After months of development, WordPress 3.6 (named “Oscar”) has finally been released. You can grab a copy here and get started with it right away. Be sure to back up your site and make sure your plugins are up to date before you upgrade.
We took a look at an early version a few months ago, and a few small things have changed since then. Along with hundreds of bugs being squished, they’ve dropped the “post formats” UI enhancements for a future release.
Here’s a short video that shows a bit more about what’s new in this release:
Of note is that there are no major security updates with this release, so as long as you’re already on version 3.5.2 you’re safe for now. There’s no rush on loading this update so take your time, make your backups, and load 3.6 as time allows.
Here’s some of what’s new:
A new default theme, “Twenty Thirteen”
Each year WordPress revises the default theme, but Twenty Thirteen will be a drastic change from previous versions. It’s loud, colorful, and makes great use of the new “post formats” that you can read about below. You can play with it a bit on the official Twenty Thirteen demo page.
Audio/Video embeds
You can now embed audio and video files directly into your posts without relying on a special plugin or third-party service (like YouTube). You’re still typically better off to use a quality plug-in or service to help with those kinds of files, but now it’s no longer a requirement.
Autosave and post locking
The autosave feature now can help you even more – if your browser crashes, your computer dies, or the server goes offline as you’re saving, you won’t lose the your post. In addition, when you can see when someone is currently editing a post, and kick them out of it if they fall asleep at the keyboard.
Navigation Menus
The menu editing system that was added in WordPress 3.0 back in 2010 are amazing, and in 3.6 they get even better. It’s mostly subtle enhancements, but great little tweaks nonetheless. In particular, they now sport an accordion-based UI, and a separate tab for bulk-assigning menus to locations.
Revisions
Post revision history was added way back in WordPress version 2.6, and has been a lifesaver for the times that you mistakenly saved a bad version of a post and needed to go back to an older one. The enhanced revisions UI features avatars, a slider that “scrubs” through history, and two-slider range comparisons.
Have you been testing 3.6? Have you loaded the final version on your site yet?
