Too much news?

For the last few days I've been tracking down information on an old crime – a tragedy comparable to the familicides we hear of all too often these days. The story of what happened afterwards is unusual enough that I want to use it as the basis of a novel. As I was researching events from seventy years ago, I heard about the California shooting which took the lives of Santa Barbara college students. Because we hear about these sad affairs so often, I wondered about the frequency mass killings. An article in December, 2012 in the "Daily News" reported the following:

       Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written       a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s       and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their       peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the       1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

I have been surprised to learn the episodes haven't skyrocketed in the21st century. On the other hand, "Decoded Science" in January of this year stated "One obvious trend is that the frequency of such incidents has risen in the past decade; more accurately, in the past 8.5 years. When teen suicides grew substantially during the 1980's, the media all but stopped reporting on them due to the copycat phenomenon and guidelines issues by the Centers for Disease Control. My husband—who is a psychologist—cringes anytime a mass murderer is shown over and over on television, making his face and name famous, or infamous. He fears other troubled souls are noticing how mass violence creates celebrity and will follow with their own quest to be remembered. I've thought for a long time the birth of the twenty-four hour television news channels has produced an overexposure to negative events. How many times did you watch the planes crash into the twin towers in 2001? It's depressing every time. With so many stations and so many journalists all looking to "scoop" the others, the detailed coverage given to every horrific episode is overwhelming. If a guy didn't know how to go about unleashing his pent-up grievances, he has only to watch the news. For the victims, it's too awful to publicize. For the viewer, it's horribly depressing. I think I'll watch cartoons instead.

Query Swamp

It's a weird thing, this writing business. You have to be a wordsmith, a business person, a salesman, and a rhinoceros. I suppose I should explain the rhinoceros bit. According to www.earthlife.net, the rhinoceros has the thickest skin, and I believe it after the youtube video I saw of a rhinoceros fighting off a crocodile. Today the crocs are snapping, and I'm wishing for some rhinoceros skin. Okay, okay, they're only agents, but they're wielding some sharp rejection letters. I've only really started trying to interest an agent in my second book, but already I remember the first time around and how, after about a dozen form letters saying "thanks, but not thanks," I went to a writer's conference and got lucky. I'll never be able to thank the editor at Echelon Press enough for rescuing me from the dangerous waters of Query Swamp. Before someone gets all defensive for the agents, I know they're just people. The ones I've met are even nice people. And yes, I know they have to make a living, and they're inundated with letters, but it still smarts no matter how gently they take a chunk out of your ego. Why is it so many of us keep doing this? Maybe it's because when I write, the only world I'm aware of is the one of my own making. And as I saw on a t-shirt once: they know me there. Time to put on my rhinoceros armor. I have another query letter to write.

WordPress 3.9 Beta 3

The third (and maybe last) beta of WordPress 3.9 is now available for download.

Beta 3 includes more than 200 changes, including:

• New features like live widget previews and the new theme installer are now more ready for prime time, so check ‘em out.
• UI refinements when editing images and when working with media in the editor. We’ve also brought back some of the advanced display settings for images.
• If you want to test out audio and video playlists, the links will appear in the media manager once you’ve uploaded an audio or video file.
• For theme developers, we’ve added HTML5 caption support (#26642) to match the new gallery support (#26697).
• The formatting function that turns straight quotes into smart quotes (among other things) underwent some changes to drastically speed it up, so let us know if you see anything weird.

We need your help. We’re still aiming for an April release, which means the next week will be critical for identifying and squashing bugs. If you’re just joining us, please see the Beta 1 announcement post for what to look out for.

If you think you've found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums, where friendly moderators are standing by. Plugin developers, if you haven’t tested WordPress 3.9 yet, now is the time — and be sure to update the “tested up to” version for your plugins so they’re listed as compatible with 3.9.

This software is still in development, so we don't recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 3.9, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you'll want "bleeding edge nightlies"). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

WordPress 3.9
Let’s make the date official
It’s April 16

WordPress 3.9 Beta 2

WordPress 3.9 Beta 2 is now available for testing!

