Added release notes for pending release of v2.4.

Since adding the new smarty extension, the nex release it more than just a
bugfix release.

4 files changed, 53 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/docs/change_log.txt b/docs/change_log.txt
index 6a86b48..158a12c 100644
--- a/docs/change_log.txt
+++ b/docs/change_log.txt
@@ -1,12 +1,16 @@
 title:      Change Log
 prev_title: Test Suite
 prev_url:   test_suite.html
-next_title: Release Notes for v2.3
-next_url:   release-2.3.html
+next_title: Release Notes for v2.4
+next_url:   release-2.4.html
 
 Python-Markdown Changelog
 =========================
 
+__: Released version 2.4.0 ([Notes](release-2.4.html))
+
+Mar 22, 2013: Released version 2.3.1 (a bugfix release).
+
 Mar 14, 2013: Released version 2.3.0 ([Notes](release-2.3.html))
 
 Nov 4, 2012: Released version 2.2.1 ([Notes](release-2.2.1.html)).
diff --git a/docs/release-2.3.txt b/docs/release-2.3.txt
index 574bdf6..d2cef63 100644
--- a/docs/release-2.3.txt
+++ b/docs/release-2.3.txt
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 title:      Release Notes for v2.3
-prev_title: Change Log
-prev_url:   change_log.html
+prev_title: Release Notes for v2.4
+prev_url:   release-2.4.html
 next_title: Release Notes for v2.2.1
 next_url:   release-2.2.1.html
 
diff --git a/docs/release-2.4.txt b/docs/release-2.4.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..78b78be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/release-2.4.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+title:      Release Notes for v2.4
+prev_title: Change Log
+prev_url:   change_log.html
+next_title: Release Notes for v2.3
+next_url:   release-2.3.html
+
+Python-Markdown 2.4 Release Notes
+=================================
+
+We are pleased to release Python-Markdown 2.4 which adds one new extension
+and fixes various bugs. See the list of changes below for details.
+
+Python-Markdown supports Python versions 2.6, 2.7, 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.
+
+Backwards-incompatible Changes
+------------------------------
+
+* The "force_linenos" config setting of the CodeHilite extension has been
+marked as **Deprecated**. It had previously been marked as "Pending Deprecation"
+in version 2.3 when a new setting "linenums" was added to replace it. See 
+documentation for the [CodeHilite Extension] for an explanation of the new 
+"linenums" setting. The new setting will honor the old "force_linenos" if it 
+is set, but "force_linenos" will raise a DeprecationWarning and will likely 
+be removed in a future version of Python-Markdown.
+
+[CodeHilite Extension]: extensions/codehilite.html
+
+What's New in Python-Markdown 2.4
+---------------------------------
+
+* Thanks to the hard work of [Dmitry Shachnev] the [Smarty Extension] has been 
+added, which implements [SmartyPants] using Python-Markdown's Extension API. 
+This offers a few benefits over a third party sript. The HTML does not need
+to be "tokenized" twice, no hacks are required to combine SmartyPants and
+code highlighting, and we get markdown's escaping feature for free. Please try 
+it out and report bugs and/or improvements.
+
+[Dmitry Shachnev]: https://github.com/mitya57
+[Smarty Extension]: extensions/smarty.html
+[SmartyPants]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/
+
+* Various bug fixes have been made.  See the
+[commit log](https://github.com/waylan/Python-Markdown/commits/master)
+for a complete history of the changes.
diff --git a/markdown/__version__.py b/markdown/__version__.py
index a13559c..531e073 100644
--- a/markdown/__version__.py
+++ b/markdown/__version__.py
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 # (major, minor, micro, alpha/beta/rc/final, #)
 # (1, 1, 2, 'alpha', 0) => "1.1.2.dev"
 # (1, 2, 0, 'beta', 2) => "1.2b2"
-version_info = (2, 3, 1, 'final', 0)
+version_info = (2, 4, 0, 'alpha', 0)
 
 def _get_version():
     " Returns a PEP 386-compliant version number from version_info. "