WordPress 2.6 and New Features
WordPress 2.6 has been released (download)The new version of WordPress includes some new features and improvements, such as post revisions, posting bookmarklet, theme preview and as well as support of Google Gears.
WordPress did a video tour of WordPress 2.6 to help you understand the new features:
What’s new in WordPress 2.6?
Post revisions — ever miss the editing records of your blog post? WordPress 2.6 now included the wiki-like tracking for blog edits. It allows you to view who made what changes when to any post or page through a super-easy interface.
Blogging bookmarklet — drag the “Press This” bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark bar. Then, whenever you see something interesting to blog about, just click on the bookmarklet. It will load a minimized version of WordPress editor which allows to blog different content: text, photo, quote, and video, instantly. It is very much like the Tumblr and allows you to create a tumbleblog-like mini blog site.
Google Gears — WordPress 2.6 supports Google Gears to preload WordPress javascripts and CSS files to boost the loading speed to a few seconds faster. Supported web browsers are Firefox and Internet Explorer. You need to active Gears for each computer and each browser, their copies are standalone.
Inline theme preview — WordPress 2.6 now pops up a window that shows the theme live with all your content, instead of immediately making it active on your site. This is good to preview your blog in new theme before make it public, and helpful when you are developing a theme and need to test it.
Some other features and improvements are: word count, ability to active/deactive multiple plugins at once, more avatar options, automatic image captions, better image/gallery control, plugin update notification bubble, and more.
WordPress 2.6 also fixed 200 bugs.
Note: For NEW WordPress 2.6 installation, remote publishing from blogging client is OFF by default. You need to enable it under “Settings” > “Writing”.
My two cents
I like the new features of WordPress 2.6. :)
The post revisions is good when you have multiple editors on a blog, and revise your post editing history. However, for those using remote blogging client like me, this is useless.
I always want to start a “very personal mini blog”. I thought of using Tumblr or some other microblogging scripts but not WordPress. The “Press This” bookmarklet made me think again. In fact, my previous blog post “Surf till you drop” is done by the bookmarklet. :)
You can get a new “Turbo” link at the top right corner on your WordPress admin panel. It is the Google Gears to help load your admin panel faster. I tried and it worked!
Previously, we need to edit the theme somewhere else first before apply to the blog with live content. Theme preview solved the problem. We can editing a new theme (with live content) while showing blog readers that stable version.
With all the great features, I don’t see any reason why you don’t upgrade to WordPress 2.6. Download it now!
P.S: if you need WordPress installation service, please contact me. I would love to help you with small fee. :)
Wow….I just switched to Wordpres 2.5 and still struggling to have better comprehension on it. Suddenly, version 2.6 was released. That’s fast. I’m not sure whether to upgrade soon or after familiarising myself with 2.5?
What should I do? Straight away upgrade or understand 2.5 first?
@cyza: you should upgrade to 2.6 straight away. 2.6 include all 2.5 features and bug fixes
I found the “plugin updates notification” feature very handy. I don’t have to check the plugin section to see if there’s any updates now. Notification will be given when there’s an update for any plugin that I’m using.
In WP2.5, I have the problem of uploading files to my host, say HTTP error. Now in WP2.6, using the browser uploader can resolve the prob.