WordPress.org

The release candidate for WordPress 4.2 is now available.

We’ve made more than 140 changes since releasing Beta 4 a week and a half ago. RC means we think we’re done, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WordPress 4.2 on Wednesday, April 22, but we need your help to get there.

If you haven’t tested 4.2 yet, now is the time! (Please though, not on your live site unless you’re adventurous.)

Think you’ve found a bug? Please post to the Alpha/Beta support forum. If any known issues come up, you’ll be able to find them here.

To test WordPress 4.2 RC1, you can use the WordPress Beta Tester plugin or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

For more information about what’s new in version 4.2, check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, and Beta 4 blog posts.

Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 4.2 and update your plugin’s Tested up to version in the readme to 4.2 before next week. If you find compatibility problems, we never want to break things, so please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.

Be sure to follow along the core development blog, where we’ll continue to post notes for developers for 4.2.

Im-Press-ive saving
Achievement unlocked: RC
Release here we come

If you visit WordPress.org regularly you might have noticed some changes around the place. If you don’t, now’s the time to check them out! We’ve been working hard to improve the site to make it more useful to everyone, both developers and users, and we hope you like what we’ve done.

New Theme and Plugin Directories

Since WordPress 3.8, you’ve been enjoying improved theme management in your WordPress admin, and in WordPress 4.0 plugin management was refined. We’ve brought these experiences from your admin and re-created them right here on WordPress.org.

Theme Directory

The Theme Directory has a better browsing experience, with handy tabs where you can view featured, popular, and the latest themes. As with the theme experience in your admin, you can use the feature filter to browse for just the right theme for your WordPress website.

Click on a theme to get more information about it, including shiny screenshots, ratings, and statistics.

Konstantin Obenland posted a good overview of everything involved with the theme directory overhaul and followed up with a post on improved statistics.

Plugin Directory

The Plugin Directory has a brand new theme that mirrors the experience in your WordPress admin, with a more visual experience, and better search and statistics.

As well as a facelift, there are some great new features for you to play around with:

• Favorites – when you’re logged in to you WordPress.org account, this page gives you direct access to the plugins that you have favorited.
• Beta Testing – try out plugins where developers are experimenting with new features for WordPress.
• Search by plugin author – you can search for a plugin author using their username.
• Better statistics – listings now display the number of active installs so you can see how many people are actually using a plugin.

An overview of the new theme was posted by Scott Reilly.

Better Statistics

We’ve made huge improvements to our statistics. This gives us more useful information about the WordPress versions people are using, their PHP version, and their MySQL version.

Already these new statistics have provided us with useful insights into WordPress usage.

• More than 43% of all sites are running the latest version of WordPress. Previously, we thought only 10% of sites were up-to-date. By excluding sites that are no longer online we were able to improve these statistics.
• We were able to clear up the data around WordPress 3.0, bringing it more in line with expectations. This anomaly was a by-product of spammers.
• Only 15.9% of sites are using PHP 5.2, which is better than we thought.

Over the coming months we’ll be able to use these statistics to bring you new tools and improvements, and to make more informed decisions across the board. Read Andrew Nacin’s post about these changes for more background.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the theme directory redesign, the plugin directory refresh, and improved statistics: Alin Marcu, Damon Cook, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Jan Cavan Boulas, Konstantin Obenland, Kyle Maurer, Matías Ventura, Mel Choyce, Natalie MacLees, Paul de Wouters, Samuel Sidler, Samuel Wood (Otto), Scott Reilly, Siobhan McKeown.

If you want to help out or follow along with future WordPress.org projects, check out Make WordPress and our meta development blog.

WordPress 4.2 Beta 4 is now available!

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

For more information about what’s new in version 4.2, check out the Beta 1, Beta 2, and Beta 3 blog posts. Some of the changes in Beta 4 include:

• Incrementally improved the experience when accessing the Customizer on mobile. Please test on your mobile devices and let us know if anything seems wonky.
• Added the ability to make admin notices dismissible. Plugin and theme authors: adding .notice and .is-dismissible as adjacent classes to your notice containers should automatically make them dismissible. Please test.
• Fixed some reported issues with backward-compatibility issues caused by the modularization of core JS files.
• Removed the ability to swipe the admin menu open and closed on touch devices due to reports of some issues with built-in history navigation on certain platforms.
• Improved accessibility of the WordPress admin by adding landmark roles. Screen reader users: please test in any core admin screens.
• Various bug fixes. We’ve made more than 90 changes in the last week.

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 bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we’ve fixed.

Dismiss notices
Customizer on mobile
RC nearly here

WordPress 4.2 Beta 3 is now available!

