Download WordPress 2.8 Beta 1

WordPress Testers and early adopters can now download WordPress 2.8 Beta 1 and test the new features that promise to make WordPress better and more powerful than before.

There are lots of new features in WordPress 2.8 that are really interesting. Here are a few user features you can look out for

• New Theme Installer routines
• Add CodePress syntax highlighting to Theme and Plugin editors
• Use “Custom Header” for menu text and revise Default theme to reflect change
• Separate Comments into a separate postbox, from Discussion postbox, on the Edit Post screen
• Make tags accessible without Javascript on the edit screen
• Don’t ask for confirmation when marking a comment as spam
• Don’t notify post author of own comments
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns as set via the Screen Options tab
• Add column “Rating” in Administration > Links > Edit
• Improve installer to help people entering wrong email addresses
• Per Page option for plugins
• Show absolute date instead of relative date for scheduled posts
• Autosave post/page when pressing Control/Command+S
• Add toggle all button to the Gallery tab in the uploader
• Support more than one gallery on the same page
• Add per page option to Screen Options for comments, posts, pages, media, categories, and tags
• Show Tools menu for all users so they can access Turbo
• Fix most popular link category list
• Add description field for tags
• “Choose a city in the same timezone as you” for Timezone in Administration > Settings > General
• In upgrade process, provide better explanation for database upgrade message
• Enforce unique email addresses in Add/Edit users
• Hide things that need to be available to screen readers via offscreen positioning
• Use invisible class for hiding labels and legends
• Use a semantic class name for text targeted to screen readers

Download Wordpress 2.8 Beta 1 (.zip) now and try it out. Since its a beta release, don’t try it on your primary blog.