WordPress 1.5 is not just cool and suave on the outside, there are quite a few programming enhancements and added features for coders, hackers, plugin developers and enthusiasts. Some of these are obvious while others are more difficult to track down without digging through the code. This is a highly technical post, so feel free to skip it if that’s not your bag.
(This is my favorite part of what I do.) To the 12,126 of you who have already downloaded WordPress 1.5, congrats for being on the ball. We had a “soft launch” on Monday the 14th while we worked out some infrastructure issues and we’re now very ready to announce WordPress 1.5 to the world. This release is named “Strayhorn” in honor of Billy Strayhorn the pianist and sublime composer who worked closely with Duke Ellington and wrote tunes like “Take the A Train” and “Lush Life.” We thought he was perfect to represent the power and elegance of this release, which has been under intense development and testing the past few months.
If you’re ready to get right to the meat, go download WordPress and don’t forget to read the installation or upgrade instructions. If you’d like to know more about the release, please make yourself comfortable and read on, we’ve got a lot to share.
1.5 has been our most user-focused development ever: we’ve listened closely to your requests, complaints, praise, pleas, and we’ve done our best to address these both in the core and through enabling plugin authors more flexibility. Any sentence that started “I love WordPress except for…” was fuel for the fire. Here are the key areas we addressed with in Strayhorn:
One of the most interesting things for me as a uni-lingual developer has been the incredible international community that has formed around WordPress, creating localizations, translations, and incredible resource sites around the project. When I last checked the translations available for 1.2, there were 26 different languages available. This is something we want to embrace and make even better with 1.5.
The definition of a “polyglot” is “a person having a speaking, reading, or writing knowledge of several languages,” so we thought it would make the perfect name for the new mailing list to coordinate the internationalization and localization of WordPress. If you are fluent in English and at least one other language, please join the discussion on making WordPress available to the widest audience possible. We’ll be talking about the new collaborative translation enviroments available, making pre-localized versions of WordPress available for download, and even translating WordPress.org itself.
While I’m here thanks Craig Hartel for the great Valentine’s day logo we have up. It’s so nice we might leave it there all week. Never hurts to spread the love, right?
Tuesday, Feburary 15th, from 6-11PM, I will be hosting an upgrade party for people interesting in moving their blogs to 1.5. There will be food, drink, and wi-fi, so bring a laptop or your account details and get your blog on the most advanced blogging software in the world. You can upgrade from any previous version of WordPress or any other platform we have an import script for. If you’re worried about breaking something, the best time to do it is when a developer is right there.
Upgrading will only take about 5 minutes, but stick around afterward and socialize with fellow WordPressers. I also heard a rumor that there will be celebrity guest appearances by gurus Eric and Molly. After the party I’ll update this entry with a list of everyone who got upgraded.
WordPress Upgrade Party
6 PM — 11 PM
333 1st Street, at Folsom
San Francisco
If you need more details email M at this domain. If you want to come but don’t use WordPress at all, that’s cool too, just enjoy yourself.
Craig Hartel, aka NuclearMoose sits down with Matt and Ryan, and asks them a few question about WordPress 1.5, Life, and Everything in The Inside Scoop – an interview of sorts.
Matt talks about helping out with managing the project, while also keeping track of changes in one’s personal and professional lives, and also about why he’s excited about the forthcoming 1.5 release. Ryan, who has been busy with regularly fine-tuning WordPress and fixing bugs, talks about some of the more significant bug fixes and feature changes.
Recent Comments