fidzu : WordPress

In this weeks edition of WordPress Weekly, we discussed several topics with WordPress lead developer Andrew Nacin. Ever since the release of WordPress 3.7, many have questioned why auto updates are turned on by default for minor and security updates. Nacin described the philosophy behind the auto update system and why the team will be sticking with its current implementation.

We also learned the details behind the release of a major security update to Jetpack. Last but not least, Nacin describes what it was like to lead the release of 3.9 and what he'll be focusing on now that he won't be leading a release cycle.

Stories Discussed:

WordPress 3.9 "Smith" Released
WordPress 3.9 Has Built-In Support for Pasting from Microsoft Word
BuddyPress 2.0 Released: Big Performance Improvements and New Administration Tools

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday, April 25th 3 P.M. Eastern - Special Guest - Japh

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Listen To Episode #146:

19 Apr 2014 2:29pm GMT

Many of the TinyMCE settings have changed in version 4.0. There is a new default theme: Modern, and all the UI settings for the former Advanced theme (theme_advanced...) are deprecated.

One often used setting was theme_advanced_blockformats. It was renamed to block_formats and keeps the same formatting. To specify a different set of elements for the 'blockformats' drop-down (second toolbar row in the WordPress Visual editor), you can set a string of name=value pairs separated by a semicolon in the initialization object:

block_formats: "Paragraph=p;Heading 1=h1;Heading 2=h2;Heading 3=h3"

Another handy setting: theme_advanced_styles doesn't exist any more. However there is a more powerful version: style_formats. Now it can replace or add items to the new "Formats" menu.The value is an array of objects each containing a name that is displayed as sub-menu and several settings: a CSS class name or an inline style, and optionally the wrapper element where the class or inline style will be set:

toolbar3: 'styleselect',
style_formats_merge: true,
style_formats: { name: 'Custom styles', [
  {title: 'Red bold text', inline: 'b', styles: {color: '#ff0000'}},
  {title: 'Red text', inline: 'span', styles: {color: '#ff0000'}},
  {title: 'Red header', block: 'h1', styles: {color: '#ff0000'}},
  {title: 'Example 1', inline: 'span', classes: 'example1'},
  {title: 'Example 2', inline: 'span', classes: 'example2'}
]}

The above code will add another sub-menu to "Formats" without replacing the default menu items. There is more information and an example on the TinyMCE website.

19 Apr 2014 7:04am GMT

Readers may not always identify with the title that you've chosen for your posts but they may find a gem within your article that is more "quotable" and worth sharing. Quotable is a new WordPress plugin that capitalizes on this, allowing readers to highlight any text within your content to quote the article on Twitter.

The plugin, developed by Josiah Sprague, was partially inspired by the toolbar on Medium.com that enables visitors to tweet or comment on the text they select. Sprague said that he created it out of his love for both WordPress and Twitter:

I love how both platforms make it easy for people to share ideas and communicate openly and freely. I love that both serve as a sort of "public square" of the web and support discourse, democracy and free society.

Quotable adds a tiny Twitter icon to the end of blockquotes for quick sharing. It also works with text highlighting. Readers will often instinctively highlight text that they agree with or are wanting to share. When they do, they'll naturally discover that it's easy to share.

When you click the Twitter bird, a tweet modal will automatically launch with the quoted text inserted. Quotable also integrates with Twitter accounts configured via Yoast's WordPress SEO, which allows you to include Twitter mentions for post authors and suggest following the website's Twitter account.

Let's face it - the comments section of your post is not always the locus of the conversation sparked by your blog. Even if your post is the origin of a hotly debated topic, the conversation often moves to Twitter, and that's OK. This plugin helps you to be ready to follow the conversation wherever it goes, especially if you configure it to automatically mention you, the post author, when a quote gets tweeted.

I tested Quotable with WordPress 3.9 and found that it works as advertised and fits naturally into any theme without being obtrusive. Download it for free from WordPress.org.

18 Apr 2014 11:10pm GMT

We launched Akismet 3.0 just a few days ago and hope that you've already upgraded to enjoy its many new features. One of the nifty items we added to the mix is a seamless activation process using the popular Jetpack plugin.

Let's take a closer look.

If you have Jetpack and Akismet installed and activated on your site - and the Jetpack plugin connected to a WordPress.com account - you will find this new feature in your dashboard via Jetpack → Akismet.

There, you will see which WordPress.com account is connected via Jetpack and an option to activate the Akismet plugin using that very same account.

Click on Use this Akismet account, and you're all set! Of course, you will have the option to disconnect the account at any time from the same page in your dashboard.

