the Riddle Brothers

After a long wait, the highly anticipated WordPress 3.0 is finally here. I’m just as excited as I was when the first beta was available and we were able to start tinkering around with the features that would be released in the final build.

There are plenty of posts around discussing the new features of the release so I won’t go into much detail in this post. What I would like to do is provide my experience with the new version.

Upgrading Is Easy (As Always)

No pains here - upgrading from WP 2.9 is simple as any other release. Everyone did a great job in making sure nothing in the core breaks when upgrading, and themes will not be affected as you have to specify whether a theme can use certain features (within the functions.php file) before they take affect.

I haven’t tried upgrading a WPMU site to 3.0, although it was simple enough with the release client version. I’m pretty sure this method for upgrading is the same in the final release.

I did not have any problems with the plugins I was using on the sites I upgraded, which included some of the more popular ones (All In One SEO Pack, Twitter Tools, Gravity Forms to name a few).

However, there are some plugins out there that are not compatible with 3.0 so be sure to back up your site. You also should deactivate all of your plugins before upgrading, and reactivate them one at a time in case one of them crashes your site. That way you will know which one not to reactivate until an update is made.

No Plugins Necessary

I’ve used plugins for menu management and custom post types for just about every site I’ve made since I started developing in WordPress (about 2 years ago). Those plugins served me well but I am happy to say goodbye.

With menu management and custom post types integrated into the core you don’t have to rely on the support of a single plugin that has a smaller development team (or possibly a single developer). Nothing against those developers of course, but you know if there is a problem in a WP core feature it will be fixed in no time.

One thing I love about the menu management is if you use wp_nav_menu function and the administrator has not setup a menu, it defaults to the wp_page_menu function instead of just displaying an error or nothing at all (as some functions tend to do).

Looking Forward

So now that we’re all happily plugging away in WP 3.0, we have the next iteration to look forward to. There isn’t too much right now as far as new features, but there are some items in trac that are of particular interest:

• Better Admin Menu Overriding - If you have modified the default admin menus before you know it is somewhat of a pain and it is more of a hacked process instead of integrated functionality. Hopefully this ticket will add some functions/hooks so you don’t have to modify global variables anymore.
• Upgraded TinyMCE - Some improvements have been made to the TinyMCE editor since WP 2.9, but did not make it into WP 3.0. They are non-feature updates: primarily bug fixes, better paste support for IE and Webkit browsers, and other browser-related fixes. However its nice to know you’re using the latest and greatest of anything you work with every day.
• has_term() function - Determine if a post has a specific term assigned to it. A simple function, yet one that does not exist in the core.
• Replace Thickbox - As Thickbox is no longer in development a replacement is being sought after. There seems to be some support in favor of colorbox which uses jQuery (which much of WordPress runs on so it only makes sense).
• QuickPress action hooks - There isn’t much support for hooking into the current QuickPress module on the dashboard, so this will be great for integration of custom actions when making these types of posts. The only alternative is currently overriding a core function.

There will most likely be more to come as more users start upgrading their sites to the new version. If you want to keep up with WP development be sure to periodically check out the WordPress Roadmap.

So what are you waiting for? Download WordPress 3.0 right now!

Internet Explorer is a four-letter word in any Web developer’s dictionary. Between the sluggishness, CSS compatibility issues, and lack for JavaScript development tools the beloved Microsfot Web browser has give us quite the headache. With the upcoming release of IE9 many of us hoped for a product from Microsoft that would mimic our other favorite browsers giving us the peace of mind to develop for one unified environment and not worry about quirks, conditional comments and other hacks. But alas, we will have to keep hoping.

According to Freeciv.net, IE9 will not support HTML5’s best features at all - no canvas element, embedded video/audio, CSS3, storage or geolocation. In fact it sounds like IE9 is more of an IE8.1.

