Finally, the new release of WordPress is here. WordPress 2.3, codenamed “Dexter”, brings many long-awaited features and fixes 350+ issues found in previous versions.
Most interesting features in WordPress 2.3
- Tags – now with native support. Strangely enough, you’ll need to download separate plugins to manage the tags.
- Canonical URLs – will allow you to change slugs of any post and have WordPress automatically redirect old slug URL to the new URL of your post. Brilliant idea, great for SEO! Mark Jaquith has a great post explaining how it all works: Canonical URLs in WordPress 2.3
- Advanced editing options in WYSIWYG editor for posts and pages are finally accessible via a special button. The trusty Shift+Alt+V combination for doing the same still works, of course.
- Update notification functionality will let you know when there’s a new version of the WordPress engine or any of the plugins you use. Must save us all tons of time we usually spend tracking the updates, downloading new versions and troubleshooting the upgrades of all the plugins.
If you want to learn more, there’s a traditional 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.3 review posted at Technosailor. As always, a highly recommended post!
Before you rush it to download the latest WordPress and get your upgrade started, please be sure to verify all your plugins are up to date and will be supported in the 2.3 release. I’ve done this for all the plugins on Perfect Blogger, and so my upgrade happened in a matter of seconds and without a single problem.
If you think you need help upgrading your WordPress – feel free to contact me and we’ll see what can be done.
Hi Gleb,
Very nice news indeed. Some of the features were “begging” to be released and this new version should work very well with them. Now, as for the previous versions, there is a buffer time I like to give before upgrading. Usually within a few days there will be some fixes.
If you manage some blogs, as you know I do, upgrading to the most stable version is essential. Otherwise I’ll just have to do it all over again.
But again… great news.
Hi Marques!
Yes, some of the features people have been really anticipating to finally appear in WordPress :)
Over the past year, I found WordPress to be so stable that I rarely wait to upgrade anymore. In fact, some people even automate upgrading WordPress nightly from the SVN trunk. The developers community is so active that it’s quite safe.
I usually upgrade Perfect Blogger, and then take time to fully explore the new features before deploying the latest version on my other blogs.