And if you want to use a different account to activate Akismet, no worries at all. Simply select the option to register a different email address or manually enter an existing API key.

Digging the new flow? Any problems with it? Drop us a line.

18 Apr 2014 7:40pm GMT

A common support question that's been popping up on the web after WordPress users update to 3.9: What happened to the "Paste from Word" button in the visual editor? If you find that the button is missing, don't worry - it's not a bug. Prior to this update, the button was located in the kitchen sink of the visual editor:

WordPress 3.9, however, removes the "paste from word" button entirely. It includes TinyMCE 4.0 and has better built-in support for pasting in blocks of text for Microsoft Word. The better your software gets, the more the magic happens behind the scenes. WordPress now detects if the pasted text is coming from MS Word and makes the appropriate changes.

Until I saw the question on Reddit, indicating that the button had gone missing, I had no idea that anyone still used this feature. The missing button is actually an enhancement, not a bug. Hopefully this information has reached you before you started deactivating all your plugins.

Unless you had been closely following the posts at make.wordpress.org, this improvement might have been easy to miss. Check out our summary of everything that's new in WordPress 3.9. If you're having any problems with the update, you may want to review some of the known issues with plugins before posting in the support forums.

18 Apr 2014 5:53pm GMT

BuddyPress 2.0 was released this week with many new administrative tools that make it easier to manage communities from the backend. One of the lesser known new features is the ability to limit comment depth in the activity stream.

Activity threads can sometimes get out of control when it comes to replies, which results in the comments box getting progressively squished to an inconveniently small size.

In the past, the only way to change the comment depth was to filter the output of the bp_activity_can_comment_reply() function, but this wasn't very user-friendly for community managers.

Since WordPress already has a built-in setting for comment depth, this was a natural fit for activity comments and did not require adding any new settings. BuddyPress 2.0 now respects WordPress' comment depth settings. You can adjust them in the admin at Settings > Discussion > Other Comment Settings.

In the following example, threaded comments have been set to three. You'll notice that the third comment has no reply link beneath it. Members can still comment on the activity item itself but will not be able to add more than three replies.

This update shouldn't affect the structure of your previous activity comments/replies, but it will be in effect for threaded comments moving forward. If you've been itching to to limit activity comment depth on your BuddyPress site, this new setting makes it easy to set a limit, without having to touch any code.

18 Apr 2014 6:42am GMT

17 Apr 2014 9:58pm GMT

Automattic was created to bring WordPress' open source publishing software to people on a larger scale. The company shares WordPress' mission to democratize publishing. As part of that mission, Automattic published a transparency report, which outlines the number of information requests, takedown demands, and national security requests it has received.

The Transparency Report is located on a new site which helps users to navigate what will likely become a large archive of information, as Automattic plans to publish a new report every six months. This report will keep users informed about which governments are making requests and policies for responding to them.

Writing on behalf of Automattic, Jenny Zhu summarized the company's policy regarding information requests:

Our policy is to notify you of any information request we receive regarding your account, so that you may challenge the request. The only exception is if we are prohibited by law (not just asked nicely by the police) from making such a notification.

Automattic is Committed to Actively Pushing Back Against Requests That Violate Freedom of Speech

Historically, Automattic has demonstrated its support for freedom of speech by raising awareness about the First Amendment, even taking to the courts to stand with users against DMCA abuse. The company also recently joined forces with other organizations around the globe to protest NSA surveillance.

Through its statement today, Automattic emphasized that it will push back against requests that constitute infringements on freedom of speech:

We also carefully review all legal requests we receive and actively push back on those that are procedurally deficient, overly-broad, or otherwise improper (i.e., those that target non-criminal free speech).

The US Government Represents 60% of the Information Requests

Russia, not known for its support of free press, leads the way in takedown demands with 88% of the total requests received by WordPress.com. The United States, however, far and away leads in the number of user information requests from governments and law enforcement agencies from July 1 - December 31, 2013.

While most of the countries listed have submitted a handful of requests, the US government sent 20 requests, specifying 29 different sites. In 60% of those requests, some or all information was produced. The requests shown here do not include those related to litigation and civil proceedings.

Automattic specifies that the company will only turn over private user information upon receipt of valid US legal process. Requests that originate from outside the US are required to be served through a US court or enforcement agency.

The company is not permitted to disclose very much regarding national security requests, despite wishing they could:

Finally, we're reporting the maximum amount of information allowed by law about the number and type(s) of National Security Requests that we received. The disclosures we're currently allowed to make are limited, and unfortunately, we're not permitted to paint a more truthful picture.

