Author: John Blackbourn

WordPress 4.1 Release Candidate 3

John Blackbourn

The next release candidate for WordPress 4.1 is now available for testing.

Seventy changes have gone in since the first release candidate. With no known issues left, we plan to release 4.1 tomorrow, December 18.

To test, 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 4.1, visit the updated About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) and also check out the Beta 1 post.

Plugin authors: Remember to test your plugins against 4.1, and if they’re compatible, make sure they are marked as tested up to 4.1. Be sure to follow along the core development blog; we’ve been posting notes for developers for 4.1 as always.

WordPress 4.1 Release Candidate

John Blackbourn

The release candidate for WordPress 4.1 is now available.

We’ve made a lot of refinements over the last few weeks. RC means we think we’re done, but with millions of users and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s possible we’ve missed something. We hope to ship WordPress 4.1 on Tuesday, December 16, but we need your help to get there. If you haven’t tested 4.1 yet, now is the time! (Please though, not on your live site unless you’re adventurous.)

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

To test WordPress 4.1 RC1, you can use the WordPress Beta Tester plugin or you can download the release candidate here (zip). If you’d like to learn more about what’s new in WordPress 4.1, visit the About screen in your dashboard ( → About in the toolbar) or check out the beta announcement.

Developers, please test your plugins and themes against WordPress 4.1 and update your plugin’s Tested up to version in the readme to 4.1 before next week. If you find compatibility problems, we never want to break things, so please be sure to post to the support forums so we can figure those out before the final release.

Be sure to follow along the core development blog, where we’ll continue to post notes for developers for 4.1. (For example: if you’ve written a child theme for Twenty Fifteen, some of the new pagination functions have been renamed for clarity.)

Testing four point one
Why are we up at this hour?
Code is poetry

WordPress 4.1 Beta 1

John Blackbourn

Welcome, everyone, to WordPress 4.1 Beta 1!

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 4.1, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the beta here (zip).

WordPress 4.1 is due for release next month, so we need your help with testing. Here are some highlights of what to test:

  • Our beautiful new default theme, Twenty Fifteen. It’s a clean, mobile-first, blog-focused theme designed through simplicity.
  • A new distraction-free writing mode for the editor. It’s enabled by default for beta, and we’d love feedback on it.
  • The ability to automatically install new language packs right from the General Settings screen (available as long as your site’s filesystem is writable).
  • A new inline formatting toolbar for images embedded into posts.

There have been a lot of changes for developers to test as well:

If you want a more in-depth view of what changes have made it into 4.1, check out the weekly review posts on the main development blog.

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.

Happy testing!

Twenty Fifteen theme
The beautiful face which hides
Many improvements