Improvements to WordPress.org

If you visit WordPress.org regularly you might have noticed some changes around the place. If you don’t, now’s the time to check them out! We’ve been working hard to improve the site to make it more useful to everyone, both developers and users, and we hope you like what we’ve done.

New Theme and Plugin Directories

Since WordPress 3.8, you’ve been enjoying improved theme management in your WordPress admin, and in WordPress 4.0 plugin management was refined. We’ve brought these experiences from your admin and re-created them right here on WordPress.org. 

Theme Directory

The Theme Directory has a better browsing experience, with handy tabs where you can view featured, popular, and the latest themes. As with the theme experience in your admin, you can use the feature filter to browse for just the right theme for your WordPress website.

Click on a theme to get more information about it, including shiny screenshots, ratings, and statistics.

Konstantin Obenland posted a good overview of everything involved with the theme directory overhaul and followed up with a post on improved statistics.

Plugin Directory

The Plugin Directory has a brand new theme that mirrors the experience in your WordPress admin, with a more visual experience, and better search and statistics.

As well as a facelift, there are some great new features for you to play around with:

• Favorites – when you’re logged in to you WordPress.org account, this page gives you direct access to the plugins that you have favorited.
• Beta Testing – try out plugins where developers are experimenting with new features for WordPress.
• Search by plugin author – you can search for a plugin author using their username.
• Better statistics – listings now display the number of active installs so you can see how many people are actually using a plugin.