So the much awaited latest version of WordPress – 3.2 was released last July 4th (Independence Day here in the US), only four months after version 3.1 was released. WordPress 3.2 Gershwin which is named after popular composer and pianist George Gershwin, is the fifteenth major release of the software and is now available as an update via the Dashboard or can be downloaded from WordPress.org.
For this version, the dev team focused on making WordPress faster and lighter. It features a refreshed dashboard design, includes the new fully HTML5 Twenty Eleven theme, redesigned post editor, full-screen editing mode and distraction-free writing tool. Other improvements include more admin bar shortcuts for commonly-used actions and new approve & reply feature for comment moderation. In the past, updating your WordPress installation meant replacing/updating all WordPress files. One thing that I really like with the introduction of WordPress 3.2 is that updates (including future WordPress updates) will only update the files that have changed, which will make updating easier and faster.
Below is a video demo or introduction to WordPress 3.2 Gershwin:
As much as I like this new version of WordPress and excited to try it out, it’s my practice to delay the update unless it involves security fixes. The reason for doing this is to give some time for bugs to be discovered and patched which is common for newly released software. That’s why I’ll be giving it a couple of weeks before I dive in and update to WordPress 3.2. For those of you who haven’t updated and plan to do so, take note that the minimum requirements for WordPress 3.2 are PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.
Download WordPress 3.2 Gershwin from WordPress.org and update manually or you can do it the via the WordPress admin panel — Dashboard > Updates. Be sure to backup your WordPress database and deactivate all active plugins before performing the upgrade.
Btw, if you’re using the Arras WordPress theme and encountered a Fatal error while upgrading to WordPress 3.2, check out this post on how to fix it.
Anybody else updated and tried WordPress 3.2? Did you do the automatic update or do it manually? Did you encounter any problems or issues? Please share your thoughts.
Well, the new interface is pretty awesome, but it takes time for us to get used to it.