WordPress 3.9 Release Date Officially Set for April 16th

photo credit: Andrea_R – cc

WordPress 3.9 Beta 3 went out the door today. Andrew Nacin announced the beta and set April 16th as the official release day.

Beta 3 isn’t just a slightly better version of Beta 2. In fact, this third and possibly final beta includes more than 200 changes. Nacin cites several major changes that will be important to test:

More polished versions of the live widget previews and the new theme installer

UI refinements when editing images and when working with media in the editor, including the reinstatement of some of the advanced image display settings

Audio and video playlists – links will appear in the media manager once you’ve uploaded an audio or video file.

HTML5 caption support (#26642) to match the new gallery support (#26697)

Performance updates for the formatting function that turns straight quotes into smart quotes (among other things)

WordPress 3.9 is nearing the station. It’s now time to start identifying and squashing some bugs. WordPress testers of any skill level are welcome to participate in getting 3.9 ready for release.

The easiest way to get started is to set up a test WordPress installation and add the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. Select “bleeding edge nightlies” and start putting the new features through the paces. Report any bugs to the Alpha/Beta forum where Nacin says that friendly moderators are standing by to help facilitate bug reports. If you’ve never tested a WordPress release, this is the easiest way to jump in and make a difference.