We’ve made more than a hundred changes since Beta 1, but we still need your help if we’re going to hit our goal of an April release. For what to look out for, please head on over to the Beta 1 announcement post. Some of the changes in Beta 2 include:

• Rendering of embedded audio and video players directly in the visual editor.
• Visual and functional improvements to the editor, the media manager, and theme installer.
• Various bug fixes to TinyMCE, the software behind the visual editor.
• Lots of fixes to widget management in the theme customizer.

As always, if you think you've found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. Or, if you're comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we've fixed so far.

This software is still in development, so we don't recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 3.9, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you'll want "bleeding edge nightlies"). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

WordPress 3.9 Beta 1

I’m excited to announce that the first beta of WordPress 3.9 is now available for testing.

WordPress 3.9 is due out next month — but in order to hit that goal, we need your help testing all of the goodies we’ve added:

• We updated TinyMCE, the software powering the visual editor, to the latest version. Be on the lookout for cleaner markup. Also try the new paste handling — if you paste in a block of text from Microsoft Word, for example, it will no longer come out terrible. (The “Paste from Word” button you probably never noticed has been removed.) It’s possible some plugins that added stuff to the visual editor (like a new toolbar button) no longer work, so we’d like to hear about them (#24067). (And be sure to open a support thread for the plugin author.)
• We’ve added widget management to live previews (the customizer). Please test editing, adding, and rearranging widgets! (#27112) We’ve also added the ability to upload, crop, and manage header images, without needing to leave the preview. (#21785)
• We brought 3.8′s beautiful new theme browsing experience to the theme installer. Check it out! (#27055)
• Galleries now receive a live preview in the editor. Upload some photos and insert a gallery to see this in action. (#26959)
• You can now drag-and-drop images directly onto the editor to upload them. It can be a bit finicky, so try it and help us work out the kinks. (#19845)
• Some things got improved around editing images. It’s a lot easier to make changes to an image after you insert it into a post (#24409) and you no longer get kicked to a new window when you need to crop or rotate an image (#21811).
• New audio/video playlists. Upload a few audio or video files to test these. (#26631)

If you think you've found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you're comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on the WordPress Trac. There, you can also find a list of known bugs and everything we've fixed so far.

This software is still in development, so we don't recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site just to play with the new version. To test WordPress 3.9, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you'll want "bleeding edge nightlies"). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

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DEVELOPERS! Hello! There’s lots for you, too.

Please test your plugins and themes! There’s a lot of great stuff under the hood in 3.9 and we hope to blog a bit about them in the coming days. If you haven’t been reading the awesome weekly summaries on the main core development blog, that’s a great place to start. (You should definitely follow that blog.) For now, here are some things to watch out for when testing:

• The load process in multisite got rewritten. If you notice any issues with your network, see #27003.
• We now use the MySQL Improved (mysqli) database extension if you’re running a recent version of PHP (#21663). Please test your plugins and see that everything works well, and please make sure you’re not calling mysql_* functions directly.
• Autosave was refactored, so if you see any issues related to autosaving, heartbeat, etc., let us know (#25272).
• Library updates, in particular Backbone 1.1 and Underscore 1.6 (#26799). Also Masonry 3 (#25351), PHPMailer (#25560), Plupload (#25663), and TinyMCE (#24067).
• TinyMCE 4.0 is a major update. Please see TinyMCE’s upgrade guide and our implementation ticket for more. If you have any questions or problems, please open a thread in the support forums.

Happy testing!

Lots of improvements
Little things go a long way
Please test beta one

WordPress 3.9 “Smith”

Version 3.9 of WordPress, named “Smith” in honor of jazz organist Jimmy Smith, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. This release features a number of refinements that we hope you’ll love.

A smoother media editing experience

Improved visual editing

The updated visual editor has improved speed, accessibility, and mobile support. You can paste into the visual editor from your word processor without wasting time to clean up messy styling. (Yeah, we're talking about you, Microsoft Word.)

