expect this to be updated (if necessary) for 2.6 as soon as it is officially released.
I have it up and running on my test site, so far no problems apart from a little issue with header picture rotation in the aviation journal theme, but thats probably a theme or hosting issue, love the new features
I’m updating my personal & techie blog as I’m writing this comment
Can’t wait to see the improvements and the hard work done by the WordPress dev team!
Wish there’s a built-in full backup/restore though
Glad to see Pressit is returning- I’ve had clients have to use my workaround to get this function: http://www.websitetology.com/?p=303
The other thing I hope someone looks into is that Firefox 3 isn’t doing spellcheck as you type in the write post window anymore. Hope that comes back.
Wondering if the media uploader is getting any streamlining- it seems all 4 buttons basically take you to the same interface- seems redundant. Also- the posting video from a URL puts a link in my post- not a embedded video- seems really counter intuitive.
I ran across your site from the dashboard of my own blog, and I have to say I like what I have read so far. I will not use the new Wordpress yet on my site, I will keep watching and await the official release.
Keep up the blogging!
Carolita, I had the same concerns–that maybe too many things had changed for an upgrade to work. I hadn’t upgraded for years, but the process worked and took me from 1.5 to 2.xx without any trouble. Just follow the instructions and it will work out. Of course, be sure to follow that specific instruction on making a precautionary backup.
I wait on official version Wordpress because I fear to substitute new. I greet
Ryan said that 2.6 trunk has been running on wordpress.com for weeks so there should not be problems, there are a handful of plugins that don’t work but not like the last two times.
Wow Wordpress 2.6 sounds very promising, especially the Theme Preview function – I’ve been yearning for this feature very long and never thought it’ll be possible in the next version of Wordpress! I’ve also heard about the possibility of having a Wikipedia-like post revisions function being developed – is it included in WP2.6 too?
Thanks for keeping everyone updated about the latest developments in WP
My subjective opinion is that for now blog 2.5.1 with the appropriate plugins works quite well and that problems that with time to time give a report to solve with a little optimization of code.
Preference existing blog that has a problem if the same work as more authors with me is not the case, and I do not have adequate data for this problem and the solution is the quality of me speaking through a beta version offered.
XML-RPC is by me far better than solved in the present and see that the work on SSL-in what is to me personally very important, gravatar we do not play a role even got ga and I have that same plugin loading. Overview of topics and inclusion and exclusion plugin is not important to me and I love to go ‘walk’ because I was far safer then what do and why not like make something like that ‘cases’ ends up in garbage.
Yet I think that the higher the blog will bring more good and that in this direction should definitely go with me and will work on the computer in a test to see what its new functionality.
Regards.
Checked it out and appears to be running solid, the post revisions might especially come in handy at times but also the other minor changes in the admin interface are really nice.
Can you confirm or deny the inclusion of drag n drop reorder for galleries in 2.6?
as per below:
http://xavisys.com/wordpress-reorder-gallery-plugin/
this official version
I am now going to upgrade it now.
Thanks for update.
Just a question. Will all this be added in Official release?
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
————————–
support @ alfacorsoft.com
http://ma.tt/
Matt Says:
This would be pretty cool functionality for core WP — would you be interested in having it included?
hence:
http://trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6988
So is it definitely part of 2.6 or what?
if not can someone confirm when it will be?
looking forward to the next milestone release!
Will the “Press This” functionality really emulate quick posting styles found in tumblelogs? I’m currently trying to create a semi-tumblelog version of my website, and it’s a slight mess without that sort of functionality. I read on the Quick Post plugin’s page (and a few other places) that 2.6’s “Press This” covers all this. Is this true? I hope so!
I am loving it so far. Upgraded today and just getting around to dinking around with it.
I use your Easy Gravatars plugin because my theme doesn’t seem to support gravatars natively. I’m excited about the Identicon, Wavatar, and MonsterID additions to the latest WordPress update. I’m just wondering if you’re going to do an update for your Easy Gravatars plugins. *crosses fingers* I hope so.
@Deacon I’ve been meaning to write up something about that. The Easy Gravatars plugin does support the alternate defaults. Just put the word ‘identicon’, ‘monsterid’, or ‘wavatar’ in the field for the default image URL (without the quotes), and it will do what you expect.
?????? ????? ????? WordPress 2.6.2
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