WordPress 2.7 codename “Coltrane” has been officially released. If you already using 2.7 RC1 or RC2, upgrade to official release is a breeze… just go to Tools>Upgrade. If you are still in 2.6.5 or older, just using previous method, the “Three Step Upgrade” which can be found at codex.wordpress.org.

WordPress 2.7 Screenshot

As usual, before upgrade, please back-up your blog and don’t forget to go to WordPress.org to check compatibility of your theme & plugins. While you are there, also please go to blog post writen by Matt to read more about the story behind WordPress 2.7.

WordPress 2.7 almost come to live. With release of Release Candidate 1, this new version is now in final development stage before official release. For those who try the 2.7 Beta version, they should already know about new UI admin panel, especially vertical navigation vs horizontal navigation in current 2.6.x version.

In This RC1, admin panel even come with new menu icons created by winners of recently WordPress icon design contest. And of course there are bugs fixed for all known bugs from last Beta 3 version.

As this is not official release version, I advise you to use it only for testing or for your wordpress themes/plugins developtment purpose. For the production use, you should use the stable version, currently version 2.6.5. If you have already installed beta 3, you can update to RC1 via the Tools -> Update menu.  Previous Beta version does have a bug in the automatic upgrade that breaks certain setups, so be prepared to download and install RC1 manually if you experience problems.

Want to try? Go download WordPress 2.7 RC1.