Edit images easily

With quicker access to crop and rotation tools, it's now much easier to edit your images while editing posts. You can also scale images directly in the editor to find just the right fit.

Drag and drop your images

Uploading your images is easier than ever. Just grab them from your desktop and drop them in the editor.

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Gallery previews

Galleries display a beautiful grid of images right in the editor, just like they do in your published post.

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Do more with audio and video

Ain't Misbehavin' Davenport Blues Buddy Bolden's Blues Squaty Roo Dixie Blues Wolverine Blues

Images have galleries; now we've added simple audio and video playlists, so you can showcase your music and clips.

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Live widget and header previews

Add, edit, and rearrange your site's widgets right in the theme customizer. No "save and surprise" — preview your changes live and only save them when you're ready.

The improved header image tool also lets you upload, crop, and manage headers while customizing your theme.

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Stunning new theme browser

Looking for a new theme should be easy and fun. Lose yourself in the boundless supply of free WordPress.org themes with the beautiful new theme browser.

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The Crew

This release was led by Andrew Nacin and Mike Schroder, with the help of these fine individuals. There are 267 contributors with props in this release, a new high:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Harley, Adam Silverstein, adelval, Ajay, Akeda Bagus, Alex Concha, Alison Barrett, Allan Collins, Amy Hendrix (sabreuse), Andrea Fercia, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Norcross, Andrew Ozz, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Andy Keith, Andy Skelton, Anton Timmermans, Aubrey Portwood, Barry, Bartosz Romanowski, bassgang, bcworkz, Ben Dunkle, Bernhard Riedl, bigdawggi, Bob Gregor, bobbingwide, Brad Touesnard, bradparbs, bramd, Brandon Kraft, brasofilo, bravokeyl, Bryan Petty, cgaffga, Chirag Swadia, Chouby, Chris Blower, Chris Marslender, Chris Olbekson, Chris Scott, chriseverson, chrisguitarguy, Christopher Finke, ciantic, Comparativa de Bancos, Connor Jennings, Cor van Noorloos, Corphi, cramdesign, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater), Danny de Haan, Daryl Koopersmith, Dave Kellam (eightface), DaveE, David A. Kennedy, David Anderson, David Marichal, Denis de Bernardy, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Doug Wollison, Drew Jaynes, DrProtocols, Dustin Filippini, eatingrules, edik, Elio Rivero, enej, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Erica Varlese, Erick Hitter, Evan Anderson, Fahmi Adib, fboender, Frank Klein, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, genkisan, Gennady Kovshenin, George Stephanis, Graham Armfield, Grant Mangham, Gregory Cornelius, Gregory Karpinsky, hakre, hanni, Helen Hou-Sandí, ippetkov, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), J.D. Grimes, Jack Reichert, jameslee, Janneke Van Dorpe, janrenn, JayCC, Jeff Sebring, Jen Mylo, Jeremy Felt, Jesin A, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), jnielsendotnet, Joan Artes, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, John P. Bloch, John Regan, Jon Cave, Jonas Bolinder (jond3r), Joost de Valk, Josh Pollock, Joshua Abenazer, jstraitiff, Julio Potier, Justin Kopepasah, Justin Sainton, K.Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), Kaspars, Kelly Dwan, kerikae, Kevin Worthington, Kim Parsell, Kirk Wight, kitchin, klihelp, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Krzysiek Drozdz, Lance Willett, Lee Willis, lkwdwrd, lpointet, Luc De Brouwer, Lucas Karpiuk, Mark Barnes, Mark Jaquith, Marko Heijnen, Marventus, Matt (Thomas) Miklic, Matt Banks, Matt Mullenweg, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Denton, Matthew Haines-Young, mattonomics, mattyrob, Matías Ventura, Max Cutler, mcadwell, Mel Choyce, meloniq, Michael Arestad, Michel - xiligroup dev, Miguel Fonseca, Mike Burns, Mike Hansen, Mike Schinkel, Mike Schroder, mikecorkum, mikemanger, mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine), Mohammad Jangda, Morgan Estes, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Naoko Takano, Nashwan Doaqan, nendeb55, Nick Halsey, Nicole Arnold, Nikhil Vimal (NikV), nivijah, nofearinc, Nuno Morgadinho, olivM, Omer Korner, OriginalEXE, oso96_2000, patricknami, Paul Bearne, Paul Gibbs, Paul Wilde, pavelevap, Peter Westwood, Philip Arthur Moore, Pippin Williamson, Prasath Nadarajah, prettyboymp, Raam Dev, rachelbaker, Ram Ratan Maurya, ramonchiara, Rescuework Support, Rhys Wynne, Ricardo Correia, Richard Sweeney, Richard Tape, richard2222, Ricky Lee Whittemore, Robert Chapin, robmiller, Rodrigo Primo, romaimperator, roothorick, ruud@joyo, Ryan Boren, Ryan McCue, Sal Ferrarello, Samuel Wood (Otto), Sandeep, Scott Lee, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, ScreenfeedFr, scribu, sdasse, Sean Butze, Sean Hayes, Sean Nessworthy, Sergey Biryukov, shahpranaf, Shaun Andrews, ShinichiN, Simon Prosser, Simon Wheatley, Siobhan, Siobhan Bamber (siobhyb), sirzooro, solarissmoke, sonjanyc, Spencer Finnell, Spencer Piontkowski, stephcook22, Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steve Bruner, Steven Word, Takayuki Miyauchi, Tanner Moushey, Taylor Lovett, tbrams, tellyworth, TobiasBg, Tom Auger, Tom Willmot, Topher, topquarky, Torsten Landsiedel, Toru, Travis Smith, Umesh Kumar, undergroundnetwork, VarunAgw, wawco, Weston Ruter, wokamoto, xsonic, Yoav Farhi, Yuri Victor, Zach Tirrell, and Ze Fontainhas. Also thanks to Michael Pick for producing the release video.

