WordPress.org

WordPress 3.7.1 is now available! This maintenance release addresses 11 bugs in WordPress 3.7, including:

• Images with captions no longer appear broken in the visual editor.
• Allow some sites running on old or poorly configured servers to continue to check for updates from WordPress.org.
• Avoid fatal errors with certain plugins that were incorrectly calling some WordPress functions too early.
• Fix hierarchical sorting in get_pages(), exclusions in wp_list_categories(), and in_category() when called with empty values.
• Fix a warning that may occur in certain setups while performing a search, and a few other notices.

For a full list of changes, consult the list of tickets and the changelog.

If you are one of the nearly two million already running WordPress 3.7, we will start rolling out the all-new automatic background updates for WordPress 3.7.1 in the next few hours. For sites that support them, of course.

Download WordPress 3.7.1 or venture over to Dashboard → Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Just a few fixes
Your new update attitude:
Zero clicks given

Version 3.7 of WordPress, named “Basie” in honor of Count Basie, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. This release features some of the most important architectural updates we’ve made to date. Here are the big ones:

• Updates while you sleep: With WordPress 3.7, you don’t have to lift a finger to apply maintenance and security updates. Most sites are now able to automatically apply these updates in the background. The update process also has been made even more reliable and secure, with dozens of new checks and safeguards.
• Stronger password recommendations: Your password is your site’s first line of defense. It’s best to create passwords that are complex, long, and unique. To that end, our password meter has been updated in WordPress 3.7 to recognize common mistakes that can weaken your password: dates, names, keyboard patterns (123456789), and even pop culture references.
• Better global support: Localized versions of WordPress will receive faster and more complete translations. WordPress 3.7 adds support for automatically installing the right language files and keeping them up to date, a boon for the many millions who use WordPress in a language other than English.

For developers there are lots of options around how to control the new updates feature, including allowing it to handle major upgrades as well as minor ones, more sophisticated date query support, and multisite improvements. As always, if you’re hungry for more dive into the Codex or browse the over 400 closed tickets on Trac.

A New Wave

This release was led by Andrew Nacin, backed up by Dion Hulse and Jon Cave. This is our first release using the new plugin-first development process, with a much shorter timeframe than in the past. (3.6 was released in August.) The 3.8 release, due in December, will continue this plugin-led development cycle that gives much more autonomy to plugin leads and allows us to decouple feature development from a release. You can follow this grand experiment, and what we’re learning from it, on the make/core blog. There are 211 contributors with props in this release:

Aaron Brazell, Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Holbrook, Aaron Jorbin, adamsilverstein, Alexander Hoereth, Alex Mills (Viper007Bond), Amy Hendrix (sabreuse), andg, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Norcross, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Spittle, askapache, atimmer, Barry, Beau Lebens, ben.moody, Ben Miller, Bernhard Riedl, BFTrick, Billy (bananastalktome), bmb, Brandon Kraft, brianhogg, Brian Richards, Bryan Petty, Carl Danley, CharlesClarkson, Chip Bennett, Chouby, Chris Olbekson, Chris Rudzki, coderaaron, Coen Jacobs, Colin Robinson, cyonite, Daan Kortenbach, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Convissor, dartiss, Daryl Koopersmith, Dave Ross, David Laietta, Dion Hulse, dllh, Dominik Schilling (ocean90), dpash, Drew Jaynes, DrProtocols, Dustin Filippini, dzver, Edward Caissie, enej, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Evan Solomon, faishal, Faison, Foofy, Frankie Jarrett, Frank Klein, Gary Cao, Gary Pendergast, Gaya Kessler, George Stephanis, Gizburdt, goldenapples, gradyetc, Gregory Cornelius, Gustavo Bordoni, hakre, Helen Hou-Sandi, Ian Dunn, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), itinerant, J.D. Grimes, jakub.tyrcha, James Collins, Jen Mylo, Jeremy Buller, Jeremy Felt, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), Joe Hoyle, Joey Kudish, John Beales, John Blackbourn (johnbillion), John Fish, John James Jacoby, John P. Bloch, Jonas Bolinder (jond3r), Jonathan Christopher, Jonathan Desrosiers, Jon Cave, Jon Lynch, Joost de Valk, Joseph Scott, Josh Betz, Justin de Vesine, Justin Sainton, K.Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), Ketwaroo, kevinB, Kim Parsell, kitchin, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, koopersmith, Kurt Payne, Lance Willett, Lee Willis (leewillis77), lessbloat, Lew Ayotte, Luke Gedeon, Marcin Pietrzak, Marco Cimmino, Marco Galasso, Mark Jaquith, Mark McWilliams, Marko Heijnen, Mel Choyce, Michael Beckwith, Mike Hansen, Mike Schinkel, Mike Schroder, Milan Dinic, mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine), Mr Papa, Naoko Takano, Naomi, Nashwan Doaqan, NateJacobs, nathanrice, Niall Kennedy, Nick Daugherty, Nick Halsey, Nick Momrik, Nikhil Vimal (NikV), Nikolay Bachiyski, noahsilverstein, nofearinc, nukaga, nullvariable, Oleg Butuzov, Paolo Belcastro, Parham, Paul Biron, Paul de Wouters, pavelevap, peterjaap, Peter Westwood, Philip Arthur Moore, Pippin Williamson, plocha, Pollett, Ptah Dunbar, Rami Yushuvaev, Rasheed Bydousi, RayBernard, rboren, Reuben Gunday, rfair404, Richard Tape, Rick Radko, Robert Chapin, Robert Dall, Rodrigo Primo, Ron Rennick, rpattillo, Ryan Boren, Ryan McCue, Sam Hotchkiss, Scott Reilly, scottsweb, Scott Taylor, scribu, scruffian, Seisuke Kuraishi (tenpura), Sergey Biryukov, ShinichiN, Simon Prosser, Simon Wheatley, Siobhan, Siobhan Bamber (siobhyb), sirzooro, solarissmoke, Stephanie Leary, Stephen Edgar (@netweb), Stephen Harris, strangerstudios, sweetie089, swissspidy, Takayuki Miyauchi, Takuma Morikawa, Taylor Lovett, tivnet, TobiasBg, Tom Auger, toscho, Travis Smith, Ulrich Sossou, vericgar, Vinod Dalvi, Weston Ruter, wikicms, Will Norris, Wojtek Szkutnik, wycks, Yoav Farhi, and Yuri Victor.

