After playing around for a couple of weeks with the new WordPress 2.7 interface on beta, I am happy that WordPress.org announced the stable version today. (download at: http://wordpress.org/)

Here is what they have mentioned in their release:

The first thing you’ll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, they’ve listened to our feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that’s just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks and be faster in 2.7 than it did in a previous version.

Next you’ll begin to notice the new features subtly sprinkled through the new interface: the new dashboard that you can arrange with drag and drop to put the things most important to you on top, QuickPress, comment threading, paging, and the ability to reply to comments from your dashboard, the ability to install any plugin directly from WordPress.org with a single click, and sticky posts.

Digging in further you might notice that every screen is customizable. Let’s say you never care about author on your post listings — just click “Screen Options” and uncheck it and it’s instantly gone from the page. The same for any module on the dashboard or write screen. If your screen is narrow and the menu is taking up too much horizontal room, click the arrow to minimize it to be icon-only, and then go to the write page and drag and drop everything from the right column into the main one, so your posting area is full-screen. (For example I like hiding everything except categories, tags, and publish. I put categories and tags on the right, and publish under the post box.)

For more, check this video in HD:

Update: As of right now, there are 87,441 downloads for WP 2.7!
Now that’s powerful!
Another update: As of 12/13/08 there are 222,905 downloads. To keep track with the downloads counter go here.
And to read more about the new WordPress, go here.