If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog. Thanks for choosing WordPress. See you soon for version 4.0!

WordPress 3.9 Release Candidate

As teased earlier, the first release candidate for WordPress 3.9 is now available for testing!

We hope to ship WordPress 3.9 next week, but we need your help to get there. If you haven't tested 3.9 yet, there's no time like the present. (Please, not on a production site, unless you're adventurous.)

To test WordPress 3.9 RC1, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you'll want "bleeding edge nightlies"). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If you'd like to learn more about what's new in WordPress 3.9, visit the work-in-progress About screen in your dashboard ( ? About in the toolbar) and check out the Beta 1 post.

Think you've found a bug? Please post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If any known issues come up, you'll be able to find them here.

If you’re a plugin author, there are two important changes in particular to be aware of:

• TinyMCE received a major update, to version 4.0. Any editor plugins written for TinyMCE 3.x might require some updates. (If things broke, we’d like to hear about them so we can make adjustments.) For more, see TinyMCE’s migration guide and API documentation, and the notes on the core development blog.
• WordPress 3.9 now uses the MySQLi Improved extension for sites running PHP 5.5. Any plugins that made direct calls to mysql_* functions will experience some problems on these sites. For more information, see the notes on the core development blog.

Be sure to follow along the core development blog, where we will be continuing to post notes for developers for 3.9. (For example, read this if you are using Masonry in your theme.) And please, please update your plugin’s Tested up to version in the readme to 3.9 before April 16.

Release candidate
This haiku’s the easy one
3.9 is near

WordPress 3.8.3 Maintenance Release

WordPress 3.8.3 is now available to fix a small but unfortunate bug in the WordPress 3.8.2 security release.

The “Quick Draft” tool on the dashboard screen was broken in the 3.8.2 update. If you tried to use it, your draft would disappear and it wouldn’t save. While we doubt anyone was writing a novella using this tool, any loss of content is unacceptable to us.

