WordPress 2.0 Beta 1 has been released. I’ve downloaded and installed it on my server at home and it seems to work fine. It looks a lot like the interface for Wordpress.com.

The functionality of the admin section seems to be basically the same, with a few changes. There’s no changelog released yet, so no telling exactly what’s new, but I imagine that there’s a lot of code changes and bug fixes, but I’ve noticed at least one thing that will make my life easier:
the error() function has been included in the rss-functions.php file, which is the MagpieRSS interface for WordPress. This function is missing in the current version of WordPress and it means that when you’re downloading an RSS file and it fails, the page crashes rather than displaying an error. I’ve had to include the function in any plugins that use RSS functions.

Most people won’t care about this particular change, but at least I’m happy about it!

Usual disclaimer about this being a beta release and not to use it in a production environment apply. Backup everything 1st if you’re upgrading from an earlier installation rather than installing the beta from scratch.