By WordPress 2.6 was just released a couple of hours ago and it packed with plenty of new features. I had a chance to upgrade Skatter Tech, previously running version 2.5.1, and the entire process went through quite smoothly without any issues. I have included the official video demonstration of WordPress 2.6 above, however I will also go over some of the notable features below.
Post Revisions
This implementation will be a savior to authors who write and edit articles in the WordPress editor. Each time a post is modified a revision is saved. (Like Wikipedia.) Authors can switch back to previous editions or compare two different revisions. This is probably the next best addition to the editor since auto save. The editor also received a few other new goodies including a Word Counter and a improved uploader.
Press This! Bookmarklet
For those who blog content as they browse the web, this is going to be very handy. The new Press This! bookmarklet acts quite like Tumblr. When you launch the bookmarklet, a popup window appears offering options to blog the page you are currently viewing and choose whether it should be considered a Text, Photo, Quote, or Video post. Although I may not use this to blog right away, it is quite neat to be able to save drafts with some info so I can come back to it later.
SSL-Encrypted Admin Panel
Security is a big issue for those who have large blogs. Previously with no SSL support, hackers monitoring a network could theoretically capture passwords and data being published to your blog. There have been a couple of WP Plugins to address this issue, however I personally never found any to function as required. Authors now can login using the HTTPS protocol to encrypt the data being related between their machine and their server for protection. And it’s been working great, for me, so far!
Other Stuff
There are a couple other notable features added, one of which is the Gears add-on. The add-on has to be installed to your computer’s browser and intelligently caches Javascript and CSS files to your machine to allow a much faster and smoother work flow. WordPress now also allows bloggers who are re-designing their themes to now preview it before making it visible to their readers. This would have been quite handy when I was in the process of designing my theme!
There are plenty of other things that have been included in the update and if you wish to find out more about them, visit Word Press 2.6 Announcement Post. If you are using WordPress I personally recommend you upgrade to 2.6. There are many new features you will truly appreciate!
Links: WordPress.org
Download: WordPress 2.6
Hmmm, I am tempted to try this.