The Transparency Report makes it clear that Automattic will not tolerate censorship of its users and is committed to disclosing as much information related to government requests as they are permitted. Many governments are ruthless about extracting information from citizens, even when it comes at the expense of the people they serve. Given that the United States leads the pack in information requests, it's reassuring to know that WordPress.com, one of the most highly trafficked sites in the US and around the globe, is committed to standing against any request that violates users' freedom of speech.

17 Apr 2014 8:43pm GMT

After the release of WordPress 3.9, I decided to help out in the support forums since they usually become busy soon after a release. Providing support in the WordPress.org forums gives you a clear indication on how well a release is being received and whether or not anything major broke. After spending five hours in the support forum, here are some common issues being reported by users.

Visual Editor Disappeared Or Is Broken

A lot of users are reporting that the visual editor has either disappeared or is broken. Considering the number of changes that took place with TinyMCE in 3.9, this is not surprising. In most cases, having users go through the following process solved the problem.

1. Deactivate ALL plugins.
2. Switch to default TwentyFourteen theme.
3. Manually empty browser cache.

If the visual editor doesn't work after disabling all plugins and switching to the default theme, there could be a JavaScript issue. Follow these instructions to diagnose JavaScript errors in your browser. Then, open up a new support forum thread and make sure to add the following information:

• the browsers that you are experiencing the problem in
• whether SCRIPT_DEBUG fixed the error or not
• the JavaScript error
• the location of the error - both the file name and the line number
• the context of the error - including the whole error stack will help developers

This detailed information will help volunteer moderators determine the best way to solve your problem.

Master List Of Known Issues

Themes and plugins confirmed to be the cause of the problem are documented and added to the master list of known issues with WordPress 3.9. So far, the list of plugins is up to eight with at least one in the process of being fixed.

• MailPoet Newsletters - Issue with outdated TinyMCE plugin in version 2.6.3, disabling plugin fixed Visual Editor problem. MailPoet is already working on a fix for the TinyMCE issue in the next versions 2.6.4 (for post editor screen) and 2.6.5 (for newsletter editor).
• ZipList Recipe Plugin - Version 2.2 has a problem with the post editor in both Visual and Text mode.
• Zedity - Version 3.1.0 causes the Visual Editor to break.
• Enhanced Media Library - Version 1.0.4 doesn't show any media in the media library when the Add Media button is clicked
• SoundCloud Is Gold - Version 2.2.1 disables the Visual editor and prevents text from being entered
• Ultimate NoFollow - Version 1.4.1 doesn't allow links to be inserted in the visual editor
• Admin Tweaks - version 2.3.8 causes the visual editor to white out.
• Qtranslate - version 2.5.39 causes the media uploaded not to function

The support team tries their best to help everyone with any WordPress problem even if it's for a commercial theme or plugin. However, due to the great variety of existing themes and plugins it is nearly impossible to know everything. Your best option is to contact the developer for support. It's always best to go to where the theme/plugin is officially supported when trying to get support.

How To Create An Audio Playlist

A few users have asked where the link is to create an audio playlist. In order to see the link to create an audio playlist, you either need existing audio files within the media library or you need to add them. It's worth noting that if you host your media files on a content delivery network that's not synchronized with the WordPress media library, you won't be able to take advantage of the playlist feature.

Easy Way To Add Borders and Padding To Images Removed

Although WordPress 3.9 has refined the media editing experience, it did so at the cost of removing a feature users appreciated. In WordPress 3.8, users could easily add a border, vertical, and horizontal padding to images. WordPress 3.9 has removed this from the advanced image settings screen.

It's not just those who use the self-hosted version of WordPress that are upset with the change. A WordPress.com support forum thread with over 430 posts is filled with users asking why the feature was removed. In some cases, WordPress.com staff are explaining how to use HTML code to add or remove borders to images. It's possible that a plugin will soon be released that will restore this feature.

Use Patience When Asking For Support

Since WordPress 3.9 is a major upgrade, please exercise patience when requesting support on the forum. This guide on the Codex does a great job explaining how to get your question answered. Last but not least, if a volunteer helps solve your problem, say thank you. During my five-hour support stint, I realized first-hand that providing support is a thankless job. Reading thank you notes and seeing users express joy from having their problem solved gave me the energy to keep on going.

I encourage you to take 15-20 minutes to browse the support forum and help out where you can. Not only will you get a better understanding of problems users are facing, but you'll learn a lot in the process. To anyone who's taken the time to answer a support question on the forum, thank you!

