Last night Automattic launched version 3.7 of WordPress – codenamed “Basie” in honor of Count Basie.
According to their blog post, here are the big updates WordPress website owners need to be know:
- Auto Updates: With WordPress 3.7, you no longer have to press any buttons to apply future maintenance and security updates. The update process also has been made even more reliable and secure, with dozens of new checks and safeguards. Most sites are now able to automatically apply any of these updates in the background.
- Stronger Password Recommendations: The password meter has been updated in WordPress 3.7 to recognize common mistakes that can weaken your password: dates, names, keyboard patterns (123456789), and even pop culture references.
- Better Global Support: WordPress 3.7 adds support for automatically installing the right language files and keeping them up to date.
- Updated Search: It’s lot more flexible in terms of what combinations of keywords it looks for and how it arranges those results. Search results will now be ordered by relevance rather than date, which will dramatically boosts the quality of the search experience.
For WordPress developers, there are:
- Lots of options around how to control the new updates feature, including allowing it to handle major upgrades as well as minor ones
- More sophisticated date query support
- Multisite improvements
As with other zero point releases, ContentRobot recommends holding off for a few weeks before upgrading your production website. Need help upgrading? Just ask!