What's next after WordPress 3.4 arrives?

We published information last week about upcoming features in WordPress 3.4, which was released yesterday. That’s right, WordPress 3.4 “Green Edition” is now available! So what happens next?

Learn the latest situation

No doubt you all know how to update your WordPress installation. You just click the "Update" link to get started, right? Well, you can do that, but let’s think about our theme and plugins, are we sure everything will go smoothly?

I recommend you take at least the following steps:

1. Back up your current website's files and database - you can do this manually or with a plugin, as long as you can restore it easily.
2. Create a new installation using the backup - do this in a subdomain or local development environment.
3. Once it's up and running, perform an update - if you encounter any errors, fix them.
4. Assuming everything goes well and you have resolved all issues, update your site and apply any fixes.
5. You're done! Enjoy WordPress 3.4

future

Now that WordPress 3.4 has been released, I hope you’ve read the WordPress 3.4 Developer Field Guide. If you haven't already, you should. Especially if you are a theme or plugin developer, hopefully you are also busy updating themes and plugins.

Now we can turn our attention to WordPress 3.5, which will be discussed starting next week in the WordPress Developer Chat (see the sidebar in the live guide link sometimes).

What would you like to see in WordPress 3.5? Let us know in the comments below.