If you’re looking to create your own plugin and want to get it noticed, it’s recommended that you publish and host it in the directory. Here’s a quick guide to take you through the steps of publishing a plugin on a Windows based system.

1. Download and install Tortoise SVN
2. Request an SVN repository using the Add Your Plugin page (It may take few hours to get your request approved).
3. Once you receive the SVN credentials you will be able to access the repository from http://svn.wp-plugins.org/plugin_name.
4. Checkout the blank repository from your svn account. (This contains three empty folders – branches, tag, trunk). To do this, right click the folder you want to Checkout to and select SVN Checkout.

   

   Enter the URL of your plugin repository and click OK.

   

   Once the process is complete you will see the three folders that have been added.

   

5. Copy the plugin files into the trunk folder and create a readme.txt file if one is not already present.



6. Commit your changes by right clicking the folder and selecting SVN commit.



7. You will be prompted for your authentication details, enter your WordPress.org/bbPress.org username and password (the same one you use on the forums).



8. Now create a tag. Right click on the trunk folder and in the context menu go to TortoiseSVN and choose Branch/Tag. In the dialogue box change the url path from /trunk to /tags/0.1 (or whatever you have stated as the stable tag  in the readme file.



9. Run SVN update on the tags folder (Right click the tags folder and select SVN Update).

Committing a modified plugin / new version

1. Make modifications to the trunk folder.
2. Change the stable tag value in the readme file to the latest stable version, e.g. 0.1.1
3. SVN commit the latest changes in the trunk.
4. Tag the new version (see step 8 above) .
5. SVN update the tags folder.

Aside from what has been described as a “very important security fix” there were over 70 additional bug fixes, most of which I hadn’t come across myself although had heard of some troubles encountered by others.

Unlike my previous upgrade this time I just switched the subversion repository and ran the web based update script, shaving off an additional few minutes and therefore upgrading my install in under two minutes from start to finish!

svn switch http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.5.1/

Luckily everything seems to be working fine and I have faith in the WordPress releases, but if you want to be more cautious you should probably backup your database first.

As Paul’s response to my previous upgrade post mentions, any web scripts can be rolled back using svn.

It is highly recommended that you carry out the upgrade as it is said that the vulnerability to 2.5 will be made public shortly.

There is also to introduction of additional security in the form of secret keys, introducing randomness into the cryptographic functions used for cookies.

Simply obtain a secret key and paste the code into your wp-config.php file along with the other defined variables.