With the release of RC 1, WordPress 3.2 is fast approaching completion. Besides some notable changes, WordPress 3.2 has actually received a total of over 370 changes to date. Not only will this version of WordPress be dropping support for Internet Explorer 6 and requiring a minimum of PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5, but it will be introducing distraction free writing, a new Dashboard, Twenty Eleven, and an expanded Admin Bar. Which feature are you looking forward to the most?

New plugins Crawlable Facebook Comments retrieves Facebook comments (with authors, dates and replies) and makes them visible in your source code. HTML5 Video Shortcode allows you to quickly and easily add HTML5 Video tags as a shortcode. TentBlogger RSS Reminder is a simple way of capturing commenters and calling them to subscribe to your feed. Updated plugins Fast Secure Contact Form lets your visitors send you a quick e-mail message and blocks all common spammer tactics. Additionally, the plugin has a multi-form feature, optional extra fields, and an option to redirect visitors to any URL after the message is sent. SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam adds CAPTCHA anti-spam methods to WordPress forms for comments, registration, lost password, login, or all. In order to post comments or register, users will have to type in the code shown on the image.

Blueline is a two-column, fixed-width, and conservative theme. Neuro is a clean and easily customizable HTML5 design, featuring customizable theme options, the Neuro slider, dynamic header for custom logo, and much more. Vintage Spring is a very subtle, pretty theme with a vintage floral background.

New plugins Delete Custom Fields will let you delete every instance of a custom field from your site. OfferMatch shows offers or ads related to your posts. SimpleTest for WordPress is a tool for WordPress plugin developers who want to create and run automated tests for their plugins. Toppa Plugin Libraries for WordPress includes several utilities for plugin developers. They facilitate the use of Agile coding techniques for developing WordPress plugins. Updated plugins WordPress Beta Tester allows you to easily upgrade to WordPress Beta releases.

WordPress 3.2 RC1 has been released. The release candidate stage is that special stage after beta which pretty much amounts to, “We think we’re done,” so now is the time for the community to really dig in, find bugs, and share some honest feedback. Over 360 tickets have been closed, so quite a bit has changed since WordPress 3.1, which means that now is definitely the time for plugin and theme developers to test their products before WordPress 3.2 is officially released. If you find any bugs, please check the known issues first, then file a bug report. If you need any help, please feel free to contact the WordPress.org Support Forums. What do you think of WordPress 3.2 so far?

Cool Orange is a Sandbox child theme with a cool, muted blue vs. bright orange color scheme. MYgRID2 is a minimalistic WordPress theme in grey-silver colors with fresh look, fancy css3 and jQurey effects, widget ready area, automatic post thumbnail, and more. Vibrato is a bright, colorful, cheerful, and loud two column theme.

bbPress 2.0 Beta 3 has been released. bbPress development is on schedule with a hopeful final launch around the same time as WordPress 3.2. Since the previous release, the following changes have been made: Akismet integration Fixes replies within wp-admin Fixes reply notification links Fixes inconsistent breadcrumb behavior Fixes theme compatibility issues Fixes archive and page conflicts Improvements to unpretty permalink support Improvements to importer Improvements to multisite support Normalize theme, shortcodes, and template parts Add humans.txt Add empty index.php files to prevent snooping Add max length to topic titles (default 80 chars) Add shortcodes for login, register, and lost password forms Add proper redirect handling to topics and replies, allowing them to live almost anywhere Add permalink collision warnings if custom slugs conflict Though the first release candidate should be the next step, bbPress 2 is still not necessarily ready for use on a live site yet, but bbPress […]

New plugins Floating Tweets adds a floating, slide out tab containing the latest tweets from any twitter account. Random Redirect 2 makes it easier for the average user to create a stumbleupon-like experience on any website and restrict the randomness to certain tags and keywords. Social Metrics is a social media analytics tool you can use to track your WordPress blog performance on popular social networking websites and services. Updated plugins Amazon Tools allows you to retrieve and display Amazon product information in your blog. Simple Twitter Connect is a series of plugins that let you add any sort of Twitter functionality you like to a WordPress blog. Slick Contact Forms creates a widget, which adds a contact form using either a floating, drop down button or a sticky, sliding tab. Ultimate Post Type Manager allows you to easily customize post types. WordPress MU Sitewide Tags Pages provides a central […]