Ryan Boren announced today the availability of the first WordPress 2.6 beta release. You can go get it right here.

Here is a short list of the features coming with this release :

  • Post revision, which will allow you to follow modification of an article.
  • Static pages caching using Google Gears, which will permit to load administration pages much faster.
  • A better image uploader and the addition of an image manipulation tool.
  • Theme previewing such as the one available on WordPress.com
  • A Word counter while editing posts, nice feature for guest bloggers.
  • The possibility to disable remote publishing, very usefull for those who don’t use it and want to secure their own blog.
  • An XML-RPC API  for option updating.
  • Better SSL support for the administration panel.
  • The possibility to move your wp-content/upload directory.
  • The possibility to move wp-config.php out of the webserver’s root directory.

And many other features, I invite you to go and read Ryan’s post about it.