Most of the changes in this version are under the hood. The one you'll likely notice the most (unless you're using the full screen editor) is improved speed at which WP updates occur. It leverages an improved file system API and checks that files were actually updated before overwriting them.

Two things broke from 3.1 to 3.2. The jQuery library got an update with incompatible changes, as did the WordPress HTTP API (which I had been monkey-patching).

The jQuery update had no effect any of my own plugins, but it may cause quirks in other plugins. If javascripts related to this or that plugin stop working when you upgrade, please notify the appropriate maintainer.

The HTTP API change broke Version Checker. This means that you should upgrade Version Checker before proceeding to upgrade WordPress. (Upgrade it manually if it's too late, i.e. download it and upload it to your wp-content/plugins folder using FTP.)

Version Checker left aside, there are three noteworthy in the batch of updates that I'm uploading in the background:

• Author Image adds two defines (the documentation should update itself shortly) that allow to customize (from your wp-config.php file) the maximum size of subsequently uploaded author images.
• Widget Contexts had a slight change in its workflow. A page now picks up both the section and the template context. (Previously, it would only respond to one of the two — irrespective of whether the context was significant or nor.)
• Semiologic Reloaded now adds a unique CSS class, to allow for easier skinning.

So, again. Upgrade Version Checker, then safely upgrade WordPress and the rest of Semiologic Pro from within WordPress.

Now that my MySQL cluster is repaired and running again (it had crashed miserably this WE), the key changes are:

• Google Analytics is now using the asynchronous tracker that was released earlier in the year.
• Version Checker no longer checks my SSL certificate's validity, in case I forget to update it on time yet again.
• Semiologic Fixes disables SSL certificate checking altogether when using curl.
• Admin Menu disables the WP 3.1 admin bar on the front end, since the two are using the same screen real estate.

My theme and plugins work fine with WP 3.1 as far as I've been testing to date, and were marked as such accordingly. I've still a few items on my todo list, namely related to Mediacaster (HTML5 compatibility), which will wait for the next batch of updates.

On the WP front, you may have noticed the couple of 3.0.x related security updates. Be advised that the one that led to WP 3.0.4 is potentially nasty and affects older versions of WP. Upgrading is highly recommended — and better now than then.

And, of course, WP 3.1 is right around the corner. The noticeable change is the above-mentioned admin bar, which you may or may not like. I prefer my own, since it gives faster access to management screens, but the WP one is quite sexy too. Again, you'll need to disable my Admin Menu plugin, if you're using it, in order to see what it looks like.

Changes under the hood include more Ajax in the admin area, improved performance on sites with multitudes of users, improved custom post type handling, and updated script libraries.

I highly doubt anything will break on sites upgrading to 3.1 from 3.0 or 2.9, making this a safe upgrade for all sites.

In other news, after going forward and backward for almost a year now, the new backend I'm working on (Postgresql and Symfony/Doctrine-based) is slowly taking shape. I hope to roll it out towards the end of Q1, and I plan to release chunks of it as BSD-licensed code after I test drive it on my end.

Happy New Year!

• When in a multisite environment, some plugin administration screens and features are only available to super admins. This is usually for security reasons — the Script Manager, for instance, requires unfiltered HTML capabilities.
• A few theme and plugin features are disabled entirely when in a multisite environment. The Semiologic theme's custom CSS feature, in particular, since it would end up shared between sites. The filesystem-based static cache is another example, since flushing is rather resource extensive for larger sites.
• I introduced a few UI tweaks, e.g. in Google Analytics, but nothing that should make anyone feel not at home.
• The Semiologic theme supports the new WP 3.0 custom background handling feature.
• Generally speaking, things continue to work as they did in the past for standalone WordPress installations.

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm NOT recommending to jump on 3.0 when it gets released. It's no big deal if you do, and don't worry if you did. If you haven't yet by the time you read this, it's no big deal either if you don't. I'll probably be waiting until this Autumn.

As a reminder, the updated Version Checker will disable the WP upgrade nag if you're running WP 2.9.2. If you wish to give WP 3.0 a try nonetheless, you'll still be able to do so from the WordPress upgrader (Tools / Upgrade).

Happy blogging!

I've published a batch of theme and plugin updates, for those of you who run test sites that are powered by bleeding edge packages. (This is configurable under Settings / Semiologic API Key when Version Checker is enabled.) There probably will be a round two in a week or so.

The most visible changes in WP 3.0 are a menu editor and the multisite functionality. A lot of dust needs to settle on both of these fronts. Don't get overexcited about the second one: maintaining multiple domains using a unique WP installation is for the technically oriented minds only.

WP 3.0 also introduces less visible but nonetheless massive changes in the post publishing and administration flows. These introduce the potential for custom post types. They additionally work around a series of long standing defects. Sadly, both came at the cost of introducing new potential quirks in plugins — and several of my own plugins did, in fact, break because of them.

