WordPress 3.0 Has Been Released
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!
