WordPress 2.8.1 and the Plugin Competition

WordPress 2.8.1 has been released today. WordPress 2.8.1 fixes several bugs and also a minor security risk that was reported by Core Security Technologies.

Changes in WordPress 2.8.1 over 2.8:

• Certain themes were calling get_categories() in such a way that it would fail in 2.8. 2.8.1 works around this so these themes won’t have to change.
• Dashboard memory usage is reduced.  Some people were running out of memory when loading the dashboard, resulting in an incomplete page.
• The automatic upgrade no longer accidentally deletes files when cleaning up from a failed upgrade.
• A problem where the rich text editor wasn’t being loaded due to compression issues has been worked around.
• Extra security has been put in place to better protect you from plugins that do not do explicit permission checks.
• Translation of role names fixed.
• wp_page_menu() defaults to sorting by the user specified menu order rather than the page title.
• Upload error messages are now correctly reported.
• Autosave error experienced by some IE users is fixed.
• Styling glitch in the plugin editor fixed.
• SSH2 filesystem requirements updated.
• Switched back to curl as the default transport.
• Updated the translation library to avoid a problem with mbstring.func_overload.
• Stricter inline style sanitization.
• Stricter menu security.
• Disabled code highlighting due to browser incompatibilities.
• RTL layout fixes.

In other news, the annual WordPress plugin competition is on in full force. Check out the new entries already available in the plugin competition blog.

If you're a plugin author, remember to read the rules and regulations before you submit your plugin.

Oh, we've sponsored $100 to the plugin competition prizes. There are already more than $3000 in prizes to be won. If you're interested in sponsoring a prize you can send Mark an email.