In case you haven’t noticed it yet in your WordPress dashboard, it looks like WordPress 2.8 has officially been released!  Don’t forget if you are currently using WordPress 2.7 or 2.7.1, you can use the one-click upgrade feature built into WordPress to upgrade! 

The changes from WordPress 2.7 aren’t as noticable as they were from 2.6 to 2.7, but it is always worth upgrading to the latest installation in my opinion.   As far as what is new, here is what the WordPress team had to say about the improvements in WordPress 2.8:

Major New Improvements

First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.

The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.

If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.

If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.

Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.

You can view the entire list of changes here.

I know this post is a little late and most of you have probably already noticed this in your WordPress dashboard already, but WordPress 2.7.1 is now available to download.  This update includes at least 68 bug fixes, so it is definitely worth making the upgrade.

As this is the first update in the WordPress 2.7.1 branch, I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that you can now easily upgrade from within your dashboard by going to Tools –> Upgrade.  Those of you waiting to upgrade to the WordPress 2.7.x branch until the first update was available will still need to upgrade manually.

Have you been around since the early days of WordPress?   For those that have, I think you’ll really enjoy a recent post over at Planet Ozh which covers A Journey Through Five Years of WordPress.   For those that are new to WordPress, you may also enjoy Ozh’s post, as it shows just how far WordPress has come over the past 5 years!

Of course, back in 2003, blogging was still in its very early stages as well, so probably the thing I most enjoyed about this post is seeing how well WordPress has grown along with blogging.

Out of curiosity, I thought it might be fun today to see when everyone else started using WordPress.  My first WordPress installation was the start of the WordPress 2.0.x branch.   I used Blogger briefly, tried Typepad, but fell in love with WordPress quickly and the rest is history.

How about you?  What was the first version of WordPress you used?

It was with great excitement that Wordpress 2.7 was released late last week, but what does it mean for you? Well, the admin section has been given a makeover, and now looks a lot slicker. Alongside this, there has been an emphasis on doing everything with a single click. You can see the new interface for yourself:

So, how do you get 2.7? If you installed Wordpress using Fantastico then you upgrade by logging into your Fantastico control panel and selecting “upgrade to 2.7″. Its advisable to backup your database first, but don’t let this put you off upgrading - I’ve just upgraded two sites from 2.5.2 and 2.6.2 to 2.7 via Fantastico with no problems at all. Otherwise, head over to WordPress and download the software.

But why should you upgrade in the first place? 2.7’s visual overhaul makes it so much easier to use; you can rearrange your dashboard and have literally everything at your fingertips. You can reply and moderate comments from the dash (even by keyboard shortcuts!), as well as write new posts directly from the dashboard.

Plugins can be installed by installed by searching the Wordpress.org plugins database with a single click without leaving your site. How cool is that! You can upload plugins from your computer without unzipping them and Wordpress will install them. You can also upgrade your plugins with a single click. Speaking of single click upgrading, your upgrade to 2.7 could well be your last manual upgrade as 2.7 includes a feature that lets you upgrade your Wordpress install with a single click.

With Wordpress increasingly being used for everything, a useful new feature, Sticky Posts, allows you to keep a post at the top of your blog, even if you have more recent posts. In practice, this means if you’re running a competition or something like that, then you can keep attention directed at your big post.

The shiny new interface extends beyond the dashboad, and the focus is very much on moving everything around to suit you. The screen below shows how you can rearrange your post-writing page.

And for those wondering why 2.7 isn’t 3.0 with all of these great additions, according to Weblog Tools Collection, Matt doesn’t want to skip version numbers anymore.

For the complete lowdown, visit the codex.

Finally, this video from the Wordpress team briefly looks through some of the new features

This was a guest post by Alex Denning, who is a Wordpress power user, web design freelancer and currently maintains two sites - Nometet.com and GreenGrassGames.com. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.

This is a quick heads up to WordPress Hacks readers.  Just saw this posted over at our WordPress Forums, so I checked it out and sure enough, it looks like WordPress 2.7 is now showing on the official download page!

So far there hasn’t been an official announcement by the WordPress team, but I would expect to see one within the hour since it is showing on their official download page.

~[Go Download WordPress 2.7]~

Edit: The official announcement was just posted and can be seen here.