“Baker” is the codename for WordPress 2.8. It’s named after the great jazz trumpeter Chet Baker. As stated on the previous post “WordPress 2.8 Features“, if there’s one factor that you want to update to the latest WordPress is because of the SPEED – it’s way faster to use.

Galwin of OrginalBlogger, upgraded his blog to WordPress 2.8 this morning and he find it “BETTER” than the previous version.

You can find the download page for WordPress 2.8 here.

If you don’t have time to read my previous post, you can just watch the quick video here that walks you through the latest additions.

If you need the step-by-step on how to upgrade your current WordPress, check the 3 Step Upgrade Guide directly from WordPress.org. Make sure that your themes and plugins are WordPress 2.8 compatible already. I suggest that you take a visit on where you downloaded your themes and plugins.

WordPress 2.8 Theme Ready

Let’s see how slowly I write a post

As I start to write this post, WordPress 2.7 has been downloaded 5,949,994 times. Let’s see how many more users will download WP 2.7 before I end my post.

Milestone of WordPress 2.8

Alright, the date has been written in the stone. WordPress 2.8 will be released on June 10, 2009. Mark it on your calendar!. 2.8 is the one with the most tickets opened and closed. According to the developer’s tracker, it is the first time a milestone passes the 800 line.  What does it mean? It simply means that WordPress solved/fixed 800 bugs and/or added/improved/optimized features! I know that most user’s are not aware of these. Heck, we doesn’t even care on what’s going on behind the engine of WordPress.

Let’s just be thankful for all the developers, reviewers, testers and all the people involved in this magnanimous project that is giving benefits to all of us.

Highlights and New Features of WordPress 2.8

New Theme Browser and Installer

You may now be able to install your favorite themes in a single click, quick and easy just like installing a plugin.  Searching and browsing for a theme is now much easier because of the new options to choose like colors, column width, features and more. Additionally, you can use keywords to search for a theme.

Plugin Management

I thought installing plugins in WP 2.7 is the best already, but WP 2.8 provides filtering plugins by state such as Active, Recently Active, Inactive and Upgrade Available. You can also search for a plugin by name, author and tag, or simply click on popular tag.

Customize Headers

WordPress 2.8 Ready Theme

It is now possible to change the header menu text  without touching the code or manually editing the theme. This feature will work will only work if the theme author has configured the theme to allow this capability.

New Drag and Drop Widgets Interface

Widgets can now be  arranged in up to four columns in the administration dashboard.

Faster Loading of Admin Pages

This very important to most of us since we are accessing this page everyday. This was made possible via script compression and concatenation.

Automatic Timezone and Day Light Savings Time (DST)

No need for manual update anymore!. Just enter your location/city and let it roll on its own.

There are actually hundreds more new features like; Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam, helping people when entering wrong email addresses during the installation, etc. I leave  to you to find out the other features. And by the way, smilies are now loading much faster than ever

What do you think of these new features in WordPress 2.8? If you think I left out some important features (maybe you have favorites), please leave a comment to say so.

My question is, I’m already in love with version 2.7, so why did you create something as great as 2.8?

Note: I’m now about to publish my post and the latest WordPress 2.7 download is at 5,954,791. That is almost 5,000 downloads while I was writing! Let’s see how WordPress 2.8 downloads stats in the following weeks.

WordPress 2.8 Ready Theme