WordPress.org

WordPress 3.4.1 is now available for download. WordPress 3.4 has been a very smooth release, and copies are flying off the shelf — 3 million downloads in two weeks! This maintenance release addresses 18 bugs with version 3.4, including:

• Fixes an issue where a theme’s page templates were sometimes not detected.
• Addresses problems with some category permalink structures.
• Better handling for plugins or themes loading JavaScript incorrectly.
• Adds early support for uploading images on iOS 6 devices.
• Allows for a technique commonly used by plugins to detect a network-wide activation.
• Better compatibility with servers running certain versions of PHP (5.2.4, 5.4) or with uncommon setups (safe mode, open_basedir), which had caused warnings or in some cases prevented emails from being sent.

Version 3.4.1 also fixes a few security issues and contains some security hardening. The vulnerabilities included potential information disclosure as well as an bug that affects multisite installs with untrusted users. These issues were discovered and fixed by the WordPress security team.

Download 3.4.1 now or visit Dashboard → Updates in your site admin to update now.

Green was a bit green
We have hardened it up some
Update WordPress now

WordPress 3.4 is here and out the door. We’ve dubbed this release “Green” in honor of guitarist Grant Green whose soulful simplicity has kept many of us company during this release.

This release includes significant improvements to theme customization, custom headers, Twitter embeds, and image captions — here’s a short clip with the highlights:

For Users

The biggest change in 3.4 is the theme customizer which allows you to play around with various looks and settings for your current theme or one you’re thinking about switching to without publishing those changes to the whole world. For themes that support it, you can change colors, backgrounds, and of course custom image headers. We have more planned for the customizer down the road.

Throughout the rest of the admin you’ll notice tweaks to make your everyday life easier. For example, if you have lots of themes we’ve made it quicker to browse them all at once without paging. We’ve made it possible to use images from your media library to populate custom headers, and for you to choose the height and width of your header images.

We’ve expanded our embed support to include tweets: just put a Twitter permalink on its own line in the post editor and we’ll turn it into a beautiful embedded Tweet. And finally, image captions have been improved to allow HTML, like links, in them.

For Developers

There are hundreds of under-the-hood improvements in this release, notably in the XML-RPC, themes, and custom header APIs, and significant performance improvements in WP_Query and the translation system. The Codex has a pretty good summary of the developer features, and you can always dive into Trac directly.

We’ve also put together a busy developer’s field guide to the new APIs in 3.4.

It takes a village

Here are some of the fine folks who were involved in bringing 3.4 to the world:

082net, Aaron D. Campbell, Adam Harley, AJ Acevedo, akshayagarwal, Alex Concha, Alex King, Alex Mills (Viper007Bond), ampt, Amy Hendrix, Andrea Rennick, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Ryno, Andy Skelton, Arie Putranto, Austin Matzko, Barry, BenChapman, Ben Huson, Benjamin J. Balter, Bill Erickson, Billy (bananastalktome), Boone Gorges, camiloclc, casben79, Caspie, ceefour, cheald, chellycat, Chelsea Otakan, Chip Bennett, Chris Olbekson, Coen Jacobs, Cristi Burcă, Cyapow, Dan Collis-Puro, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Convissor, Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater), daniloercoli, Daryl Koopersmith, David Gwyer, deltafactory, demetris, Dion Hulse, dllh, Dominik Schilling, Doug Provencio, Drew Jaynes (DrewAPicture), ebababi, edward-mindreantre, emhr, Empireoflight, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Evan Anderson, Evan Solomon, Fred Wu, Fumito Mizuno, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gautam, Gennady Kovshenin, George Mamadashvili, George Stephanis, Gustavo Bordoni, hearvox, Helen Hou-Sandi, Hugo Baeta, Ian Stewart, insertvisionhere, Ipstenu, Jacob Chappell, Jane Wells, Japh, jaquers, JarretC, jeremyclarke, Jeremy Felt, Jesper Johansen (Jayjdk), Jiehan Zheng, Joachim Jensen (Intox Studio), Joachim Kudish (jkudish), John Blackbourn (johnbillion), John Ford, John James Jacoby, Jon Cave, Joost de Valk, Jorge Bernal, Joseph Scott, Justin, Justin Givens, Kailey Lampert (trepmal), Kenan Dervisevic, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Kristopher Lagraff, Kurt Payne, Lance Willett, Lardjo, Lee Willis (leewillis77), linuxologos, Lutz Schroer, Mantas Malcius, Marcus, Mark Jaquith, Marko Heijnen, Mark Rowatt Anderson, Matias Ventura, Matt Martz, mattonomics, Matt Thomas, Matt Wiebe, MattyRob, Max Cutler, Mert Yazicioglu, mgolawala, Michael Adams (mdawaffe), Michael Beckwith, Michael Fields, Mike Schinkel, Mike Schroder, Mike Toppa, Milan Dinic, mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine), Mohammad Jangda, mrtorrent, Name.ly, Naoko McCracken, Nashwan Doaqan, Niall Kennedy, Nikolay Yordanov, norocketsurgeon, npetetin, Nuno Morgadinho, Olivier Collet, Paul Biron, pavelevap, Pete Mall, Peter Westwood, pishmishy, Prasath Nadarajah, prettyboymp, Ptah Dunbar, pw201, Rami Yushuvaev, Rarst, RENAUT, Reuben Gunday, Roscius, Ross Hanney, russellwwest, Ryan Boren, Ryan Duff, Ryan McCue, Safirul Alredha, Samir Shah, Samuel “Otto” Wood, Seisuke Kuraishi, Sergey Biryukov, Simon Wheatley, sirzooro, sksmatt, Stas Sușkov, Stephane Daury (stephdau), tamlyn, Thomas Griffin, Thorsten Ott, TobiasBg, Tom Auger, Toni Viemero, transom, Ulrich Sossou, Utkarsh Kukreti, Wojtek Szkutnik, wonderslug, Xavier Borderie, Yoav Farhi, Zach “The Z Man” Abernathy, Zack Tollman, Ze Fontainhas, and zx2c4.

See you next time!

The third release candidate for WordPress 3.4 is now available. Since RC2, we’ve fixed a few lingering issues with the new live preview feature, as well as with custom headers and backgrounds.

There are no remaining issues, and we plan to release 3.4 in the coming days. But if you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums, or file a bug report on WordPress Trac.

To test WordPress 3.4, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). Be sure to visit → About for an updated list of features and under-the-hood changes. As a reminder: We’ve published some resources on the development blog to help plugin and theme developers prepare.

The new live preview
Nearing perfection, and yet?
Not yet. RC3

The second release candidate for WordPress 3.4 is now available. Since RC1, we’ve made a few dozen final changes.

Our goal is to release WordPress 3.4 early next week, so plugin and theme authors, this is likely your last chance to test your plugins and themes to find any compatibility issues before the final release. We’ve published some resources on the development blog to help you prepare.

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 reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac. Known issues that crop up will be listed here, but we’re hoping for a quiet few days so we can get some great features into your hands next week!

To test WordPress 3.4, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). Be sure to visit → About for an updated list of features and under-the-hood changes.