WordPress 3.7 (code named Basie) was released yesterday to a minimal amount of spectacle. Perhaps this was due to the fact that most of the updates for WP 3.7 were under the hood.
When you consider that WordPress 3.6 was released on August 1, 2013, the major release of WP 3.7 from Automattic was the fastest, or shortest, release cycle of WordPress ever.
So, what is new in WordPress 3.7?
Automatic Updates
Maintenance and security updates for WordPress core will now automatically be applied to your WordPress site in the background. This may seem like a scary feature, but those who use Google Chrome are very familiar with this update methodology. And personally speaking, I love it.
Better Password Meter
Who doesn’t need a better password? WordPress 3.7 has stronger password recommendations and will recognize common mistakes that are present in weak passwords, such as dates, names, keyboard patterns, and pop culture references.
Improved Search
It is no secret that WordPress’ stock search functionality wasn’t winning any awards and that is something that the team has addressed. According to one of the more than 435 tickets on the WP 3.7 development cycle, search results are now ordered by relevance rather than by date.
The new WordPress search ordering logic is:
- Full sentence matches in post titles
- All search terms in post titles
- Any search terms in post titles
- Full sentence matches in post content
For WordPress Developers
And for those of you out there, like me, who love to develop on WordPress , WordPress 3.7 is full of goodies for you too:
- Significant improvements to date queries (codex)
- Better accessibility features
- Multisite improvements
- Improved inline documentation (hooray for the code ninjas)
- Bug fixes – Over 435 tickets closed in the WordPress 3.7 build
Excited about WordPress 3.7? Well, you should be. These improvements are great for all WordPress users. But the continued improvement of WordPress doesn’t end with this update. WordPress 3.8 is scheduled for release in December of 2013.
Will you update to WordPress 3.7?
So what do you say? We did!
Download WordPress 3.7 here.