WordPress 3.2, dubbed Gershwin, has arrived and is ready for download, coinciding with the American Independence Day. Nice little touch for GPL software, isn’t it? 😉

What’s New and Exciting in WordPress 3.2?

If you’ve been following WordPress 3.2 development, then you know it’s packed full of goodies. The major new features include:

  • Refreshed dashboard design
  • Fully HTML5 new Twenty Eleven theme with optional rotating header images
  • Distraction-free writing or zen mode
  • Retiring support for PHP4, older versions of MySQL, and legacy browsers like IE6
  • Performance updates to make WordPress significantly faster on all hosting platforms
  • More shortcuts to your most commonly-used actions in the admin bar
  • Comment moderation screen includes the new approve & reply feature to speed up conversation management

Here’s a quick video introduction to WordPress 3.2, courtesy WordPress.tv:

Fancy, isn’t it? I know you’re probably itching to upgrade at your earliest opportunity. I think I’m more excited about Twenty Eleven than I was for TwentyTen. However, if you’re running BuddyPress on your site, you’ll need to be aware of a few extra things.