17 Apr 2014 7:45pm GMT

16 Apr 2014 9:10pm GMT

One of the improvements in WordPress 3.8 was the responsive dashboard. Thanks to this improvement, the option to select the number of columns to display dashboard widgets was removed. The dashboard now shows the appropriate number of columns using the available screen real estate. Unfortunately, for those using wide-screen monitors, this usually means 4-5 skinny columns. In the screenshot below, you can see that even if a column doesn't have a widget assigned to it, the column remains in place.

The issue was brought up by Chris Jenkins shortly after the release of WordPress 3.8. WordPress core developer Mark Jaquith agreed that "dashboard widgets should be able to specify a min-width, such that they span multiple columns if WordPress tries to make them smaller than that." Jaquith created a ticket suggesting a fix but so far, a patch has not been created.

Since the ticket was created, Jenkins has developed and released a plugin called Two Column Admin. When activated, the plugin restores the ability to select 1 or 2 columns to the screen options tab. The downside to using this plugin is that selecting two columns will disable the responsiveness of the dashboard widgets. Instead of merging into one column when the screen size gets smaller, the two columns will crash into each other.

Matt Beck responded to the ticket with a good suggestion in lieu of the column option returning:

Best case scenario would be for the number/width of columns to adjust to the number of active dashboard widgets instead of displaying the empty drag/drop areas. In lieu of that, some mechanism to specify either column-count of a widget intended to be wide and/or better yet - maximum number of columns to display on the dashboard would be great.

After being stuck with four columns since the release of 3.8, I've forgotten how nice it is to have wide dashboard widgets. I'm hopeful that in the future, the ability to specify the number of columns in the dashboard returns as I prefer three, not four columns.

How many of you would like to be able to specify a specific amount of columns versus the current implementation?

16 Apr 2014 7:30pm GMT

Now that BuddyPress 2.0 has been released, the core development team is refining its workflow to make use of Grunt, the Javascript task runner that the WordPress project adopted last year. The BuddyPress development trunk will be adopting a similar Grunt-powered build system that will automate many tedious tasks.

The BuddyPress trunk will be reorganized to include a /src directory for BuddyPress, minus bbPress 1.1 and the BP-Default theme, which will be removed. The /tests directory will house the phpUnit tests. Travis-CI and configuration files for tests will be moved to the root.

Who Is Affected?

The reorganization of the trunk will not affect production releases of BuddyPress, so for most ordinary users nothing will change. BuddyPress core contributor Paul Gibbs specified who will be affected by the changes in his post on the development blog. The changes concern you if:

• You develop plugins for BuddyPress
• You are a core contributor
• You run a checkout of trunk on a production site

While this cross section of affected users represents just a handful of BuddyPress developers, the good news for everyone is that both core and extension development will become more efficient. That means that improvements and new plugins are likely to reach you faster than before.

How Will Grunt Make BuddyPress Development More Efficient?

Grunt will reduce the amount of manual labor that developers put into contributing to the BuddyPress core and creating plugins. The task runner will handle all of the following:

• Validate and lint CSS/JS
• Generate right-to-left CSS
• Compress images
• Run unit tests
• Generate the .pot file for internationalization
• Check for missing text domains
• Make it easier for developers to apply patches from BuddyPress Trac for testing

The core team may add to this list in the future. If you want to get involved in the discussion or keep an eye on the "grunt-ification" of the BuddyPress trunk, there's a trac ticket open where updates will be posted. Core contributors and developers running a checkout of trunk on production/development sites will want to stay tuned for any changes that might affect your workflow.

16 Apr 2014 7:16pm GMT

WordPress 3.9 "Smith" is now available, just four months after the release of 3.8. This release continues the strategy of developing features as plugins first. Widgets Customizer by Westonruter is the only plugin that was developed and merged into WordPress this time around. Much of the work in WordPress 3.9 is an improvement of features added in earlier versions. Without further ado, let's take a look at what this release has to offer.

New: Create Audio/Video Playlists

Building upon the addition of audio and video in WordPress 3.6, WordPress 3.9 offers a lot of enhancements. For starters, you can now create audio playlists. You can also add multiple sources to help with cross-browser compatibility. Managing multiple sources is easy thanks to an improved workflow. WordPress now has subtitle support for videos as long as you supply the appropriate files. This post by HTML5Doctor explains how to create the proper files to add subtitles to videos.

Searching For WordPress Themes Has Never Been Easier

The theme browsing experience in WordPress 3.8 has been significantly improved in 3.9. The new theme browser features large preview images, indicators on which themes you already have installed, and fast-loading previews. Browsing and installing new themes in WordPress has never been easier.

