A week after WordPress 2.0.7 has been released, the long awaited WordPress 2.1 “Ella” (named for jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald) has been finally released.

Besides over 550 bug fixes, WordPress 2.1 includes the following new features:

•        Autosave makes sure you never lose a post again
•        Tabbed editor allows you to switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post
•        The lossless XML import and export makes it easy for you to move your content between WordPress blogs.
•        Visual editor now includes spell checking
•        New search engine privacy option allows you to hide your blog from search engines like Google
•        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
•        Much more efficient and faster database code
•        Sub-categories support for links in blogroll
•        Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project
•        More AJAX to make managing things in WordPress instant
•        Pages can now be drafts, or private
•        WordPress Admin panel will now load faster and be more visually consistent
•        The dashboard now instantly brings RSS feeds asynchronously in the background
•        Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10
•        Better internationalization and support for right-to-left languages
•        The upload manager lets you easily manage all your pictures, video, and audio
•        A new version of the Akismet plugin (2.0) is bundled

Before trying to upgrade to the latest version of Wordpress 2.1 think about your plugins compatibility issues.
Try to play with it on localhost before messing up with your blog.

You can download Wordpress 2.1 from here.

written by Florin C.