WordPress.org

Version 3.9 of WordPress, named “Smith” in honor of jazz organist Jimmy Smith, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. This release features a number of refinements that we hope you’ll love.

A smoother media editing experience

Gallery previews

Galleries display a beautiful grid of images right in the editor, just like they do in your published post.

Do more with audio and video

Images have galleries; now we’ve added simple audio and video playlists, so you can showcase your music and clips.

Live widget and header previews

Add, edit, and rearrange your site’s widgets right in the theme customizer. No “save and surprise” — preview your changes live and only save them when you’re ready.

The improved header image tool also lets you upload, crop, and manage headers while customizing your theme.

Stunning new theme browser

Looking for a new theme should be easy and fun. Lose yourself in the boundless supply of free WordPress.org themes with the beautiful new theme browser.

The Crew

This release was led by Andrew Nacin and Mike Schroder, with the help of these fine individuals. There are 267 contributors with props in this release, a new high:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Harley (Kawauso), Adam Silverstein, adelval, Ajay, Akeda Bagus, Alex Concha, Alison Barrett, Allan Collins, Amy Hendrix (sabreuse), Andrea Fercia, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Norcross, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Wilder, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Andy Keith, Andy Skelton, Anton Timmermans, Aubrey Portwood, Barry, Bartosz Romanowski, bcworkz, Ben Dunkle, Bernhard Riedl, bigdawggi, Bob Gregor, bobbingwide, Brad Parbs, Brad Touesnard, Bram Duvigneau, Brandon Kraft, brasofilo, bravokeyl, Bryan Petty, cgaffga, Chirag Swadia, Chouby, Chris Blower, Chris Marslender, Chris Olbekson, Chris Scott, chriseverson, chrisguitarguy, Christopher Finke, ciantic, Comparativa de Bancos, Connor Jennings, corvannoorloos, cramdesign, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater), Danny de Haan, Daryl Koopersmith, Dave Kellam, DaveE, David A. Kennedy, David Anderson, David Marichal, Denis de Bernardy, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Doug Wollison, Drew Jaynes, DrProtocols, Dustin Filippini, edik, Eduardo Reveles, Elio Rivero, Enej Bajgorić, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Erica Varlese, Erick Hitter, Evan, Fahmi Adib, fboender, Frank Klein, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, genkisan, Gennady Kovshenin, George Stephanis, Grégory Viguier, gradyetc, Graham Armfield, Grant Mangham, Gregory Cornelius, Gregory Karpinsky (@tivnet), hakre, hanni, Helen Hou-Sandí, ippetkov, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), J.D. Grimes, Jack Reichert, jameslee, Janneke Van Dorpe, janrenn, JayCC, Jeff Sebring, Jen, Jeremy Felt, Jesin A, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), jnielsendotnet, Joan Artes, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, John P. Bloch, John Regan, Jon Cave, Jonas Bolinder (jond3r), Joost de Valk, Josh Pollock, Joshua Abenazer, jstraitiff, Julio Potier, Justin Kopepasah, Justin Sainton, K. Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), Kaspars, Kelly Choyce-Dwan, kerikae, Kevin Worthington, Kim Parsell, Kirk Wight, kitchin, klihelp, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Krzysiek Dróżdż, Lance Willett, ldebrouwer, Lee Willis, Lionel Pointet, Lucas Karpiuk, Luke Woodward, Mario Peshev, Mark Barnes, Mark Jaquith, Marko Heijnen, Marventus, Matt (Thomas) Miklic, Matt Banks, Matt Mullenweg, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Denton, Matthew Haines-Young, mattonomics, mattyrob, Matías Ventura, Max Cutler, mcadwell, Mel Choyce, meloniq, Michael Arestad, Michel - xiligroup dev, Miguel Fonseca, Mike Hansen, Mike Manger, Mike Schinkel, Mike Schroder, mikecorkum, mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine), Mohammad Jangda, Morgan Estes, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Naoko Takano, Nashwan Doaqan, nendeb, Nick Halsey, Nikhil Vimal, nivijah, Nuno Morgadinho, Old Profile, olivM, Omer Korner, OriginalEXE, Patrick Bates, Paul Bearne, Paul Gibbs, Paul Vincent Beigang, Paul Wilde, pavelevap, Peter Westwood, Philip Arthur Moore, Philipp Cordes, Pippin Williamson, Prasath Nadarajah, prettyboymp, Raam Dev, Rachel Baker, Ram Ratan Maurya, ramonchiara, Rhys Wynne, Ricardo Correia, Rich Tape, Richard, Richard Sweeney, Ricky Lee Whittemore, Robert Chapin, robmiller, Rodrigo Primo, romaimperator, roothorick, Ruud Laan, Ryan Boren, Ryan McCue, Sal Ferrarello, Samir Shah, Samuel Wood (Otto), Sandeep Raman, Scott Lee, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, scribu, sdasse, Sean Butze, Sean Hayes, Sean Nessworthy, Sergey Biryukov, shahpranaf, Shaun Andrews, ShinichiN, Simon Prosser, Simon Wheatley, Siobhan, Siobhan, sirzooro, sonjanyc, Spencer Piontkowski, spencerfinnell, stephcook22, Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steve Bruner, Steven Word, Takayuki Miyauchi, Tanner Moushey, Taylor Lovett, tbrams, Tellyworth, TobiasBg, Tom Auger, Tom Willmot, Topher, topquarky, Torsten Landsiedel, Toru Miki, Travis Smith, Umesh Kumar, undergroundnetwork, VarunAgw, wawco, Weston Ruter, wokamoto, xsonic, Yoav Farhi, Yuri Victor, Zach Tirrell, Ze Fontainhas, and 水野史土. Also thanks to Michael Pick for producing the release video.

