How To Run WordPress 2.6 beta 1

WordPress keeps evolving and getting better and better.  The current production version is 2.5.1 and 2.6 beta 1 has been hot off the presses for a few days now, and I thought I’d take the time to remind folks how to run it locally so you can play.

I currently use XAMPP Lite 1.6.6a for running WordPress locally.  For those wondering, locally means on your C: drive under Windows XP and Windows Vista for me. Read about it and how to install it at Running and Reviewing WordPress 2.5-beta1.

If you already have XAMPP Lite all you have to do is:

1. Unzip WordPress 2.6 beta 1 under the folder C:\xampplite\htdocs\wordpress26
2. Run XAMPP Control Panel Application and start the Apache Admin.



3. Create a database called wordpress26
4. Copy C:\xampplite\htdocs\wodpress26\wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php
5. Edit wp-config.php and change the database name to wordpress26 and the login to root with no password unless you configured things differently on your machine.
6. That’s it!!
7. Browse to http://localhost/wordpress26 and follow the prompts as usual.  Let me know if you need help in the comments.

Don’t forget to visit WordPress lead developer’s blog article WordPress 2.6 Beta 1 to read about all the coolness.

In the meantime, here’s 14 Reasons why you’d want to run WordPress locally:

1. You want to check out the new features and get ready to use them in the most productive way on your self-hosted WordPress blog.
2. You want to stay up all night trying different WordPress themes out.
3. You’re developing your own WordPress theme and you need a test environment.
4. You want to dig deep into the guts of WordPress and find out what makes it tick.
5. You’re developing the next most-downloaded plug-in for WordPress 2.6 and you need a test environment to do so.
6. You don’t want to run beta software for your production WordPress environment.
7. To see what Post Revisioning is all about. Look for it under the Advanced Options section while you’re editing a blog post.  It’s keeps an audit trail of sorts on your blog post editing sessions. Pretty darn cool.
8. A new and improved image editing dialog that offers lots of control over the images in your posts.  Look for it by hovering your mouse over an inserted image.



9. Theme previewing as seen on WordPress.com
10. Built-in word counting in the post editor. Now you don’t have to copy your blog post into Word and use the word counter to see how many words you’ve written/wrote. Of course, if you do that kind of thing. Or if you didn’t know you could do that kind of thing.
11. Drag-and-drop sortable galleries.
12. Header image and color editor next to the Theme Editor.  Pretty cool.
13. Lots of bug fixes and performance enhancements for WordPress itself, TinyMCE, jQuery and the jQuery UI 1.5.
14. Because you’re just dang cool and on the cutting edge.   🙂   Remember, it’s always better to be cool than functional.   🙂   Just kidding of course.