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

For more information about what’s new in version 4.2, check out the Beta 1 and Beta 2 blog posts. Some of the changes in Beta 3 include:

• Removed Shiny Installs functionality due to concerns about the activation workflow. Please test the remaining “Shiny Updates” functionality from both the Plugins > Add New and Plugins screens to ensure in-line updating still works as well as before.
• Fixed an issue with the Comments Quick Edit layout breaking on smaller screens. Please test on your mobile devices.
• Improved accessibility of login screen errors. Screen reader users: please let us know if you encounter any issues.
• Refined the emoji compatibility script to only load on the front- and back-end if the browser requires it. If you’re using a legacy web browser, please test.
• Fixed several issues in Press This with inserted images being improperly linked to locations other than the source site. Go ahead, “press” a site with images on the page and tell us if the image links aren’t working as you’d expect.
• Standardized the time display format in a variety of admin screens, switching to 24-hour notation where a.m. or p.m. are not specified. Please let us know if you notice you notice anything amiss!
• Various other bug fixes. We’ve made more than 65 changes in the last week.

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 bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we’ve fixed.

Emoji loader
“Shiny Updates” still stand firm
Beta 3, please test!

WordPress 4.2 Beta 2 is now available!

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

For more information about what’s new in version 4.2, check out the Beta 1 blog post. Some of the changes in Beta 2 include:

• Added support for entering FTP and SSH credentials when updating plugins in-place. FTP and SSH users, please test!
• Improved cross-browser support for emoji throughout WordPress. If you’re using an older web browser, please tell us if you have problems using emoji.
• Further refined Press This authoring with auto-embedded media and better content scanning. We’d love to know how auto-embeds work for you.
• Added a constructor and improved method consistency in WP_Comment_Query. Developers: if you’re extending WP_Comment_Query, please let us know if you run into any issues.
• Various bug fixes. We’ve made more than 70 changes in the last week.

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 bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we’ve fixed.

Test some emoji
FTP and SSH
Let’s “Press” some embeds!

WordPress 4.2 Beta 1 is now available!

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 4.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

4.2 is due out next month, but to get there, we need your help testing what we’ve been working on:

• Press This has been completely revamped to make sharing content from around the web easier than ever. The new workflow is mobile friendly, and we’d love for you to try it out on all of your devices. Navigate to the Tools screen in your WordPress backend to get started (#31373).
• Browsing and switching installed themes has been added to the Customizer to make switching faster and more convenient. We’re especially interested to know if this helps streamline the process of setting up your site (#31303).
• The workflow for updating and installing plugins just got more intuitive with the ability to install or update in-place from the Plugins screens. Try it out and let us know what you think! (#29820)
• If you felt like emoji were starkly missing from your content toolbox, worry no more. We’ve added emoji support nearly everywhere, even post slugs 👍 (#31242).

Developers: There have been a lot of changes for you to test as well, including:

• Taxonomy Roadmap: Terms shared across multiple taxonomies will now be split into separate terms when one of them is updated. Please let us know if you hit any snags (#5809).
• New wp.a11y.speak() functionality helps your JavaScript talk to screen readers to better inform impaired users what’s happening on-screen. Try it out in your plugin or theme and let us know if you notice any adverse affects (#31368).
• Named clause support has been added to WP_Query, WP_Comment_Query, and WP_User_Query, allowing specific meta_query clauses to be used with orderby. If you have any complex queries, please test them (#31045, #31265).

If you want a more in-depth view of what changes have made it into 4.2, check out the weekly review posts on the main development blog.

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we’ve fixed so far.

Happy testing!

Press This: switch a theme
Save time installing plugins
Testing makes us 😃

WordPress 4.1.1 is now available. This maintenance release fixes 21 bugs in version 4.1.

Some of you may have been waiting to update to the latest version until now, but there just wasn’t much to address. WordPress 4.1 was a smooth-sailing release and has seen more than 14 million downloads in the last two months.

For a full list of changes, consult the list of tickets and the changelog. We fixed one annoying issue where a tag and a category with the same name could get muddled and prevent each other from being updated.

If you are one of the millions already running WordPress 4.1 and your site, we’ve started rolling out automatic background updates for 4.1.1 for sites that support them. Otherwise, download WordPress 4.1.1 or visit Dashboard → Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Thanks to everyone who contributed to 4.1.1: Andrea Fercia, Boone Gorges, ChriCo, Dion Hulse, David Herrera, Drew Jaynes, Takuro Hishikawa, Thorsten Frommen, Iseulde, John Blackbourn, Aaron Jorbin, mattyrob, Konstantin Obenland, Dominik Schilling, Sergey Biryukov, sippis, tmatsuur, Marin Atanasov, Derek Herman, and Weston Ruter.

