If you’re running WordPress trunk, then you may have noticed a new addition to the plugins screen. A “Beta Testing” tab now lists all available Feature Plugins that are currently ready for testing, including the WP API, Press This, and WordPress Frontend Editor plugins.
Andrew Nacin added the tab to all development builds of WordPress. To be clear, this is a tab meant only for those who are testing the plugins with the bleeding edge versions of WordPress and it will not be rolled into the next release. The Beta Testing tab is also visible if you’re using develop.svn/git.wordpress.org, even if you’re running a stable version of these builds. He chose to omit the WordPress Beta Tester plugin, given that you’re probably already on a beta track if you can view the new tab.
“I could also see us adding a ‘Development’ tab that lists plugins like Debug Bar and Log Deprecated Notices. (Again, only if not on a stable build),” Nacin noted in the ticket. This could be very convenient for developers who want to quickly grab recommended tools, instead of having to remember and search them all individually.
The new Beta Testing tab is a welcome addition and will hopefully get more eyes on new features that are in development for future releases. As long as the screen is regularly updated, developers running WordPress trunk will always know which feature plugins have testing versions available, without having to subscribe to all the development updates.
Cool! That’s a really handy addition. I’ve been missing out on all those fancy new features usually as I haven’t been tracking the core plugin progress very well. This will be a handy place to track down the new ones and to install them when I feel like being a guinea pig :)