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WordPress 2.1 “Ella”

WordPress 2.1 has been released. This is a major release, and I am glad to have it finnaly running on my front end. I have been playing with some themes for “Ella,” and hopefully I will be able to get some site updates out this weekend.

On behalf of the WordPress.org community of commiters, contributers, and volunteers, I’m very proud to announce the immediate availability of WordPress 2.1 “Ella”, named for jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald. Here’s a sampling of what’s in the new version:

• Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again.
• Our new tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
• The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
• Our completely redone visual editor also now includes spell checking.
• New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
• You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.
• Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions. Domas Mituzas from MySQL went over all our queries with a fine-toothed comb.
• Links in your blogroll now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
• Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
• More AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML) to make custom fields, moderation, deletions, and more all faster. My favorite is the comments page, which new lets you approve or unapprove things instantly.
• Pages can now be drafts, or private.
• Our admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
• The dashboard now instantly and brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background.
• Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
• Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages.
• The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
• A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

…and much, much more. There are little easter eggs hidden everywhere, so the best way to find everything new is to just try it out.

Developer Features

Developers will especially love this release, as it has much cleaner code than 2.0 and includes hundreds of enhancements that will enable a new generation of richer plugins. Here’s a taste of some of the things included:

• Psuedo-cron functionality let’s you schedule events much like cron.
• Users admin can now comfortably handle hundreds of thousands of users.
• The new WP_Error class cleans up how we do error reporting and handling.
• The javascript loader makes it easier for plugins to include rich functionality.
• Tons of new hooks and APIs.
• We’ve started to fill out our code inline documentation.
• Image and thumbnail API allows for richer media plugins.
• Custom header, color picker, and image cropping framework.

2.1 also includes over 550 bug fixes.

WordPress 2.0.7

WordPress 2.0.7 has semi quietly been released. According to the release notes, this is a patch release.

Because this is a much smaller update than previous versions, you do not have to update all of WordPress’ files if you’re upgrading from version 2.0.6. Here is the list of files that have changed since 2.0.6:

• wp-admin/inline-uploading.php
• wp-admin/post.php
• wp-includes/classes.php
• wp-includes/functions.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-includes/version.php

We know it sucks to have a release only 10 days after our last one, but we think it’s important enough for your blog to be secure to do it, and hopefully only having to change a few files will make the upgrade easier than normal.

Milestones for RJ

The last month has been full of a lot of milestones for RJ, the latest of which was his Karate recital this evening. The last month has included:

• RJ’s First School Program
• RJ’s First Optometrist Appointment
• RJ’s First Recital

On top of this, we just learned that enrollment for before and after school care for Kindergarten is enrolling now, and school enrollment is very soon. Already it seems like RJ is growing up too fast. As soon as I get used to where RJ is at in his life he changes. Is this how all parents feel?

On a lighter note, we took the boys out to eat for dinner after the recital. Going out to dinner after a special event is a treat that I remember very fondly when I was young. RJ has been asking for Wendy’s for nearly a month, and since this was his special event we were off to Wendy’s. The boys devoured their dinner, perhaps out of hunger or perhaps out of the promise of a frosty if they ate all of their dinner. Either way, dinner was concluded with chocolaty frosty goodness.

By the time the boys finished dinner it was also past Tony’s bed time, so we took the Frosty to go. RJ could not be persuaded to part with his treat do he carried out to the car. While Stepping off of the sidewalk onto the parking lot, RJ fell. With the dedication only a four-year-old can have with a cup of ice cream, RJ held on to his treat for dear life.

Beth reached down for RJ, but he would not take her hand. RJ started to scream. Beth took the frosty from RJ as made no attempt to get up. RJ looked at the frosty in his mother’s hand. Beth said the frosty was fine and he could not have it back until he got in the car. I have never seen RJ recover to quickly from a fall.

See What?

RJ had his very first optometrist appointment this afternoon. The eye doctor said that he had a touch of near-sightedness that did not need corrected and that this is very normal for his age. RJ had his little heart set on a pair of Power Ranger glasses and was extremely disappointed that his eyes were not “broken” like Mommy’s.

The optometrist that RJ (and I) go to is the same one Beth went to as an adolescent. Her first visit was around age sixteen, and she continued through age twenty, when we got married. When we moved back to Ohio, Beth picked up right where she left off, going to many of the same physicians she did as a child. Her optometrist is no exception.

The eye doctor seems very good with children. To put RJ at ease he offered to let him sit in the doctor’s stool as he adjusted the seat up and down. RJ asked if Mommy could come, too and the doctor explained that Mommy was an adult and therefore too large to play on the chair. Beth innocently chimed in with the fact that she did play with the stool when she was younger. The doctor said that made him feel old to watch a patient of his grow and return with their own children.