Development on WordPress 3.6 has taken off like a rocket, and six areas of focus have already been defined. The Post Formats UI will be getting a major usability overhaul, lead by Helen Hou-Sandi. Autosave and Post Locking will be getting some new love, so you’ll hopefully never lose your posts again, lead by Andrew Ozz. The Editorial Flow experience will be getting a major overhaul too, lead by Daniel Bachhuber, so we can probably expect some bits of Edit Flow to make an appearance. Revisions will be getting some improvements, particularly in author attribution and comparing diffs, lead by Peter Westwood. Menus will be seeing some usability improvements, lead by Dave Martin. Distraction-Free Writing will be getting more visibility, a smoother experience, more features, and some overall polish. A leader for this project has yet to be chosen. If you aren’t already following along with the Make WordPress Core blog, […]

WordPress 3.5 has been out for a little over a week and downloaded over 2 million times, and the team all ready to start focussing on the next major release. The development on WordPress 3.6 will be lead this time by WordPress veteran Mark Jaquith, who is planning to focus this release on content editing improvements, listing “revisions, autosave, workflow, [and] editing modes” as suggested areas of focus. This is just his suggestion at this time, and a planning meeting in early January will further narrow down the focus to specifics. Mark is also looking for a backup lead, who will help with “the planning, execution, and delivery of the release” and otherwise cover for Mark if he is unavailable. If you have experience with WordPress core development, apply now!

Less than an hour ago, WordPress 3.5 passed 1 million downloads! That’s not bad for an update which was released just a bit over two days ago. In fact, it’s yet another record for the popular blogging platform! Watch to the download counter, and you just might see it break 2 million soon. If you have not updated to WordPress 3.5 yet, why not help the download counter reach 2 million today? You can safely update from Dashboard -> Updates or download and update manually. Make sure that you check out the new features, stop by the master list of known issues if you run into trouble, and post to the support forums if your problem isn’t covered there.

WordPress 3.5 is finally here! All users can now safely update from Dashboard -> Updates or download and update manually, though you should probably backup first, just in case. This release is packed with plenty of new features, like a completely redesigned media manager, the new default Twenty Twelve theme, support for Retina (HiDPI) displays in the Dashboard, and better accessibility for screen readers and touch devices. If you run into trouble with WordPress 3.5, stop by the master list of known issues and post to the support forums if your problem isn’t covered there.

WordPress 3.5 RC 6 has been released. The team is very close to releasing WordPress 3.5, but had to push it back another day with a sixth release candidate (they were very busy over the weekend) to fix how TinyMCE (the Visual editor tab) handles “ridiculous object and embed tags.” To sum it all up in one handy and concise Tweet, this: WordPress 3.5 now runs a custom TinyMCE schema tailored to the HTML5 living standard. We audited the whole spec to keep your content intact. — Daryl Koopersmith (@koop) December 10, 2012 So, if you’re a fan of using crazy embeds in your posts, particularly HTML5 bits, please test this RC. To test it, place your crazy embed in the Text editor tab, switch back to the Visual editor tab to make sure that it’s still there, switch back to the Text editor tab to make sure it isn’t […]

WordPress 3.5 RC 3 has been released. This RC is quite polished, and it looks like the final WordPress 3.5 release may be just a few days away judging by their previous timeline. The new Media interface has received a few more enhancements, uploading errors are now more specific, and various mobile device and Internet Explorer bugs have been fixed. This is most likely the last WordPress 3.5 RC before the final release hits, so if you’re plugin or theme developer who doesn’t like surprises on launch day, you should definitely test your products now. If you run into any bugs, please check the known and fixed issues first, report them if they have not already been reported, and visit the support forums if you need any help.

WordPress 3.5 RC 2 has been released. In the first release candidate, the developers predicted that the final WordPress 3.5 release would be in just two weeks, so I imagine it’s just about a week away now. Please do try it on a test installation, especially if you are a plugin or theme developer who would rather not have a panic of bug reports on launch day if your product has any incompatibilities with WordPress 3.5. The Media tools have received a rather extensive overhaul, so you might want to try those out if you frequently rely on them, and if you’re a WordPress.com blogger, the new Media tools are now live on your WordPress.com blog. If you run into any bugs, please check the known and fixed issues first, report them if they have not already been reported, and visit the support forums if you need any help.