The newest version of WordPress dropped late in the day yesterday. 2.7 was a very big release, completely changing the admin area and adding lots of new features but 2.8 seems to be more about taking all that new stuff and making improvements to it. They’ve also added a few new features that they probably wanted to get to in 2.7, but just didn’t have the time for. The new improvements and features include:

• Optimizing scripts and styles to make WP faster.
• Adding a theme directory, similar to the already built-in plugin directory, so you can search for and install new themes right from your admin.
• Redoing the widget system for easier use and customization.
• Improvements to the screen options (the tab in the top right-hand corner of the admin). Having a big monitor, I especially like being able to choose 3 or 4 columns on my dashboard. You can also now choose how many entries to display on the Edit Post/Page screens. Check out the tab on any page in the admin and see what options you have, in a lot of places you can get rid of things you don’t use so the admin is less cluttered.
• Improvements to custom taxonomies, which you can read more about in detail here.
• Improvements to the theme editor like syntax highlighting and numbering (you probably don’t care about this unless you are a developer).

Go here to see the full, very long list of improvements in 2.8.

Hopefully, you already have 2.7 in which case you’ll be able to upgrade to 2.8 in seconds with the click of the Upgrade button, but you can still download it here and install the old fashioned way. If you are a Swank Web Hosting customer and still have WP 2.7 or less feel free to contact us for a free upgrade, we’ve noticed an uptick of site hacking lately, especially on WP blogs with version 2.5 or lower.

Related posts

• WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” Now Available! (1)
• WordPress 2.5 RC1 available (1)
• WordPress 2.5 has been released! (1)
• WordPress 2.3.3 (1)
• WordPress 2.3.2 (0)