WordPress 2.9 was today pushed to all sites running the popular blogging platform, marking the last major update for the platform for 2009 as the developers behind the CMS look for a new default theme for the next release in 2010.

Coming just days after the release candidate was announced, the update has some exciting new features including built-in post thumbnails (something that developers have previously had to add themselves), a new “trash status” that allows deleted items to be recovered if need be, meta-data for comments, media embeds providing the ability to finally embed videos from sites such as YouTube natively and an in-built simple image editor. here list of all key features in WordPress 2.9

1. Global undo/”trash” feature – If you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete.

2. Built-in image editor – Allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.

3. Batch plugin update and compatibility checking – You can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.

4. Easier video embeds – Allows you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

5. Improved Press This bookmarklet – The Press This bookmarklet has been improved and is faster than ever; give it a try for on-the-fly blogging from wherever you are on the internet

Download WordPress 2.9