WordPress 2.9 beta 1 and WordPress MU 2.8.6

Hot off the trails from last week’s Wordcamp NYC, the official 2.9 Beta 1 release is now available for download.

From Mark via the wp-hackers mailing list:

Big features to test:

• Basic image editing (rotate, flip, resize, crop)
• Post/Page image thumbnails. Enable the admin UI by declaring support
  in your theme: add_theme_support(‘post-thumbnails’);
• Trash, with undo functionality, for posts, pages, comments
• Comment Meta table and functions — like Custom Fields/postmeta but
  for comments
• Easy media embeds, oEmbed — paste a URL on its own item and have it
  turn into embed code
• register_theme_directory() which enables plugins to bundle their own
  themes, without copying (BuddyPress, primary example)
• Combo upgrader — get notified of plugin updates in the WP core
  upgrader, as well as being informed of crowd-sourced compatibility
  information for the plugins.

It’s bug-fixing and polishing time! Our priorities should be, in this order:

1. Fixing regressions in old features/behaviors
2. Squashing bugs in the new features
3. Polish

Additionally, today WPMU has caught up and released 2.8.6. From the website:

This is a security release with the same fixes as WordPress 2.8.6 plus quite a few MU specific bug fixes too.

WordPress 2.8.6 released

Just about an hour ago WordPress 2.8.6 was finalized and released. Nothing exciting with this release – just a few security fixes.

From the WordPress.org blog:

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges.  If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

On another note, WordPress 2.9 is still scheduled for a final release at the end of November/early December. You can still download and test the latest WP 2.9 nightly build here.

Finally, WordPress MU received a few updates last week and is now up to 2.8.5.2.

WordPress 2.8.5 released

WordPress 2.8.5 has been released and is up for download. Nothing exciting to see as it just addresses the exploit that was published this morning plus a few minor things. From the WordPress.org post:

• A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack that is currently being seen.
• Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
• Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
• Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

So get your installs up to date by downloading or upgrade in the admin panel!