We recognize how much trust you place in us to safeguard your content, and we take this responsibility very seriously. We’re sorry we let you down.

We’ve all lost words we’ve written before, like an email thanks to a cat on the keyboard or a term paper to a blue screen of death. Over the last few WordPress releases, we’ve made a number of improvements to features like autosaves and revisions. With revisions, an old edit can always be restored. We’re trying our hardest to save your content somewhere even if your power goes out or your browser crashes. We even monitor your internet connection and prevent you from hitting that “Publish” button at the exact moment the coffee shop Wi-Fi has a hiccup.

It’s possible that the quick draft you lost last week is still in the database, and just hidden from view. As an added complication, these “discarded drafts” normally get deleted after seven days, and it’s already been six days since the release. If we were able to rescue your draft, you’ll see it on the “All Posts” screen after you update to 3.8.3. (We’ll also be pushing 3.8.3 out as a background update, so you may just see a draft appear.)

So, if you tried to jot down a quick idea last week, I hope WordPress has recovered it for you. Maybe it’ll turn into that novella.

Download WordPress 3.8.3 or click “Update Now” on Dashboard ? Updates.

This affected version 3.7.2 as well, so we’re pushing a 3.7.3 to these installs, but we’d encourage you to update to the latest and greatest.

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Now for some good news:
WordPress 3.9 is near.
Expect it this week

WordPress 3.8 “Parker”

Version 3.8 of WordPress, named "Parker" in honor of Charlie Parker, bebop innovator, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. We hope you’ll think this is the most beautiful update yet.

Introducing a modern new design

WordPress has gotten a facelift. 3.8 brings a fresh new look to the entire admin dashboard. Gone are overbearing gradients and dozens of shades of grey — bring on a bigger, bolder, more colorful design!

Modern aesthetic

The new WordPress dashboard has a fresh, uncluttered design that embraces clarity and simplicity.

Clean typography

The Open Sans typeface provides simple, friendly text that is optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing. It's even open source, just like WordPress.

Refined contrast

We think beautiful design should never sacrifice legibility. With superior contrast and large, comfortable type, the new design is easy to read and a pleasure to navigate.

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WordPress on every device

We all access the internet in different ways. Smartphone, tablet, notebook, desktop — no matter what you use, WordPress will adapt and you'll feel right at home.

High definition at high speed

WordPress is sharper than ever with new vector-based icons that scale to your screen. By ditching pixels, pages load significantly faster, too.

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Admin color schemes to match your personality

WordPress just got a colorful new update. We've included eight new admin color schemes so you can pick the one that suits you best.

Color schemes can be previewed and changed from your Profile page.

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Refined theme management

The new themes screen lets you survey your themes at a glance. Or want more information? Click to discover more. Then sit back and use your keyboard's navigation arrows to flip through every theme you've got.

Smoother widget experience

Drag-drag-drag. Scroll-scroll-scroll. Widget management can be complicated. With the new design, we've worked to streamline the widgets screen.

Have a large monitor? Multiple widget areas stack side-by-side to use the available space. Using a tablet? Just tap a widget to add it.

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Twenty Fourteen, a sleek new magazine theme

Turn your blog into a magazine

Create a beautiful magazine-style site with WordPress and Twenty Fourteen. Choose a grid or a slider to display featured content on your homepage. Customize your site with three widget areas or change your layout with two page templates.

With a striking design that does not compromise our trademark simplicity, Twenty Fourteen is our most intrepid default theme yet.

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Beginning of a new era

This release was led by Matt Mullenweg. This is our second release using the new plugin-first development process, with a much shorter timeframe than in the past. We think it's been going great. You can check out the features currently in production on the make/core blog.