Crop and Edit Images From Within The Visual Editor

Images are easier to edit and remove from posts. Simply click on the image within the visual editor and select the pencil icon. This will launch the image details screen. From here, you can quickly edit the details of the image and if you select the Edit Original button, you'll be able to crop, flip, and change the image size. You can also drag and drop images right into the editor. Alternatively, you can crop and edit an image from within the visual editor.

Instead of seeing a placeholder, galleries can now be previewed as a grid within the visual editor. You cannot yet drag images around to change the display order, but this feature is expected to be added in a future update.

Live Widget Previews

You can now preview changes to widgets in real-time thanks to the theme customizer. Gone are the days of having to refresh the page every time you want to preview a change to a widget.

A New Streamlined Post Editor

The post editor in WordPress 3.9 has been updated to use TinyMCE 4.0. The update provides the following enhancements:

• New UI and UI API.
• New theme.
• Revamped events system/API.
• Better code quality, readability and build process.
• Lots of (inline) documentation.

The Paste from Word button has been removed. When text from Microsoft Word is pasted into WordPress, the editor will automatically strip out the special formatting. The distraction free writing mode button is now on the right side of the editor. Distraction free writing mode is also responsive. The changes to the editor are a noticeable improvement when compared to WordPress 3.8.

oEmbed Support Added For Meetup and Imgur

Publishing content from either Meetup.com or Imgur is now as simple as pasting the URL into the editor. Meanwhile, oEmbed support for Qik has been removed.

Take A Tour Of WordPress 3.9

Michael Pick does a great job showing and explaining the new features in WordPress 3.9.

Important Information For WordPress Developers

There are a lot of under-the-hood improvements in WordPress 3.9. Over the past two-weeks, those responsible for adding specific features to WordPress have written detailed blog posts on the Make WordPress Core development blog. Here is a list of noteworthy items you may have missed.

HTML5 Galleries and Captions in WordPress 3.9 - WordPress 3.6 introduced HTML5 versions of popular template tags, starting out with comments, the comment form, and the search form. With the 3.9 release the team added galleries and captions to that list. Now, when adding HTML5 support for those features, WordPress will use <figure> and <figcaption> elements, instead of the generic definition list markup.

Symlinked Plugins in WordPress 3.9 - One of the cool little features included with 3.9 is the ability to symlink plugin directories. While it has been possible to symlink plugins in the past, functions such as plugins_url() return the wrong URL, which causes breakage in most plugins. The team has corrected this with the help of a new function.

Plupload 2.x in WordPress 3.9 - Plupload is the library that powers most of the file upload interfaces in WordPress, and in 3.9 the team has updated the bundled library to version 2.1.1. This post lists some of the things that have changed, which may affect WordPress plugins and themes.

MySQL in WordPress 3.9 - In WordPress 3.9, we added an extra layer to WPDB, causing it to switch to using the mysqli PHP library, when using PHP 5.5 or higher. For plugin developers, this means that you absolutely shouldn't be using PHP's mysql_*() functions any more - you can use the equivalent WPDB functions instead.

Masonry in WordPress 3.9 - If you use Masonry in your themes or plugins, here's what you should know about the 3.9 update.

TinyMCE 4.0 Requires text/css For Editor Style Files - As of TinyMCE 4.0, the visual editor iframe now has an HTML5 document type (DOCTYPE html>). In this scenario, CSS files must be served with the text/css content type. A server will serve a *.css file with the proper content type, but if you're using a PHP file for an editor style file, you need to be the one to do it.

Multisite Changes In 3.9 - Much of the bootstrap code for Multisite in ms-settings.php has been refactored in #27003 with the intent to improve how we handle the detection of domains and paths for sites and networks in core. Several other smaller enhancements and bugs have been completed in this and in other tickets.

jQuery UI and wpdialogs in WordPress 3.9 - WordPress 3.9 does not use the "wpdialogs" TinyMCE plugin as part of the TinyMCE 4.0 update which comes with a new dialog manager.

Thanks To Everyone Who Contributed To 3.9

Although 3.9 doesn't have a lot of new features, the refinements to existing functionality are just as satisfying. I'm happy to see a release where the focus was more on improving what WordPress already has versus adding new functionality. Even though the live previews of widgets is my favorite feature, several of the pesky bugs that were squashed are a close second.

WordPress wouldn't be what it is today without all of the awesome contributions from the community. Thanks to everyone who helped make 3.9 a reality! This release was led by Andrew Nacin and Mike Schroder. There are 267 contributors with props in this release, which is a new high for WordPress.

