I’ve finally gone ahead and released version 3.3 of the WordPress OpenID plugin. This release includes three major sets of changes. First, it drops support for older versions of WordPress… the minimum required version is now 2.8. Trying to maintain backwards compatibility requires a non-trivial amount of effort, and I’d rather spend that time working on new features. It also cleans up the code a fair bit, which I always like. It also drops support for two experimental OpenID extensions known as EAUT and IDIB. EAUT is effectively being replaced by [WebFinger], and IDIB never got too much traction. Either could still be added pretty simply by another plugin if people still want them.

Second, this release features a new user interface for the integrating OpenID into the WordPress comment form. Instead of simply advertising OpenID support on the “Website” field, and always attempting OpenID authentication, the plugin now detects OpenID support for a URL, and gives the user the option to authenticate the comment. This provides a cleaner, less obtrusive int