There are 188 contributors with props in this release:

Aaron Holbrook, Aaron Jorbin, adamsilverstein, admiralthrawn, Alexander Hoereth, Allan Collins, Amy Hendrix (sabreuse), Andrew Nacin, Andrew Ozz, Andrey Kabakchiev, Andy Keith, Andy Peatling, Ankit Gade, Anton Timmermans, Arkadiusz Rzadkowolski, Aubrey Portwood, bassgang, Ben Dunkle, Billy Schneider, binarymoon, Brady Vercher, bramd, Brandon Kraft, Brian Richards, Bryan Petty, Calin Don, Carl Danley, Caroline Moore, Caspie, Chris Jean, Clinton Montague, Connor Jennings, Corphi, Dan Bernardic, Daniel Dudzic, Daryl Koopersmith, datafeedr, Dave Martin, Dave Whitley, designsimply, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Doug Wollison, Drew Jaynes, dziudek, edik, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Erick Hitter, Evan Solomon, Faison, fboender, Frank Klein, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, Gennady Kovshenin, George Stephanis, gnarf37, Gregory Karpinsky, hanni, Helen Hou-Sandi, Ian Dunn, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), Isaac Keyet, J.D. Grimes, Jack Lenox, janhenckens, Janneke Van Dorpe, janrenn, Jeff Bowen, Jeff Chandler, Jen Mylo, Jeremy Buller, Jeremy Felt, Jeremy Herve, Jeremy Pry, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), jhned, jim912, Joan Artes, Joe Dolson, Joen Asmussen, John Blackbourn, John Fish, John James Jacoby, Jon Cave, Joost de Valk, Joshua Abenazer, Junko Nukaga, Justin de Vesine, Justin Sainton, K. Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), Kat Hagan, Kate Whitley, Kelly Dwan, Kim Parsell, Kirk Wight, Konstantin Dankov, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Krzysiek Drozdz, Lance Willett, Lee Willis, lite3, Luc Princen, Lutz Schroer, Mako, Mark Jaquith, Mark McWilliams, Marko Heijnen, Matt Mullenweg, Matt Thomas, Matt Wiebe, Matthew Denton, Matthew Haines-Young, mattonomics, Matías Ventura, megane9988, Mel Choyce, micahwave, Michael Cain, Michael Erlewine, Michel - xiligroup dev, Michelle Langston, Mike Burns, Mike Hansen, Mike Little, Mike Schroder, Milan Dinic, Mohammad Jangda, Morgan Estes, moto hachi, Naoko Takano, Neil Pie, Nick Daugherty, Nick Halsey, Nikolay Bachiyski, ninio, ninnypants, nivijah, nofearinc, Nowell VanHoesen, odyssey, OriginalEXE, Pascal Birchler, Paul de Wouters, pavelevap, Peter Westwood, Piet, Ptah Dunbar, Raam Dev, Rachel Carden, rachelbaker, Radices, Ram Ratan Maurya, Remkus de Vries, Rescuework Support, Ricky Lee Whittemore, Robert Dall, Robert Wetzlmayr, PHP-Programmierer, Rodrigo Primo, Ryan Boren, Samuel Wood, sanchothefat, sboisvert, Scott Basgaard, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, scribu, Sean Hayes, Sergey Biryukov, Shaun Andrews, ShinichiN, Simon Wheatley, Siobhan, Siobhan Bamber (siobhyb), sirbrillig, solarissmoke, Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steven Word, Takashi Irie, Takayuki Miyauchi, Takuma Morikawa, tellyworth, Thomas Guillot, tierra, Till Krüss, TLA Media, TobiasBg, tomdxw, tommcfarlin, Torsten Landsiedel, Tracy Rotton, trishasalas, Tyler Smith, Ulrich, undergroundnetwork, Vladimir, Weston Ruter, Yoav Farhi, yonasy, Yuri Victor, and Zack Tollman. Also thanks to Ben Morrison and Christine Webb for help with the video.

Thanks for choosing WordPress. See you soon for version 3.9!

WordPress 3.8.1 Maintenance Release

After six weeks and more than 9.3 million downloads of WordPress 3.8, we’re pleased to announce WordPress 3.8.1 is now available.

