WordPress 2.4 Release Delayed

wordpress news

According to Weblog Tools Collection, referencing comments and announcements made in the developer mailing list, the much anticipated WordPress 2.4 will be released in March not January.

Indeed, WordPress 2.4 has now been removed from the WordPress Roadmap, and WordPress 2.5 is still scheduled for March 24, 2008.

The reasons appear to be because of the holidays, as well as the amount of changes that need to be made to accommodate the new Administration Panels interface. The decision includes skipping version 2.4 and going straight to 2.5, which was to be released in March.

I’ve been warning my readers on the Blog Herald not to be disappointed if this coming version was delayed. There are a lot of great improvements and features coming, and crowding them in during the busy holiday season is just a little much. This also gives WordPress Theme and Plugin developers time to update their stuff in time for the release in March.

The mandatory update, WordPress 2.3.2, is out and is a required update to fix some security vulnerabilities. The full details of the update include an urgent security release to fix a vulnerability in draft posts, suppression of some errors messages that may put your database at risk, and other bug fixes. Upgrade to WordPress 2.3.2 now.

The buzz around the new backend WordPress Administration Panels is spreading. Tubetorial has a “WordPress 2.4 Administration Panel Preview” video which shows just what has been done to date, with a lot more to come. Hyper SVN has a “live” demo of the new WordPress Administration Panels. Expect many of these sneak previews hitting the web as everyone wants to be the first to show it off.

Remember, the delay in releasing this next version of WordPress means that these sneak previews are not the final design. Things will change a lot as the development continues.

Also expect a few more security releases in the interim which may include some of the new improvements they’ve been working on.

You can keep up with more WordPress news and announcements on the WordPress Wednesday on the Blog Herald.