Better Source Code Posting
For the coders among you, you may already know that posting source code is really easy here on WordPress.com thanks to the sourcecode shortcode. You just wrap your code in [sourcecode] and you’re good to go — no code escaping or anything.
If you are one of those code posters, or are looking to become one, then you’ll be happy to know that we’ve updated the feature allowing more flexibility as well as adding support for additional coding languages like Bash and SVN diff.
See for yourself — here’s some HTML with a little bit of PHP:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> <title>WordPress.com Code Example</title> </head> <body> <h1>WordPress.com Code Example</h1> <p><?php echo 'Hello World!'; ?></p> <p>This line is highlighted.</p> <p>This line is very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very long.</p> <div class="foobar"> This is an example of smart tabs. </div> <p><a href="http://wordpress.com/">WordPress.com</a></p> </body> </html>
Besides a completely new, easier to use look, you may notice that line number 12 is highlighted. It’s just one of the many new features offered in the new version which also includes things like first line number control and the much better toolbar (hover over the code block to make it show up).
To see the full list of available languages and configurations parameters as well as some working examples, check out our in-depth support document.
This feature was implemented using Alex Gorbatchev’s SyntaxHighlighter package. It’s also available as a plugin for WordPress.org users.
rssCloud Update
Two months ago we turned on support for rssCloud on WordPress.com. Today we’re announcing some improvements.
Initially rssCloud limited update pings to the IP address that made the notification request. To get around this a domain parameter was suggested, that included a challenge mechanism to verify the notification request. WordPress.com now supports the domain parameter ( and challenge ) for rssCloud notification requests. The WordPress.org rssCloud plugin supports it as well.
An issue that was specific to WordPress.com also came up. Under certain conditions it was possible to get a cached version of an RSS feed that didn’t have the most recent post in it, even after receiving a rssCloud ping that the feed had been updated. Now we make sure the feed cache is updated before sending out an update ping.
Enough of the technical bits, how about some stats! More than 135,000 blogs hosted on WordPress.com have at least one rssCloud notification registration. During the first week of October WordPress.com sent an average of 83,000 update pings per day. Today we average more than 105,000 update pings per day.
We’re just at the beginning of the trend towards push notifications, keep an eye out for more announcements in this area.
Proofreading support for the HTML Editor
When we announced After the Deadline, the proofreading tool used on WordPress.com, many of you asked us to add proofreading to the HTML Editor.
The HTML Editor lets you edit the HTML in your posts and pages directly. It is also very lightweight.
We’ve been hard at work and now you can check your spelling, style, and grammar from the HTML Editor. Here is a screenshot:
The proofreader for the HTML Editor has the same features as the one for the Visual Editor.
Click 
to check your post for errors.
Click 
to resume editing your post.
You can learn more about the proofreading feature on our support page.
For self-hosted blogs, the After the Deadline WordPress.org plugin has this new feature as well.
Publicize: Twitter
We dig Twitter over here at WordPress.com (check us out at @wordpressdotcom). With the launch of our newest Publicize feature, we dig it even more since you can now tweet your WordPress.com posts automatically.
You can stick with the default, automatically generated tweet, or customize it to your heart’s content.
The feature can be enabled from your Dashboard → My Blogs admin page. Once you enable it, you’ll be directed through an authorization procedure to confirm that you want to connect your WordPress.com blog and your Twitter account.
Just like the Yahoo! Updates Publicize feature, these connections are per blog and per user, so those of you with several blogs can choose which ones to connect, and those of you with multiple authors on one blog can each hook up your Twitter accounts separately.
More details can be found on the Publicize support page.
Theme Viewer
We know you love themes and we know you like to try new ones. With our new super-charged theme viewer this is now even easier than before.
The new theme viewer let’s you quickly step through themes without reloading the page. You can search for specific words (for example, ‘orange’), and you can filter by requirements (for example, ‘two columns’).
Still not sure what to pick? The random feature will select 15 themes at random, which may help jog your inspiration. Want to pick something that few others are using? You can also view themes in order of their popularity. Join in with everyone else or be independant, the choice is a few clicks away.
Still can’t find a theme to your liking? Don’t forget our Sandbox theme. It’s a simple and clean theme that is designed to be used with the CSS upgrade to give you control over how your blog looks (check out this site for Sandbox examples). If you’re not too sure about using CSS then our recently introduced CSS revisions feature will give you the reassurance that if something goes wrong you can quickly jump back to an earlier version.
If you haven’t changed your theme in a while then give the new theme viewer a try – you may discover a whole new look!
Full details about the theme viewer can be found on the theme viewer support page.
Theme Viewer
We know you love themes and we know you like to try new ones. With our new super-charged theme viewer this is now even easier than before.
The new theme viewer lets you quickly step through themes without reloading the page. You can search for specific words (for example, ‘orange’), and you can filter by requirements (for example, ‘two columns’).
Still not sure what to pick? The random feature will select 15 themes at random, which may help jog your inspiration. Want to pick something that few others are using? You can also view themes in order of their popularity. Join in with everyone else or be independent, the choice is a few clicks away.
Still can’t find a theme to your liking? Don’t forget our Sandbox theme. It’s a simple and clean theme that is designed to be used with the CSS upgrade to give you control over how your blog looks (check out this site for Sandbox examples). If you’re not too sure about using CSS then our recently introduced CSS revisions feature will give you the reassurance that if something goes wrong you can quickly jump back to an earlier version.
If you haven’t changed your theme in a while then give the new theme viewer a try – you may discover a whole new look!
Full details about the theme viewer can be found on the theme viewer support page.
Publicize: Yahoo! Updates
You can now send your WordPress.com posts to your Yahoo! Profile via the Yahoo! Updates service.
Check out that cute WordPress icon!
The feature can be enabled from your Dashboard → My Blogs admin page. Once you enable it, you’ll be directed through an authorization procedure to confirm that you want to connect your WordPress.com blog and your Yahoo! account.
These connections are per blog and per user, so those of you with several blogs can choose which ones to connect, and those of you with multiple authors on one blog can each hook up your Yahoo! accounts separately.
More details can be found on the Publicize support page.
Yahoo! Updates is the prestigious first of a series of Publicize features we’ll be launching or highlighting over the coming months.
SoundCloud
We are big fans of SoundCloud, a really useful service that is part Flickr for music, part professional music collaboration hub. Artists such as Beck, Moby and Sonic Youth now use the service to distribute tracks through their blogs and connect with their fans.
We’ve received many requests from WordPress.com bloggers that they would like us to work with SoundCloud to enable this service, and today we have some good news for you! You can now easily embed the SoundCloud player on your WordPress.com blog.
To embed SoundCloud groups or member track playlists or a single track in your blog, explore the SoundCloud website or use the search feature to find a sound that you like.
Once you’ve located a song that you want to embed, copy the URL of that song from your browser’s address bar to your clipboard or click on the “Share” icon and locate the “WordPress” button:
Your shortcode should now look similar to this this:
[soundcloud url="http://soundcloud.com/meat-katie/meat-katie-vs-friends-of-mine-are-you-looking"]
You can then paste this code into your post, and it will display the player::
You can also customize the player size, embed sets and groups, and decide if you want comments within the player turned on or off. For details check out the documentation in our support area.
For those of you on a self-hosted WordPress blog, be sure to grab the SoundCloud Shortcode plugin.
