So, a new developmental version of WordPress was released last night. Being the sucker that I am, I went ahead and upgraded to WordPress 2.3 Beta1, and to my surprise, everything installed without any problems at all.
I haven’t seen a full list of all that’s been changed in this version, but based on my limited usage of it in the past half hour I can tell you about two of the updates that will make the most impact:
- Tags. Posts now support tags without the use of a third-party plugin.
- Plugin Version checking. When you’re managing your plugins, you’ll now be able to see if a newer version of it is available (assuming it supports update checking).
According to the announcement, this version also include “faster JavaScript” and “SEO-friendly URL redirection”.
All in all, it seems pretty stable so far. So, if you do decide to upgrade, know that it’s not a full release, and you’re bound to run into problems. Make sure you backup any WordPress-related site files and database beforehand. Deactivate all plugins. Then upgrade. Reactivate your plugins one by one checking to make sure none of them break your site…