b2evolution 2.3.0-rc1 “Renaissance” has been released.
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)