Version 3.8.1 is a maintenance releases that addresses 31 bugs in 3.8, including various fixes and improvements for the new dashboard design and new themes admin screen. An issue with taxonomy queries in WP_Query was resolved. And if you’ve been frustrated by submit buttons that won’t do anything when you click on them (or thought you were going crazy, like some of us), we’ve found and fixed this “dead zone” on submit buttons.

It also contains a fix for embedding tweets (by placing the URL to the tweet on its own line), which was broken due to a recent Twitter API change. (For more on Embeds, see the Codex.)

For a full list of changes, consult the list of tickets and the changelog. There’s also a detailed summary for developers on the development blog.

If you are one of the millions already running WordPress 3.8, we will start rolling out automatic background updates for WordPress 3.8.1 in the next few hours. For sites that support them, of course.

Download WordPress 3.8.1 or venture over to Dashboard ? Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Thanks to all of these fine individuals for contributing to 3.8.1:

Aaron Jorbin, Allan Collins, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Ozz, Aubrey Portwood, Ben Dunkle, Connor Jennings, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, fboender, Janneke Van Dorpe, janrenn, Joe Dolson, John Blackbourn, José Pino, Konstantin Kovshenin, Matias Ventura, Matthew Haines-Young, Matt Thomas, Mel Choyce, Mohammad Jangda, Morgan Estes, nivijah, Scott Taylor, Sergey Biryukov, undergroundnetwork, and Yuri Victor.

WordPress three eight one
We heard you didn’t like bugs
So we took them out

WordPress 3.8.2 Security Release

WordPress 3.8.2 is now available. This is an important security release for all previous versions and we strongly encourage you to update your sites immediately.

This releases fixes a weakness that could let an attacker force their way into your site by forging authentication cookies. This was discovered and fixed by Jon Cave of the WordPress security team.

It also contains a fix to prevent a user with the Contributor role from improperly publishing posts. Reported by edik.

This release also fixes nine bugs and contains three other security hardening changes:

• Pass along additional information when processing pingbacks to help hosts identify potentially abusive requests.
• Fix a low-impact SQL injection by trusted users. Reported by Tom Adams of dxw.
• Prevent possible cross-domain scripting through Plupload, the third-party library WordPress uses for uploading files. Reported by Szymon Gruszecki.

We appreciated responsible disclosure of these security issues directly to our security team. For more information on all of the changes, see the release notes or consult the list of changes.

Download WordPress 3.8.2 or venture over to Dashboard ? Updates and simply click “Update Now.”

Sites that support automatic background updates will be updated to WordPress 3.8.2 within 12 hours. If you are still on WordPress 3.7.1, you will be updated to 3.7.2, which contains the same security fixes as 3.8.2. We don’t support older versions, so please update to 3.8.2 for the latest and greatest.

Already testing WordPress 3.9? The first release candidate is now available (zip) and it contains these security fixes. Look for a full announcement later today; we expect to release 3.9 next week.

WordPress 3.9 Release Candidate 2

The second release candidate for WordPress 3.9 is now available for testing.

If you haven’t tested 3.9 yet, you’re running out of time! We made about five dozen changes since the first release candidate, and those changes are all helpfully summarized in our weekly post on the development blog. Probably the biggest fixes are to live widget previews and the new theme browser, along with some extra TinyMCE compatibility and some RTL fixes.

Plugin authors: Could you test your plugins against 3.9, and if they’re compatible, make sure they are marked as tested up to 3.9? It only takes a few minutes and this really helps make launch easier. Be sure to follow along the core development blog; we’ve been posting notes for developers for 3.9. (For example: HTML5, symlinks, MySQL, Plupload.)

To test WordPress 3.9 RC2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you'll want "bleeding edge nightlies"). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If you'd like to learn more about what's new in WordPress 3.9, visit the nearly complete About screen in your dashboard ( ? About in the toolbar) and also check out the Beta 1 post.

This is for testing,
so not recommended for
production sites—yet.