What is your favorite feature or enhancement in WordPress 3.9?

16 Apr 2014 6:34pm GMT

Version 3.9 of WordPress, named "Smith" in honor of jazz organist Jimmy Smith, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. This release features a number of refinements that we hope you'll love.

A smoother media editing experience

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Gallery previews

Galleries display a beautiful grid of images right in the editor, just like they do in your published post.

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Do more with audio and video

Ain't Misbehavin' Davenport Blues Buddy Bolden's Blues Squaty Roo Dixie Blues Wolverine Blues

Images have galleries; now we've added simple audio and video playlists, so you can showcase your music and clips.

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Live widget and header previews

Add, edit, and rearrange your site's widgets right in the theme customizer. No "save and surprise" - preview your changes live and only save them when you're ready.

The improved header image tool also lets you upload, crop, and manage headers while customizing your theme.

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Stunning new theme browser

Looking for a new theme should be easy and fun. Lose yourself in the boundless supply of free WordPress.org themes with the beautiful new theme browser.

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The Crew

This release was led by Andrew Nacin and Mike Schroder, with the help of these fine individuals. There are 267 contributors with props in this release, a new high:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Harley, Adam Silverstein, adelval, Ajay, Akeda Bagus, Alex Concha, Alison Barrett, Allan Collins, Amy Hendrix (sabreuse), Andrea Fercia, Andrew Nacin, Andrew Norcross, Andrew Ozz, Andrey "Rarst" Savchenko, Andy Keith, Andy Skelton, Anton Timmermans, Aubrey Portwood, Barry, Bartosz Romanowski, bassgang, bcworkz, Ben Dunkle, Bernhard Riedl, bigdawggi, Bob Gregor, bobbingwide, Brad Touesnard, bradparbs, bramd, Brandon Kraft, brasofilo, bravokeyl, Bryan Petty, cgaffga, Chirag Swadia, Chouby, Chris Blower, Chris Olbekson, Chris Scott, chriseverson, chrisguitarguy, Christopher Finke, ciantic, cmmarslender, Comparativa de Bancos, Connor Jennings, Cor van Noorloos, Corphi, cramdesign, Daniel Bachhuber, Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater), Danny de Haan, Daryl Koopersmith, Dave Kellam (eightface), DaveE, David A. Kennedy, David Anderson, David Marichal, Denis de Bernardy, Dion Hulse, Dominik Schilling, Doug Wollison, Drew Jaynes, DrProtocols, Dustin Filippini, eatingrules, edik, Elio Rivero, enej, Eric Andrew Lewis, Eric Mann, Erica Varlese, Erick Hitter, Evan Anderson, Fahmi, fboender, Frank Klein, Gary Cao, Gary Jones, Gary Pendergast, genkisan, Gennady Kovshenin, George Stephanis, Graham Armfield, Grant Mangham, Gregory Cornelius, Gregory Karpinsky, hakre, hanni, Helen Hou-Sandí, ippetkov, Ipstenu (Mika Epstein), J.D. Grimes, Jack Reichert, jameslee, Janneke Van Dorpe, janrenn, JayCC, Jeff Sebring, Jen Mylo, Jeremy Felt, Jesin A, Jesper Johansen (jayjdk), jnielsendotnet, Joan Artes, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, John James Jacoby, John P. Bloch, John Regan, Jon Cave, Jonas Bolinder (jond3r), Joost de Valk, Josh Pollock, Joshua Abenazer, jstraitiff, Julio Potier, Justin Kopepasah, Justin Sainton, K.Adam White, Kailey (trepmal), Kaspars, Kelly Dwan, kerikae, Kevin Worthington, Kim Parsell, Kirk Wight, kitchin, klihelp, Knut Sparhell, Konstantin Kovshenin, Konstantin Obenland, Krzysiek Drozdz, Lance Willett, Lee Willis, lkwdwrd, lpointet, Luc De Brouwer, Lucas Karpiuk, Mark Barnes, Mark Jaquith, Marko Heijnen, Marventus, Matt (Thomas) Miklic, Matt Banks, Matt Mullenweg, Matthew Boynes, Matthew Denton, Matthew Haines-Young, mattonomics, mattyrob, Matías Ventura, Max Cutler, mcadwell, Mel Choyce, meloniq, Michael Arestad, Michel - xiligroup dev, Miguel Fonseca, Mike Burns, Mike Hansen, Mike Manger, Mike Schinkel, Mike Schroder, mikecorkum, mitcho (Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine), Mohammad Jangda, Morgan Estes, Morten Rand-Hendriksen, Naoko Takano, Nashwan Doaqan, nendeb55, Nick Halsey, Nicole Arnold, Nikhil Vimal (NikV), nivijah, nofearinc, Nuno Morgadinho, olivM, Omer Korner, OriginalEXE, oso96_2000, patricknami, Paul Gibbs, Paul Wilde, pavelevap, Pbearne, Peter Westwood, Philip Arthur Moore, Pippin Williamson, Prasath Nadarajah, prettyboymp, Raam Dev, rachelbaker, Ram Ratan Maurya, ramonchiara, Rescuework Support, Rhys Wynne, Ricardo Correia, Richard Sweeney, Richard Tape, richard2222, Ricky Lee Whittemore, Robert Chapin, robmiller, Rodrigo Primo, romaimperator, roothorick, ruud@joyo, Ryan Boren, Ryan McCue, salcode, Samuel Wood (Otto), Sandeep, Scott Lee, Scott Reilly, Scott Taylor, ScreenfeedFr, scribu, sdasse, Sean Butze, Sean Hayes, Sean Nessworthy, Sergey Biryukov, shahpranaf, Shaun Andrews, ShinichiN, Simon Prosser, Simon Wheatley, Siobhan, Siobhan Bamber (siobhyb), sirzooro, solarissmoke, sonjanyc, Spencer Finnell, Spencer Piontkowski, stephcook22, Stephen Edgar, Stephen Harris, Steve Bruner, Steven Word, Takayuki Miyauchi, Tanner Moushey, Taylor Lovett, tbrams, tellyworth, TobiasBg, Tom Auger, Tom Willmot, Topher, topquarky, Torsten Landsiedel, Toru, Travis Smith, Umesh Kumar, undergroundnetwork, VarunAgw, wawco, Weston Ruter, wokamoto, xsonic, Yoav Farhi, Yuri Victor, Zach Tirrell, and Ze Fontainhas. Also thanks to Michael Pick for producing the release video.