It is with both great honor and sadness we also recognize Kim Parsell as a contributor to this release and a truly beloved member of the community until her untimely passing in December. The project is working to establish a conference travel scholarship in her memory. We miss you, Kim.

Version 4.1 of WordPress, named “Dinah” in honor of jazz singer Dinah Washington, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in WordPress 4.1 help you focus on your writing, and the new default theme lets you show it off in style.

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Introducing Twenty Fifteen

Our newest default theme, Twenty Fifteen, is a blog-focused theme designed for clarity.

Twenty Fifteen has flawless language support, with help from Google’s Noto font family.

The straightforward typography is readable on any screen size.

Your content always takes center stage, whether viewed on a phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.

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Distraction-free writing

Just write.

Sometimes, you just need to concentrate on putting your thoughts into words. Try turning on distraction-free writing mode. When you start typing, all the distractions will fade away, letting you focus solely on your writing. All your editing tools instantly return when you need them.

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The Finer Points

Choose a language

Right now, WordPress 4.1 is already translated into over forty languages, with more always in progress. You can switch to any translation on the General Settings screen.

Log out everywhere

If you’ve ever worried you forgot to sign out from a shared computer, you can now go to your profile and log out everywhere.

Vine embeds

Embedding videos from Vine is as simple as pasting a URL onto its own line in a post. See the full list of supported embeds.

Plugin recommendations

The plugin installer suggests plugins for you to try. Recommendations are based on the plugins you and other users have installed.

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Under the Hood

Complex Queries

Metadata, date, and term queries now support advanced conditional logic, like nested clauses and multiple operators — A AND ( B OR C ).

Customizer API

The customizer now supports conditionally showing panels and sections based on the page being previewed.

<title> tags in themes

add_theme_support( 'title-tag' ) tells WordPress to handle the complexities of document titles.

Developer Reference

Continued improvements to inline code documentation have made the developer reference more complete than ever.

