WordPress 3.4 Beta 1 was released earlier today by the WordPress dev team. If you’re a web developer, theme/plugin author and would like to try out the upcoming version, then go ahead and get a copy. This version is still in development stage you shouldn’t install it on a live/production site. Rather, install it on a test site, play with it and report any bugs you find.

Here’s some of the new features on WordPress 3.4:

• Theme Customizer with Previewer
• Flexible Custom Header Sizes
• Selecting Custom Header and Background Images from Media Library
• Better experience searching for and choosing a theme

And some of the changes made under the hood:

• New XML-RPC API for external and mobile applications
• New API for registering theme support for custom headers and backgrounds
• Performance improvements to WP_Query by splitting the query (Please test!)
• Internationalization improvements (improved performance and locale support)
• Performance and API improvements when working with lists of installed themes
• Support for installing child themes from the WordPress Themes Directory

The final and stable version of WordPress 3.4 is scheduled to be released in May and if more people help in testing and reporting/fixing bugs, the sooner the final version will be released. Those who want to be beta testers should check out this Codex article.

WordPress theme and plugin authors are encouraged to start following the WordPress 3.4 development cycle so that they can update their themes & plugins and have them compatible with the newest version of WordPress.

Download WordPress 3.4 Beta 1

I know some of you already have had a first hand experience with WordPress 2.7 and installed the beta versions, but for those of you who haven’t tried or seen it, here are a few screenshots of the upcoming version.

Screenshots:

Now that you’ve seen how the upcoming version of WordPress looks like, the question is: Are you ready for WordPress 2.7? I asked you guys a similar question early this year prior to the release of WordPress 2.5. Crazy Horse will not only have new icons and new user interface design, but will also come with a new set of features like keyboard shortcuts, threaded comments, one-click plugin installs and the core update feature (option of downloading, installing, and upgrading to the latest WordPress version from WP Dashboard). Since this version involves a lot changes, you’ll have to make sure that you know everything about it and be ready for the upgrade.

Below is a list of resources that you might wanna check out and read to get yourself ready for WordPress 2.7.

• WordPress Codex – WordPress 2.7 Feature List
• Jacob Santos – 10 WordPress Features You’ll Never Care About
• Technosailor – 10 Things You Need to Know About WordPress 2.7
• Taragana – 16 Must-Know Features in WordPress 2.7
• OP111 – Ten New Features in WordPress 2.7
• Ottodestruct – WordPress 2.7 Comments Enhancements

The Core Update Feature is not compatible or doesn’t work with all web hosting services so you might wanna check if your current web host supports this feature. Core Update Host Compatibility List. Aside from that, you would also probably like to check if your current plugins and themes are compatible with WordPress 2.7, so check out the Plugin Compatibility and Theme Compatibility lists.

I know that upgrading to the latest version of WordPress is strongly advised, however in this case you might want to make sure that your web host, themes and plugins are all compatible before you upgrade your WordPress installation. This will not only save you time but also save you any problems and headaches.

Based on the new features and compatibility issues, are you ready for WordPress 2.7?