If you want to follow along or help out, check out Make WordPress and our core development blog. Thanks for choosing WordPress. See you soon for version 4.0!

16 Apr 2014 6:33pm GMT

BuddyPress 2.0 "Juliana" arrived on schedule today, less than a week after the plugin crossed two million downloads. This release focused heavily on improving BuddyPress performance, adding new administrative tools and enhancing the activity stream. It's named for Juliana's Pizza in Brooklyn, NY, a pizza joint that is special to members of the core development team.

Performance Improvements

One of the major highlights of this release is the massive improvement in performance, especially as it relates to Members and Activity directories. BuddyPress 2.0 improves MySQL efficiency, decreasing queries by up to 75% and reducing query time by up to 71%, depending on the your site's hosting environment. If your site uses advanced caching systems, such as APC and Memcached, expect a performance increase here, as 2.0 completely overhauls how these are utilized.

New BuddyPress Administration Tools

BuddyPress 2.0 introduces a host of new administration tools that make it easier to manage communities. Administrators can now edit member profiles in the WordPress admin. This release also ships with a new signups administration screen that allows administrators to track the status of pending accounts and facilitate the signup process.

Community managers will be pleased to know that version 2.0 provides better spam management capabilities with the ability to mark users as ham/spam within the admin users panel, a feature that was previously only available on multisite installations.

Version 2.0 includes a handy new "Repair Tools" menu at Dashboard > Tools > BuddyPress. This menu makes it easy to correct data that can sometimes get out of sync on BuddyPress sites.

Improved Activity Stream

The activity stream has received a few enhancements in 2.0. It will now automatically let you know when new items are ready to be loaded. It's also much better integrated with blog posts. Comments are synced across blog-related activity items and the actual post itself. This unifies conversations that take place in different areas on a BP site.

The activity stream will also play better with translations. Given that roughly half of BuddyPress installs are in a language other than English, this is a nice update. Check out this demo video created by Bowe Frankema to see how that works.

Improvements in BuddyPress 2.0 help the social features to really shine and make community management more efficient for administrators. The plugin has come a long way since version 1.0 was released almost five years ago. The BuddyPress community has grown and thanks to the work of 42 volunteer contributors, 2.0 is ready for download today. Check out the full 2.0 changelog to see everything that's new and improved.

16 Apr 2014 3:53pm GMT

The BuddyPress team is thrilled to announce that BuddyPress 2.0 "Juliana" is now available!

This release focuses on administrative tools, performance, and improvements to the activity stream. Let's take a look at some of the highlights.

