WordPress News Roundup December 2011: WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” Ships with a Drag-and-Drop Uploader and New Toolbar

December 2011 closed the year on a high. WordPress 3.3, codenamed “Sonny” after jazz saxophonist Sonny Stitt, shipped on December 12 after three release candidates. With 3.1 in February and 3.2 in July, it meant the project had delivered the three major releases Matt Mullenweg had set as his goal back in January.

The core team then met in person on Tybee Island, Georgia, to look back on the year and plan for 2012. Outside the project, the fight over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) spilled into the hosting world when GoDaddy faced a customer boycott over its support for the bill.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Investments

No WordPress-related acquisitions or funding rounds were announced in December 2011. The year’s biggest ecosystem deals, GoDaddy’s private equity buyout in July and WP Engine’s Series A in November, were already done.

WordPress Core Updates

• Release candidates: RC1 arrived on December 1. RC2 on December 7 focused on making the new toolbar display consistently across browsers and declared the developer API final, and RC3 followed on December 11 with last-minute fixes.
• WordPress 3.3 “Sonny” (December 12): The release added a drag-and-drop media uploader, hover menus for the admin navigation, a new toolbar that combined the admin bar and header, better co-editing support, a Tumblr importer and better support for iPads and other tablets.
• Help for new users: 3.3 introduced pointer tips that highlight new features after updates, a welcome message for first-time users and revamped help tabs.
• For developers: The release brought a new editor API, wp_editor, an updated jQuery, better ways to hook into help screens and more efficient permalinks that use only the post slug.
• 65 million and counting: The release post noted more than 65 million downloads of WordPress since version 3.0.
• Core team meetup: The project announced an in-person core team meetup on Tybee Island the week after the release, with Mullenweg, Mark Jaquith and Andrew Nacin among the attendees, to review 2011 and set priorities for the year ahead.

Other WordPress News

• WordPress for Android 2.0 (December 21): Automattic released a bottom-up redesign of the WordPress app for Android.
• One-click restores: VaultPress added one-click database restores that moved data directly between servers, so site owners no longer had to download and upload backups by hand.
• Remote work: Responding to a 37signals post about hiring remote workers, Mullenweg wrote that Automattic already worked that way, using P2 blogs, IRC, Skype and Google+ Hangouts across a team of more than a hundred people.

Security Alerts and Plugin Vulnerabilities

December brought no core security release before the 3.3 launch. A cross-site scripting issue affecting 3.3 would be fixed in a maintenance release in the first days of January. For site owners, the main advice was to update to 3.3 and keep plugins and themes current, especially any premium themes still carrying old copies of TimThumb.

Industry Trends and Insights

The SOPA debate became a hosting story in late December. GoDaddy, one of the largest registrars and hosts of WordPress sites, faced a boycott organised on Reddit after it was seen to support the bill. The company said it no longer backed SOPA, but a “Move Your Domain Day” went ahead on December 29, with rival registrar Namecheap promoting the transfers. Reports differed on how many domains actually moved.

• Political awakening: The backlash showed how strongly the web community felt about SOPA. WordPress itself would take a public stand against the bill in January.
• Three releases a year: Hitting three major releases in 2011 showed that a faster, more predictable release cycle was possible, after a single major release in 2010.
• Mobile publishing: The Android redesign and 3.3’s tablet support reflected the growing number of people writing and managing sites from phones and tablets.

Theme of the Month: P2

P2, Automattic’s group blogging theme, turned a WordPress site into a fast-moving discussion board with posting from the front page and live updates. It was central to the way Automattic and the core team worked, as Mullenweg’s remote work post made clear, and it was a practical option for any distributed team.

Plugin of the Month: Advanced Custom Fields

Elliot Condon’s Advanced Custom Fields gave developers a visual way to add custom fields to posts, pages and custom post types. As WordPress was used more and more as a CMS, it became one of the most popular tools for building structured content for clients.

Host of the Month: ZippyKid

ZippyKid, founded by Vid Luther in San Antonio in 2010, was one of a new group of hosts that offered only WordPress. Alongside WP Engine and Pagely, it was part of a managed hosting category that grew quickly as businesses looked for speed and expert support. The company later rebranded as Pressable.

Founder of the Month: Jake Goldman

Jake Goldman founded 10up, a WordPress-focused agency, in 2011. In its first year it built a reputation for high-end client work, and its team, including future lead developer Helen Hou-Sandi, would go on to play a big part in WordPress core development.

Looking Ahead to January 2012

January was expected to bring the first 3.3 maintenance release and the start of planning for WordPress 3.4, informed by the Tybee Island meetup. The SOPA and PIPA bills were heading for votes in Congress, and the WordPress community was preparing to make its opposition heard.