b2evolution 2.3.0-rc1 “Renaissance” has been released.

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This is a Release Candidate. You can consider it to be stable enough to run on any production site. Only minor cosmetic details prevent us from calling this “final"… Anyway, it is a good time to consider upgrading, no matter what version of b2evolution you are currently running. (And if you’re not running b2evo yet, it’s a good time to check it out )

This version brings more than bug fixes over the 2.2-beta. You will also find new widgets, more customization options, a better WordPress importer, a 2.0 version of the Miami Blue skin and – by popular demand – more SEO presets!

In addition to Aaron Wall and Stephan Spencer, this version now includes search engine friendly presets recommended by Andy Beal (Marketing Pilgrim), Michael Gray (Graywolf) and Rand Fishkin (SEOmoz).

New features in 2.3.0 are summarized below:

• Widgets
  
  • Tag cloud widget (fplanque)
  • Comment list widget (yabba)
  • Many additional widget params (yabba)
  • UI enhancements (fplanque, yabba, awall)
• Nofollow handling in comments. Can be disabled on a comment by comment basis. (fplanque)
• Skins: (fplanque)
  
  • Modular templating of comments makes it easier to customize comment display without going through PHP code.
  • WordPress compatibility layer makes it easier to port WP themes to b2evo skins.
  • Miami Blue skin ported to 2.x and included.
  • XML feeds can now optionally include full posts. (fplanque)
• Additional SEO settings:
  
  • Additional presets by Andy Beal, Rand Fishkin and Michael Gray.
  • Additional internal nofollow handling (fplanque)
• Enhanced WP importer (fplanque)
  
  • tag import
  • empty slug handling
• Installer updates (fplanque)
  
  • Better out-of-the-box experience including Blog A being pre-assigned as default.
  • Blogroll added by default to blog A & B.
• Bugfixes (yabba, blueyed, fplanque)

b2evolution 2.2.0-beta "Vegas Again" has been released.

Download here »

Among many incremental improvements and fixes, version 2.2 introduces Search Engine Optimization (SEO) presets, compiled by two of the best SEOs out there: Aaron Wall (SEO Book) and Stephan Spencer (NetConcepts). Check out the SEO tab under "Blog Settings" to see how the SEO experts would optimize your blog. And you can now have it all done in one single click!

Version 2.2 also fixes a lot of small issues with 2.1 and we're now moving towards a stable 2.x release around the end of the year. Don't hold your breath though, with the new skins 2.x, upgrades are much easier than in the past. Playing with the beta will not require redoing any work when the stable comes out.

More detailed change list:

• Photoblog: (fplanque)
  
  • more accurate photo index.
  • better browsing to previous/next post in single post mode
• User interface cleanup (upload, antispam, etc.) (fplanque)
• Date archives, category pages and tag pages: it is now possible to set how many posts are displayed on each of those pages. (fplanque)
• Additional SEO settings (fplanque)
  
  • Presets by Aaron Wall & Stephan Spencer
  • It is now possible to use internal nofollows on specific links (sspencer)
• Normalized skin template names (fplanque)
• Security fixes (blueyed)
• XHTML compliance (yabba, hari)
• Bug fixes (blueyed, afwas, fplanque)