New Administrative Tools

If you manage a BuddyPress-powered community, BuddyPress 2.0 is for you. We have built a number of new tools that simplify and centralize common administrative tasks:

• Profile editing - Need to manage a user's profile information? We've integrated a new "Extended Profile" tab into the Dashboard > Users interface, where you can manage profile data, avatars, user status, and more.
  
• Spam User Management - WordPress Multisite has long had the ability to manage spam users from the Dashboard. We've brought the same capabilities to non-Multisite installations.
  
• Pending Users - The Pending users tab in Dashboard > Users lets you see a list of signups that have not yet been activated. You can also perform useful tasks like manual account activation and resending activation emails.
  
• Repair Tools - Occasionally, BP friend counts and other data can get out of sync. The new Tools screen lets admins manually reset these values.
  

Performance Improvements

The most successful BuddyPress sites are highly dynamic, with a steady stream of new visitors and new content. This dynamic nature means that BuddyPress is a highly database-driven platform, and database performance is often a bottleneck when it comes to scaling BP sites. BuddyPress 2.0 tackles this problem head-on. We've streamlined some of the most common problematic queries - such as those in the Members and Activity directories - to shave up to 95% of the query time off of certain individual queries. The sheer number of queries has been dramatically reduced as well, so that single page views access the database up to 50% less than in BP 1.9. And we've totally overhauled the way that BuddyPress utilizes advanced caching systems like APC and Memcached, so that users of these systems will see up to 75% fewer cache misses on costly queries.

If you're a BuddyPress developer or site administrator, you can get more in-depth explanation of changes and an overview of selected benchmarks in this post on bpdevel.wordpress.com. If you are a BuddyPress user, you can just sit back and enjoy the speedier pageloads and reduced server overhead of your BuddyPress 2.0 site!

Activity Stream Enhancements

Spend a lot of time viewing the activity stream? BuddyPress 2.0 automatically lets you know when new items are ready to be loaded.

The activity stream is better integrated with blog posts, too. Comment on a blog post, and an activity item is posted. Comment on a blog-related activity item, and a blog comment is posted. No more worrying about fractured conversations.

We've also reworked the way that phrases like "Boone posted an update" are handled, so that they're always up-to-date and always translatable.

And much more

BuddyPress 2.0 introduces dozens more small features, and fixes scores of bugs. We've compiled a complete 2.0 changelog on the BuddyPress Codex.

Juliana is Number Two

BuddyPress 2.0 is named for Juliana's Pizza in Brooklyn, NY. Juliana's is the second pizza establishment opened in the same location by master pizzaiolo Patsy Grimaldi (it's a long story), and was also the locale for a serious BuddyPress powwow and up-close dining experience by two members of the core team. For these reasons (not to mention the outstanding pizza) we think that BuddyPress 2.0 "Juliana" has a special ring to it.

Thanks, thanks, and more thanks

BuddyPress is built, with love, by a worldwide network of volunteers. The following people contributed patches during the BuddyPress 2.0 development cycle:

boonebgorges, Bowromir, burakali, chouf1, cmmarslender, danbp, dcavins, Denis-de-Bernardy, DJPaul, ericlewis, glyndavidson, graham-washbrook, henrywright, henry.wright, hnla, imath, johnjamesjacoby, karmatosed, lenasterg, MacPresss, markoheijnen, megainfo, mercime, modemlooper, mpa4hu, needle, netweb, ninnypants, Pietro Oliva, pross, r-a-y, reactuate, rodrigorznd, rogercoathup, rzen, SergeyBiryukov, shanebp, SlothLoveChunk, StijnDeWitt, terraling, trishasalas, tw2113, vanillalounge.

Many thanks to these contributors, and to all who have pitched in the forums and elsewhere.

One final point. Technically, BuddyPress "2.0″ is just the version between 1.9 and 2.1. But still, there's something special about crossing into the 2.x series, especially given the timing: we just crossed 2 million downloads, and it's been almost exactly five years since BuddyPress 1.0 was released. On behalf of the core team and contributors, I'd like to extend a few special thanks: to founding developer Andy Peatling for getting the ball rolling; to Matt Mullenweg for providing support to the BuddyPress project; and especially to the many thousands of BuddyPress users who have followed and advocated for the project over the years. If BP has done great things for the thousands of communities that depend on it (and I think it has), it's because of the incredible community around the software itself. A million Two million thanks to all of you.

Upgrade Today

You can get BuddyPress 2.0 from the wordpress.org plugin repository, or right from your WordPress Dashboard.

As always, questions, comments, bug reports, feature requests, and general laudatory remarks can be directed toward our support forums or our development tracker.

16 Apr 2014 2:48pm GMT