WordPress 2.6 is out
WordPress 2.6 is now available for download, with a fantastic array of new features, including:
- Wikipedia-style tracking of changes.
- Support for Gears, to allow static files (stylesheets, images etc.) to be downloaded to your local drive for faster access – though I’m not entirely sure how this differs from having files stored in your browser cache.
- The ability to preview themes before pushing them live.
From my own point of view, I’m not sure that I’ll get a great deal of benefit from any of the major changes, though I do like the automatically updating word count feature, and of course I’m glad to see nearly 200 bugs closed in this release.
As always, my advice is to upgrade as soon as possible, if only to take advantage of the security fixes. Upgrading is fairly simple, though you may need to be careful if you have lots of plugins or themes installed, and of course you should always take a backup of your database and existing installation, just in case something does go wrong. Naturally, if you have a WordPress.com blog, all of this will have been taken care of for you anyway.