WordPress 3.6 is Finally Here

WordPress 3.6 is Finally Here

WordPress 3.6 has dropped.

WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg today announced the release of the latest version, which includes “bullet-proof” autosave and post locking, a revamped revision browser, native support for audio and video embeds and improved integration with Spotify, Rdio and SoundCloud.

Oscar Peterson
WordPress 3.6 has been named in honor of jazz great Oscar Peterson.

WordPress 3.6 is available to download from WordPress.org

The release is called “Oscar” in honor of Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson.

WordPress core developers share a love of jazz music, and since version 1.0 all major releases are named in honor of jazz musicians they admire.

There are a number of user features:

  • The new Twenty Thirteen theme, inspired by modern art, puts focus on your content with a colorful, single-column design made for media-rich blogging.
  • Revamped revisions save every change and the new interface allows you to scroll easily through changes to see line-by-line who changed what and when.
  • Post locking and augmented autosave will be a boon for sites where more than a single author is working on a post. Each author now has their own autosave stream, which stores things locally as well as on the server (so much harder to lose something) and there’s an interface for taking over editing of a post, as demonstrated beautifully by our bearded buddies in the video above.
  • Built-in HTML5 media player for native audio and video embeds with no reliance on external services.
  • The menu editor is now much easier to understand and use.

Developer features include:

  • A new audio/video API provides access to metadata like ID3 tags.
  • You can now choose HTML5 markup for things like comment and search forms, and comment lists.
  • Better filters for how revisions work, so you can store a different amount of history for different post types.
  • Tons more listed on the Codex, and of course you can always browse the over 700 closed tickets.

The features were part of a video shown during Mullenweg’s State of the Word at WordCamp San Francisco.

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Version 3.6 was was originally planned for release on April 22, but that date came and went.

Icons and a new post formats UI were originally planned to be big features of 3.6, but the icons were withdrawn in February and post formats in May.

In his State of the Word address at WordCamp San Francisco last weekend, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg said work on new icons became part of MP6. In an AMA on reddit yesterday, Mullenweg said MP6 was planned for release as part of WordPress 3.8, which he will personally lead development on.

Lead developer Mark Jaquith announced on May 30 the UI would be stripped from core to live as a plugin. At the time he said there seemed to be a “fundamental issue with the concept” and the release of 3.6 “can’t be held up any longer for this. It needs to come out.”

Have you downloaded WordPress 3.6? What do you think? Tell us in the comments below?

Image credits: Titanas, Tom Marcello.

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