  With the advent and recent extension of the BLHA standard to interface Monte
Carlo event generators and one-loop matrix element providers, the Herwig++
event generator has expanded its range of applicability to a multitude of
underlying hard processes at NLO QCD. The new NLO development is centered
around the Matchbox framework, which turns fixed NLO QCD calculations into
parton shower matched calculations - to be matched to the two parton shower
variants of Herwig++. Matchbox provides thereby for the automated setup of the
underlying fixed NLO QCD calculations and the interface to the one-loop matrix
element providers, as well as for an efficient and automated multi-channel
phase space sampling, and forms the basis for the NLO capabilities of the new
release of Herwig++. Along with several other new features and developments,
the new release marks the end of distinguishing Herwig++ and (Fortran) HERWIG,
and constitutes the first major release of version 7 of the Herwig event
generator.
