WordPress 2.0 is now available for download from the newly redesigned WordPress.org. The new release includes many behind-the-scenes changes as well as some front-end AJAX goodness. A Subversion update is the best way to upgrade your existing installation.
My favorite new features:
- Improved user permissions that allow you to select a role instead of a number.
- Better importers. WordPress importers can login to other blogging services and suck out your data, comments and all!
- Abstracted data layer allows future support of various databases and makes plugin development a bit easier.
- Rich post authoring through a WSYIWYG interface and drag and drop post components. You can even add new categories direct from the posting interface. Users may actually prefer to author their posts through the default interface instead of a desktop tool.
- Photo attachments are generated as sub-pages complete with its own comments and tracking.
- Persistent cache. Frequent database queries are cached to disk allowing for faster response times, especially on high-traffic sites.
WordPress 2.0 also includes the Akismet anti-spam plugin in the default install.