A new web host has been added to the Free Web Hosts with Free Domain Hosting page. Besides letting you host your own domain with them, this free web host, L4rge, also provides PHP (with limitations), MySQL access, a script installer, and so on. Check it out.
Are you thinking of putting a forum or discussion board on your website, where visitors can chat or discuss topics of relevance to your website? This new page lists free ASP forum scripts that you can install on your site to provide that facility.
Note: if you do not specifically need your forum script to be an ASP script (that is, it can be in any language), please also see the Free PHP Forum Scripts and Free Perl Message Board Scripts pages. You'll have a wider selection that way.
Are you thinking of adding support in your program for searching for a particular piece of text? If so, the free regular expression libraries on this page will allow you to do so in the standard way used by most software, without having to reinvent the wheel. For the puzzled, regular expressions are just a concise way to specify a pattern of text to match.
Note: if you are looking for a search and replace utility so that you can find a file or document containing something you wrote a while ago, you should check out the Free Text Search and Replace Utilities page instead. The libraries page mentioned earlier is meant for programmers, while the utilities page is useful for everyone.
We’ve started work on the first maintenance release to 2.8. 2.8.1 will fix a handful of bugs that turned up in 2.8. Today we’re releasing the first beta of 2.8.1. Download it, and check out the bugs fixed so far. Here are some of the notable issues that are fixed in beta 1.
If you would like to automatically upgrade from 2.8 to 2.8.1 Beta 1, follow these instructions. Thanks for testing WordPress.
A new web-based content management system has been added to the Free Content Management Systems (CMS) PHP Scripts page. It is customizable, supports extensions that you can add to your site (like a blog module, a forum module, a calendar/event module), has a number of themes that you can select to change the appearance of your website, and so on.
For those not sure what Content Management Systems are, they let you create and manage your website from your browser. That is, after you install it on your site, all you need to do is to log into your site from your web browser to add your content, customize the appearance and so on.
A new PDF converter has been added to the Free PDF Converters, Editors and Printer Drivers page. CC PDF installs itself on your system as a pseudo-printer driver. When you print a document from any program, you can select that printer, and it will generate a PDF file for you (instead of sending the document to your printer), thus allowing you to create PDF files from any program that can print. Like all the other PDF converters on the page, it is free.
I’m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 “Baker,” is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist Chet Baker. Here’s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:
The first thing you’ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you’ll dig in you’ll begin to appreciate the changes.
First and foremost, 2.8 is way faster to use. We’ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.
The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.
If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you’ll appreciate the new CodePress editor which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you’re editing linked right below the editor.
If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. We’ve completely redesigned the widgets interface (which we didn’t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don’t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a much cleaner and robust API for creating widgets as well.
Finally you should explore the new Screen Options on every page. It’s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.
You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex. The list is exhausting!
We’re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.
With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete. Download it, test it, and tell us what you think. If you don’t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.
If you’re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the changelog.