Over the last few months, development of WordPress version 2.9 has been in full swing. The major features that have been added are: basic image editing; easier video embedding; post, page and comment trash can; plugin update notification and compatibility notification in WordPress’ core upgrader and various developer and bug fixes. Along with the major changes, the smaller features and changes in 2.9 are listed here. Development is starting to come to a close, and help is needed to begin testing WordPress 2.9 beta 1.

If you’re interested in testing out beta 1 of WordPress 2.9, you can download it here (zip). You can also run the latest development version via subversion. Remember that this is pre-production software, and bugs are likely present. It is not recommended that you run this in a production environment, use a development environment instead. However, if you do decide to run the beta on your production blog, be sure to backup your blog’s files and database beforehand (as a precaution).

After testing the beta out, you can report any problems on the wp-testers mailing list. If you spot a reproducable bug, you can report it to WordPress’ ticket-management system: Trac (you can sign in using your WordPress.org account). Happy testing, the WordPress community appreciates it.