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The Choir

This release was led by John Blackbourn, with the help of these awesome folks. Check out some of their profiles while listening to Dinah Washington on the music service of your choice:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Silverstein, akumria, Alex Concha, Alex Mills (Viper007Bond), Alex Shiels, Allan Collins, Amaury Balmer, Amruta Bhosale, Andrea Fercia, Andrea Gandino, Andrew Munro (sumobi), Andrew Nacin, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Ryno, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Ankit Gade, Ankit K Gupta, Anthony Burchell, arippberger, Austin Matzko, Bainternet, Barry Kooij, Ben Dunkle, Ben May, Bernhard Riedl, Birgir Erlendsson (birgire), bobbingwide, Boone B. Gorges, Brady Vercher, Bram Duvigneau, Brandon Kraft, Brian DiChiara, Brian Richards, Brian Watson, Camden Segal, Captain Theme, Carlos, Caspie, ccprice, Charles Fulton, ChriCo, Chris Aprea, Chris Jean, Chris Marslender, Chris Reynolds, chriscct7, chrisl27, Christian Foellmann, Christopher Finke, Corey Snow, Corphi, curtjen, Damon Cook, Dan Cameron, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Convissor, Darren Ethier (nerrad), Daryl Koopersmith, Dave McHale, David A. Kennedy, David Cavins, David Herrera, David Laietta, David Wood, DavidTheMachine, Dennis Ploetner, Dion Hulse, Dirk Weise, Dominik Schilling, Dominik Schwind, Drew Jaynes, Dustin Filippini, Dustin Hartzler, Elio Rivero, Eric Binnion, Eric Holmes, Eric Lewis, Fabien Quatravaux, florianziegler, Gabe Shackle, Gary Cao, Gary Pendergast, Gennady Kovshenin, George Olaru, George Stephanis, Greg Rickaby, Gregory Cornelius, Gregory Karpinsky (@tivnet), Gustavo Bordoni, hardy101, hauvong, Helen Hou-Sandí, heshiming, honeysilvas, hugodelgado, Ian Stewart, ianmjones, Ignacio Cruz Moreno, imath, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Ivan Kristianto, J.D. Grimes, jaimieolmstead, jakub.tyrcha, janhenckens, Janneke Van Dorpe, Japh, Jared Wenerd, jarednova, jeanyoungkim, Jeff Farthing, Jeff Stieler, Jeremy Felt, Jeremy Herve, Jesin A, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), Jesper van Engelen, Jesse Pollak, jipmoors, Joe Dolson, Joe McGill, John Eckman, johnrom, johnstonphilip, Jon Brown, Jon Cave, Jonathan Brinley, Jonathan Desrosiers, Joost de Valk, Jordi Cabot, Joshua Abenazer, JOTAKI Taisuke, jrf, Julien Liabeuf, Justin Sainton, Justin Sternberg, K.Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), kamelkev, karpstrucking, keesiemeijer, Kelly Dwan, Kevin Langley, Kiko Doran, Kim Parsell, Kirk Wight, kitchin, Kite, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Kostas Vrouvas, kristastevens, Kurt Payne, Lance Willett, Laurens Offereins, linuxologos, Liuiza Arunas, loushou, Lutz Schroer, Manoz69, mantismamita, Marco Schmoecker, Mario Peshev, Marius (Clorith), Mark Hudnall, Mark Jaquith, Mark Senff, Marko Heijnen, marsjaninzmarsa, Matias Ventura, Matt Mullenweg, Matt Wiebe, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Haines-Young, mattkeys, Maura Teal, Mel Choyce, Mert Yazicioglu, Michael Adams (mdawaffe), Michael Arestad, Michael Beckwith, Michael Cain, Michael Pick, michalzuber, Michelle Langston, Miguel Fonseca, Mike Hansen, Mike Jolley, Mike Nelson, Mike Schroder, Mikey Arce, Mitch Canter (studionashvegas), Morgan Estes, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, mvd7793, Nashwan Doaqan, Niall Kennedy, Nick Halsey, Nikhil Vimal, Nikola Nikolov, nobleclem, noplanman, Nowell VanHoesen, OriginalEXE, p_enrique, Paul de Wouters, Paul Schreiber, Paul van Zyl, Paul Wilde, pavelevap, Peter Chester, Peter J. Herrel, Peter Westwood, Peter Wilson, Philip Arthur Moore, phpmypython, Pippin Williamson, Prasath Nadarajah, psycleuk, Ptah Dunbar, quietnic, Rachel Baker, Rami Yushuvaev, ramiabraham, Reuben Gunday, Rian Rietveld, Richard Archambault, Ricky Lee Whittemore, Robert Chapin, Rodrigo Primo, Ryan Boren, Ryan Kienstra, Ryan McCue, Sakin Shrestha, Sam Hotchkiss, Samuel Wood (Otto), Scott Kingsley Clark, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, Sergey Biryukov, Shawn Hooper, Simon Pollard, Simon Wheatley, skaeser, Slobodan Manic, socki03, solarissmoke, Stephane Daury, Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steve Grunwell, Sumit Singh, TacoVerdo, Takashi Irie, Takayuki Miyauchi, Tammie, Tareq Hasan, Taylor Lovett, Thomas Kraftner, Thorsten Frommen, Till, Tobias Schutter, TobiasBg, Toby McKes, Tom J Nowell, Tomas Mackevicius, TomHarrigan, Topher, Torsten Landsiedel, Tracy Levesque, transom, Travis Smith, Ty Carlson, Udit Desai, Umesh Kumar, Vinod Dalvi, vlajos, voldemortensen, Weston Ruter, Yoav Farhi, Yuta Sekine, Zack Rothauser, and Zack Tollman.

There were 283 contributors to this release, again a new high.

If you want to help out or follow along, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog.

Thanks for choosing WordPress. Happy holidays and see you next year for version 4.2!

The next release candidate for WordPress 4.1 is now available for testing.

Seventy changes have gone in since the first release candidate. With no known issues left, we plan to release 4.1 tomorrow, December 18.

To test, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If you’d like to learn more about what’s new in WordPress 4.1, visit the updated About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) and also check out the Beta 1 post.

Plugin authors: Remember to test your plugins against 4.1, and if they’re compatible, make sure they are marked as tested up to 4.1. Be sure to follow along the core development blog; we’ve been posting notes for developers for 4.1 as always.

The release candidate for WordPress 4.1 is now available.

We’ve made a lot of refinements over the last few weeks. RC means we think we’re done, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WordPress 4.1 on Tuesday, December 16, but we need your help to get there. If you haven’t tested 4.1 yet, now is the time! (Please though, not on your live site unless you’re adventurous.)

Think you’ve found a bug? Please post to the Alpha/Beta support forum. If any known issues come up, you’ll be able to find them here.

To test WordPress 4.1 RC1, you can use the WordPress Beta Tester plugin or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If you’d like to learn more about what’s new in WordPress 4.1, visit the About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) or check out the beta announcement.

Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 4.1 and update your plugin’s Tested up to version in the readme to 4.1 before next week. If you find compatibility problems, we never want to break things, so please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.

Be sure to follow along the core development blog, where we’ll continue to post notes for developers for 4.1. (For example: if you’ve written a child theme for Twenty Fifteen, some of the new pagination functions have been renamed for clarity.)

Testing four point one
Why are we up at this hour?
Code is poetry