If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog. Thanks for choosing WordPress. See you soon for version 4.0!

The second release candidate for WordPress 3.9 is now available for testing.

If you haven’t tested 3.9 yet, you’re running out of time! We made about five dozen changes since the first release candidate, and those changes are all helpfully summarized in our weekly post on the development blog. Probably the biggest fixes are to live widget previews and the new theme browser, along with some extra TinyMCE compatibility and some RTL fixes.

Plugin authors: Could you test your plugins against 3.9, and if they’re compatible, make sure they are marked as tested up to 3.9? It only takes a few minutes and this really helps make launch easier. Be sure to follow along the core development blog; we’ve been posting notes for developers for 3.9. (For example: HTML5, symlinks, MySQL, Plupload.)

To test WordPress 3.9 RC2, 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 3.9, visit the nearly complete About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) and also check out the Beta 1 post.

This is for testing,
so not recommended for
production sites—yet.

WordPress 3.8.3 is now available to fix a small but unfortunate bug in the WordPress 3.8.2 security release.

The “Quick Draft” tool on the dashboard screen was broken in the 3.8.2 update. If you tried to use it, your draft would disappear and it wouldn’t save. While we doubt anyone was writing a novella using this tool, any loss of content is unacceptable to us.

We recognize how much trust you place in us to safeguard your content, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We’re sorry we let you down.

We’ve all lost words we’ve written before, like an email thanks to a cat on the keyboard or a term paper to a blue screen of death. Over the last few WordPress releases, we’ve made a number of improvements to features like autosaves and revisions. With revisions, an old edit can always be restored. We’re trying our hardest to save your content somewhere even if your power goes out or your browser crashes. We even monitor your internet connection and prevent you from hitting that “Publish” button at the exact moment the coffee shop Wi-Fi has a hiccup.

It’s possible that the quick draft you lost last week is still in the database, and just hidden from view. As an added complication, these “discarded drafts” normally get deleted after seven days, and it’s already been six days since the release. If we were able to rescue your draft, you’ll see it on the “All Posts” screen after you update to 3.8.3. (We’ll also be pushing 3.8.3 out as a background update, so you may just see a draft appear.)

So, if you tried to jot down a quick idea last week, I hope WordPress has recovered it for you. Maybe it’ll turn into that novella.

Download WordPress 3.8.3 or click “Update Now” on Dashboard → Updates.

This affected version 3.7.2 as well, so we’re pushing a 3.7.3 to these installs, but we’d encourage you to update to the latest and greatest.

Now for some good news:
WordPress 3.9 is near.
Expect it this week

As teased earlier, the first release candidate for WordPress 3.9 is now available for testing!

We hope to ship WordPress 3.9 next week, but we need your help to get there. If you haven’t tested 3.9 yet, there’s no time like the present. (Please, not on a production site, unless you’re adventurous.)

To test WordPress 3.9 RC1, 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 3.9, visit the work-in-progress About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) and check out the Beta 1 post.

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

If you’re a plugin author, there are two important changes in particular to be aware of:

• TinyMCE received a major update, to version 4.0. Any editor plugins written for TinyMCE 3.x might require some updates. (If things broke, we’d like to hear about them so we can make adjustments.) For more, see TinyMCE’s migration guide and API documentation, and the notes on the core development blog.
• WordPress 3.9 now uses the MySQLi Improved extension for sites running PHP 5.5. Any plugins that made direct calls to mysql_* functions will experience some problems on these sites. For more information, see the notes on the core development blog.

Be sure to follow along the core development blog, where we will be continuing to post notes for developers for 3.9. (For example, read this if you are using Masonry in your theme.) And please, please update your plugin’s Tested up to version in the readme to 3.9 before April 16.

Release candidate
This haiku’s the easy one
3.9 is near

WordPress 3.8.2 is now available. This is an important security release for all previous versions and we strongly encourage you to update your sites immediately.

This releases fixes a weakness that could let an attacker force their way into your site by forging authentication cookies. This was discovered and fixed by Jon Cave of the WordPress security team.

It also contains a fix to prevent a user with the Contributor role from improperly publishing posts. Reported by edik.

This release also fixes nine bugs and contains three other security hardening changes:

• Pass along additional information when processing pingbacks to help hosts identify potentially abusive requests.
• Fix a low-impact SQL injection by trusted users. Reported by Tom Adams of dxw.
• Prevent possible cross-domain scripting through Plupload, the third-party library WordPress uses for uploading files. Reported by Szymon Gruszecki.

We appreciated responsible disclosure of these security issues directly to our security team. For more information on all of the changes, see the release notes or consult the list of changes.

Download WordPress 3.8.2 or venture over to Dashboard → Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Sites that support automatic background updates will be updated to WordPress 3.8.2 within 12 hours. If you are still on WordPress 3.7.1, you will be updated to 3.7.2, which contains the same security fixes as 3.8.2. We don’t support older versions, so please update to 3.8.2 for the latest and greatest.

Already testing WordPress 3.9? The first release candidate is now available (zip) and it contains these security fixes. Look for a full announcement later today; we expect to release 3.9 next week.