WordPress 2.1 Out

From the WordPress blog, WordPress 2.1 has been released. It has a nice set of improvements (detailed on the link above), and comes bundled with "a new version of the Akismet plugin".

Some of the features look to be pretty useful for developers:

You can set any "page" to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else, making it much easier to use WordPress as a content management system.

So, having upgraded half a dozen (that's six) blogs twice in the last couple of weeks, looks like I'll be doing it again. Or, actually, I have WP set up on one of our domains (for design purposes); I'll probably do it there to ensure that the plugins we use are compatible.

The one remaining question (so far, not having tried it!) is whether there are new variables coded into the templates. Keep an eye out at the WordPress forums … but bear in mind that many people don't upgrade correctly, and so experience problems. For me, it goes like this:

• Back up database
• Back up current WP files, if you haven't already
• Delete everything from the server except config.php and wp-content/themes folder*
• Upload everything to the server except the above
• Run site.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php
• If all's well, log in and be happy

* this would indicate that current themes have the correct variables.

HOWEVER, spencerp at the WP forums says:

Before you upgrade from a 2.0.X version, please make sure you have the following!

1) Make sure your MySql version is 4.0.0 or higher!
2) Make sure your plugins are Compatible with 2.1!

Added: Technosailor's 10 Things You should Know About WordPress 2.1:

Update: According to Ryan Boren from WordPress, these variables have been “ressurrected” andplaced in deprecated.php. This is critical as it means that most plugins that may have broke before, will be fine now.

This is interesting, as I was using an interesting SiteMap pluging before, but it didn't work in 2.0.x.