WordPress 2.6 has been recently released.

While not a security release, you may want to download the new version right away anyways.

There are some very cool new features. Some features WordPress users have been waiting for a long time to see.

Here’s a few of my favorite new WordPress 2.6 features.

Image captions for WordPress!

Finally! Why we had to wait so long for image captions to be added to WordPress I do not understand. This is something that anyone posting photos on their blog should find very useful. I have been wanting and waiting for this since I started using WordPress.

Improved image control in WordPress.

Many have seemed to have problems with images since the last version came out. While I did not have any uploading problems, I have seen a few quirks that were annoying. Hopefully, now getting those images to float where they are supposed to will be much easier.

Word count.

This should help me keep track of the size of my posts a bit better. Sometimes I get shocked to see the length of a post after writting for a while. I think a word count can help you focus on one idea and finish it before a post gets a bit too long and starts to ramble. I believe there is a sweet spot in post length that makes it more readable (I never seem to follow this – maybe word count will help).

Bulk managment of plugins.

I like to deactivate many plugins before updates. There are often several that could cause a problem with a theme or with the new update. Deactivating before the update can make life a bit easier. Until now, you had to wait for the page to reload after each plugin was deactivated. Now you can select more than one at a time. This will make life much easier. Too bad I have to update first to get the feature.

Here’s the WordPress video showing some of the latest enhancements.

 For most users updating should be easy.

In most cases, start by downloading the files to your desktop. Unzip the files and FTP them to the directory you have installed WordPress into. If you have used Fantasitco to install WordPress, you can upgrade as soon as your host upgraded the Fantastico script, or you can do it manually also.