Enjoy what may be one of your last few manual updates. See you soon for version 3.8!

The second release candidate of WordPress 3.7 is now available for testing!

Those of you already testing WordPress 3.7 will be updated automatically to RC2. (Nice.) If you’d like to start testing, there’s no time like the present! Try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”) or download the release candidate here (zip). Please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums if you think you’ve found a bug, and if any known issues are raised, you’ll be able to find them here.

Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 3.7. If there is a compatibility issue, let us know as soon as possible so we can deal with it before the final release.

For more on WordPress 3.7, check out the announcement post for Release Candidate 1.

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences that celebrate everything related to WordPress, and are a great opportunity to meet other WordPress users and professionals in your community. This has been a great year for WordCamps — there have been 56 so far in more than 20 countries, and there another 15 on the calendar before the year’s over. If there’s one near you, check it out! In addition to getting to know your local WordPress community, most WordCamps attract some traveling visitors a well, giving you the chance to meet contributors to the WordPress open source project and get involved yourself.

Here are the WordCamps on the schedule for the rest of this year.

October 25-27: WordCamp Boston, Boston, MA, USA
October 25-26: WordCamp Malaga, Spain
October 26: WordCamp Nepal, Kathmandu, Nepal
October 26: WordCamp Sofia, Bulgaria
November 7: WordCamp Cape Town, South Africa
November 9: WordCamp Porto, Portugal
November 9-10: WordCamp Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
November 15: WordCamp Edmonton, AB, Canada
November 16-17: WordCamp Orlando, FL, USA
November 16: WordCamp Denver, CO, USA
November 23-24: WordCamp London, UK
November 23-24: WordCamp Raleigh, NC, USA
November 23: WordCamp São Paulo, Brazil
December 14: WordCamp Las Vegas, NV, USA
December 14-15: WordCamp Sevilla, Spain

No WordCamps on this list in your area? Not to worry! There are thriving WordPress meetups all over the world where you can meet like-minded people, and we maintain a library of WordCamp videos at WordPress.tv.

Get Involved

• If you’re interested in organizing a WordCamp in your area, check out our WordCamp planning site.
• If you’re interested in starting a WordPress meetup in your area, let us know and we can set up a group on meetup.com for you.
• And speaking of WordCamp videos, we’ve recently enabled volunteer-generated subtitles/closed captioning of the videos on WordPress.tv to make them more accessible. Interested in helping? Check out the WordPress.tv subtitling instructions.

The first release candidate for WordPress 3.7 is now available!

In RC 1, we’ve made some adjustments to the update process to make it more reliable than ever. We hope to ship WordPress 3.7 next week, but we need your help to get there. If you haven’t tested 3.7 yet, there’s no time like the present. (Please, not on a production site, unless you’re adventurous.)

WordPress 3.7 introduces automatic background updates for security and minor releases (like updating from 3.7 to 3.7.1). These are really easy to test  — RC 1 will update every 12 hours or so to the latest development version, and then email you the results. (You may get two emails: one for debugging, and one all users of 3.7 will receive.) If something went wrong, you can report it.

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.

To test WordPress 3.7 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 3.7, visit the awesome About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar). There, you can also see if your install is eligible for background updates. WordPress won’t automatically update, for example, if you’re using version control like Subversion or Git.

Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 3.7, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release. Make sure you post any issues to the support forums.

WordPress three seven
A self-updating engine
Lies beneath the hood

WordPress 3.7 Beta 2 is now available for download and testing. This is software still in development, so we don’t recommend that you run it on a production site.

This has been a quiet beta period. We’re hoping to get some more testers for automatic background updates, which will occur for security and minor releases (like updating from 3.7 to 3.7.1). It’s really easy to test this, as Beta 2 will update each day to the latest development version and then email you the results. If something goes wrong, you can report it — it’s that simple. To get the beta, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip). Check out Dashboard → Updates to see if your install is eligible for background updates. WordPress won’t update if, for example, you’re using version control like SVN or Git.

For more of what’s new in version 3.7, check out the Beta 1 blog post. In Beta 2, we further increased the stability of background updates and also added about 50 bug fixes, including a fix for Internet Explorer 11 in the visual editor.

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.

Happy testing!

Beta 2 released
Dotting i’s and crossing t’s
Expect RC next