Considering the extent of these changes, I'll be avoiding WP 3.0 until this winter. The next Version Checker update will let you do the same at your option: if your site is up to date and running WP 2.9.2, you won't see WP upgrade nags until WP 3.1.1. (You can of course upgrade WP under Tools / Upgrade if you still want to.)

Happy blogging!

Here's a graph (hat tip, the Japan Times) that you may want to give thoughts to, if it hasn't occurred to you yet that this new tablet might make you revisit your business model:

Key changes since early January, on the top of my head:

• The Semiologic theme automatically resets its panels when needed (e.g. after weird series of events when previewing and not enabling the theme).
• It also fixes WP 2.9 thumbnail cropping.
• Cache flush fixes in Smart Links and Widgets.
• Sem Cache fixes for Apache 1.3 servers.
• Version Checker now works around quite a few transport problems in WP.
• It also drops theme/plugin update nags when a manual upgrade occurs.

A whole bunch of other minor tweaks also went in.

If you're interested in testing this all on your Semiologic Pro installation, browse Settings / Semiologic API Key to enable bleeding edge packages. And then Tools / Semiologic to upgrade the theme and the plugins. (Upgrade Version Checker first, so as to use the transport fixes where needed.)

In other news:

• I'm still working on my backend. It's not moving forward as fast as I'd like it to. The parts that are nearing completion are very sexy, however.
• WP 2.9.2 got released. Though I'm sure everyone has upgraded already. (It's not a major security issue, so no need to rush on it if you haven't yet.)
• WP 3.0 is making progress. The update is going to be quite massive, from a code-base standpoint. I'll post more details in a few weeks.

In order to spare Semiologic Pro users the hassle of needing to upgrade their sites several times this week, I had been stalling a theme update and a rather large number of plugin updates until WP 2.9.1, i.e. today. As noted in a previous post, these updates are nearly all related to the new and improved Semiologic Cache 2.0.

I've released the latter too while I was at it. If you had been testing it since it was in beta, be sure to upgrade it before you upgrade WordPress. (I fixed a last minute annoyance earlier today, which made the memcache-based object cache prevent the WP database upgrade from working.)

Unless an urgent issue creeps up, our next stop will be the new back-end. WP 2.9 and Semiologic Cache 2.0 have been keeping me busy in the past weeks, not to mention taking a few much needed days off and rehashing UI ideas all over the place. But, it's making progress here and there. More on this later in the month.

A happy new year to all!

On the bright side, WP 2.9 might be the shortest lived major WordPress release yet. WP 2.9.1 RC1 is officially in the wild, a mere 10 days after WP 2.9. At the time of writing, 23 bugs were fixed; over half of them were major.

When it gets released, I'll feel quite comfortable upgrading this site. So should you.

In other news, a large batch of plugin updates are on the way. They'll be released alongside WP 2.9, so you can upgrade everything at once. As previously noted, nearly all of these updates are optimizations that are related to the coming Semiologic Cache 2.0.

Regarding the new cache plugin, special thanks go to Mark (Golf Guide). He has been doing his very best to break the plugin in the past weeks. I'll be releasing RC1 in the next few days. I'll open a forum thread when I do.

To help out with testing at that stage, toggle Bleeding Edge packages under Settings / Semiologic API Key. Be sure to choose a site with moderate importance, rather than a mere test site; the site needs some traffic for the tests to make any sense, but not so much that you cannot afford it to be quirky until we look into it (which can be minutes or hours).

• One major bug was simply dismissed;
• A related critical bug was only partially fixed;
• A last critical bug (and its child bug) crept in at the last moment.

As a result of this:

• RSS widgets are completely broken on servers that are missing both of iconv and multi-byte string functions;
• The curl transport is broken on some servers with an outdated library. This breaks the WP cron, and with it future posting, pings, etc.

Not all sites are affected, of course. Most aren't, in fact. But for those few who are, the situation is frustrating.

Fixing your site

If you have upgraded your sites to WP 2.9 and are experiencing any of these issues, the fix should be a matter of uploading these three patched files to your site(s):

They go in your wp-includes folder; simply overwrite them as needed.

Please note that the fix to the SimplePie/RSS widget problem merely prevents SimplePie from failing when it's trying to convert UTF-8 into UTF-8. The correct fix would be that your host installs multi-byte string functions or iconv on your server.

Big hat tip to miqrogroove, who took the time to formally diagnose the curl problem, and scribu, who identified where the fatal errors in RSS widgets came from.

Customer reminder

As discussed in a previous post, Semiologic Pro users are advised to wait for WP 2.9.1.

Update: all three bugs are fixed in WP 2.9.1, so we'll be good to go with that release.

The latter disables core upgrade nags for non-bug fix WP releases. Experience has shown, in past years, that major WP releases need about an extra month of testing in the wild to be really stable. You can still upgrade, when WP 2.9 gets released, under Tools / Upgrade. But WP won't nag you into doing so.