Track New Features in WordPress 2.6

WordPress 2.6 is in the works and scheduled for release in August 2008, and some cool new features are expected. Though the current version in Wordpress 2.5.1, still developers, early adopters and testers like to experiment with alpha and beta versions.

Tracking WordPress 2.6

1. Test Run WP 2.6 – Wordpress 2.6 is still in very early stages of development, but you can still try it out without messing up your blog. You can check out the WP 2.6-bleeding version using username admin and password demo at http://wp.chrisjohnston.org/wp-admin. He has some Google Adsense ads running there, but WP 2.6 will not have them.

2. Wordpress Trac – If you really need to keep track of bugs, features and development of Wordpress 2.6, visit the Wordpress Trac. You can check the “enhancements” in closed tickets and you will know about completed new features. Check the enhancements in Open tickets and you can see more features in the works.

Did you find some new features there like shift-click to select checkboxes (click a checkbox in gmail and then shift click another checkbox farther down the line to select all the checkboxes in between) or Add Gravatar’s Identicon, MonsterID, and Wavatar support (Set alternatives to Gravatar, like Identicons when there is none. More) or add sorting to gallery items (An attempt to integrate the reorder plugin into wordpress – ability to simply drag and drop to reorganize your images how you want them to appear in your gallery)

3. WP Development Updates – Check out the Wordpress development updates which will inform you about whats new in Wordpress. An example of a new feature I found there was that wp-config.php can be located one-level up from the rest of your WP install if you want to move it out of your doc root.

4. WP testers – Join the WordPress testers mailing list and interact with WordPress testers who test nightly builds, and file bug reports. View the May archive and you can see some interesting developments on contact form and image uploader. There is an SVN mailing list also.

Its interesting to note that Wordpress 2.5.2 might be out soon and what is planned for WordPress 2.7. Keep tracking developments in Wordpress 2.6 and more information will keep leaking via the WordPress blog and Wordpress Planet. How are you tracking WP 2.6 development?