WordPress 3.8 Beta 1 Released: Break It If You Can

WordPress 3.8 Beta 1 was released tonight right on schedule. The release haiku pays tribute to the new features-as-plugins approach to core development:

Alphabet soup of
Plugins as features galore
The future is here

In stark contrast to 3.7, where many of the greatest improvements were under the hood, WordPress 3.8 incorporates a number of highly visible features. With the addition of MP6, DASH and the THX plugins, the experience inside the WordPress admin has been dramatically updated. In the release post, Matt Mullenweg said, “While this isn’t our first rodeo, expect this to be more beta than usual.” He encouraged users to poke, prod, break things and snoop around at seldom-looked-at pages.

How to Report Bugs

More than 250 issues have already been fixed, but there are tons more known issues waiting to be addressed. You might search there before reporting something as broken. If you think you’ve found a bug, there are a couple of ways to let someone know. If you’re not comfortable filing a ticket on WordPress Trac, Matt recommends using the Alpha/Beta forum. More information on filing a bug report can be found in the WordPress codex.

Now is a good time to start testing the wagon load of new features in 3.8. If you are a plugin or theme developer, you’ll want to take a look at the admin pages produced by your extension. Custom admin pages done wrong can stick out like a sore thumb. Now is your opportunity to make any necessary changes that will help your extension look at home in the new admin design.

The target date for WordPress 3.8 Beta 2 is November 27, just one week away. This will be followed by a code freeze on December 5th and the official release on December 12, 2013.