IE9 Platform Preview Results

I was tired of reading the compatibility results of others’ IE9 browsers and looking at them as piece-meal so I went ahead and installed IE9 in a VM and included my results from html5test.com below. As expected: barely any support.

How Lack of Standards Compatibility Affects Us All

Increased Cost

Lagging browser standards means you either have to use older technology (Flash instead of embedded video) or write dedicated code for alternative browsers. Using older technology is usually not as efficient and can take more time to develop. More code equals more cost. Also the quality-assurance process will take longer since it is another browser version without full support to test against.

Decreased Developer Moral

When you can’t use new technology such as HTML5 on a client project because you have to support IE you become frustrated and decide, “I will learn HTML5 when IE supports it since my clients will require IE support anyway”. This statement makes sense to many people since the reality is that you could learn something that you can use today (like a new library or framework) and wait until you are able to leverage HTML5 technology on all projects. But in the meantime you have to listen to everyone talk about how wonderful HTML5/CSS3 is on their projects where they do not require support for IE.

A Longer Wait for Client HTML5 Acceptance

People are still using IE6 even though it is no longer supported by many major Web sites. If IE10 is to fully support HTML5 we may be long into 2012 before we can comfortably develop sites fully in HTML5 without dedicated IE fixes. Yes, we can surely educate our clients about browser statistics and that most people use Firefox now, but you can’t completely ignore 30% of the browser market share.

Conclusion

So just as we were all getting excited about using our HTML5 skills in the next client project it looks like we’ll have to table that hope for another time. I’m pretty disappointed IE9 won’t support just about everything that is exciting about HTML5 and CSS3, so I’ll just continue promoting Google Chrome in the meantime.

With a backlash in the community against Facebook’s never ending privacy issues, one group of developers has decided to put their foot down and create an open-source decentralized Facebook alternative, Diaspora.

Diaspora promises to deliver a self-hosted social networking system that gives you full control of your privacy settings and content delivery without putting your trust in a for-profit corporation like Facebook. Many are excited with the concept as being able to host your own software gives you a piece of mind in many ways, and also allows you to decide what, and when, anything changes on the site.

What They Have Going for Them

• Funding of over $200k (their initial startup goal was $10k).
• A huge backing in the community already (including the BBC, New York Times and Gizmodo).
• Making the application open-source was extremely wise.
• Their project mission is “less evil” than Zuckerberg/Facebook. They have an attitude of more control, decentralization and are more focused on returning control to the end-user and not just using your information for financial gains.
• Watch their introduction video. They are obviously not video producers and are not wasting money on appearing like some type of corporate conglomerate. I love their transparency in the project and their goals.

Hurdles to Overcome

• Some users on Facebook will not see any benefit in paying for your own hosting for a product they “already have”. Diaspora did mention there will be a free hosted service similar to WordPress.com, but I think there will be some difficulty in getting this group of Facebook users to start over on a new service.
• eWeek poses some great arguments as to why people won’t leave Facebook.
• The decision to use Ruby/Rails. Right now the number of Ruby/Rails Web hosts are not as countless as shared PHP hosts. Also there are not as many Ruby developers as PHP developers in the open-source community. Regardless, I don’t think this will be a major factor, but I can’t see as many people contributing to the project as a PHP-based project like WordPress.

Hitting Home

Anybody that knows me is aware of my disdain for Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook co-founder). His background is extremely unethical including hacking competitor sites, using Facebook passwords to log in to users’ email accounts, and a slew of questionable privacy policy changes. Can you imagine if Steve Jobs (Apple) or Eric E. Schmidt (Google) were to do this? Despite these pending felony charges we continue to use/support Zuckerberg’s product (myself included) because a formidable alternative simply doesn’t exist. And if you want to be anyone in the community, you need to have a strong social network.

So when I heard of Diaspora it really peaked my interest. I completely agree with the idea that publication of personal information should be decentralized and controlled by the individual. I with the Diaspora developers the best of luck, and will be sure to get a build installed and running as soon as it is available.