WordPress 3 – What’s new?

My suggestion – give it a few weeks for the next revision. Why, you ask? With every new release of software there are always a few bugs. Let the pros send in their feedback and wait for the next revised release. Secondarily – waiting a few weeks will give widget and theme providers time to resolve any new conflicts with the software upgrade.

If you must upgrade now I’d suggest that you take a few precautionary steps.

1. Check with your hosting provider
2. Backup your site
3. Disable all plug-ins and widgets

Here’s what you can look forward to in WordPress 3.

1.) Choose your Username and Password
You’ll encounter new features as soon as you start! Currently, when you first install WordPress, you are assigned a default username of admin, and a randomly generated password. No more – now WordPress lets you choose a username and password when installing. This means that security within WordPress has been enhanced. Previously, a hacker could probably depend on the fact that there was a username called ‘admin’.

2.) New Default Theme
WordPress 3.0 comes with a new default theme, called TwentyTen (2010) apparently; the WP team has an aim to release a new default theme every year! The new theme makes it much easier to switch out header images, background color / images, and page linking.

3.) Custom Background Support
WordPress 3.0 adds custom background support. Add the code below to your functions.php to make your theme support it:

1. add_custom_background();

Once that’s done, you’ll see an option called Background added under Appearance in the WordPress admin. This will allows you to upload a header image and customize it. For advanced coders this upgrade won’t be a big deal.

4.) Multi-site Capabilities and WPMU Codebase Merge
WordPress and WPMU (WordPress MultiUser) are merging their codebases. This makes it much easier to handle large WordPress networks. See the Multi-Site settings under Settings>Network. A network of WordPress sites is much easier to maintain – either with a subdomain.domain.com structure, or a domain.com/subdirectory structure. This network capability is optional, and WordPress and WPMU users shouldn’t face any difficulties while upgrading. Also, this makes it easier for WPMU users to utilize plugins – no more plugins that go bust or stop working.

5.) Custom Post Types
Before, all you could add from the WordPress admin section was new posts and pages. Now, you can create new post types to show up. Add the following code to create a new post type called ‘Portfolio’: What does this mean? WordPress is becoming more of a CMS. This holds unlimited possibilities for theme developers, and reduces the need to fiddle around with custom fields.

6.) Easy Menu Management
You can now create multiple menus, categories, and even custom external or internal links! The menu feature even comes with a default widget to add to any widget ready area.

7.) Welcome Guide
Lastly, WordPress 3.0 includes a guide which helps users better understand the basic usage better.

. . . NEWS FLASH: As Predicted . . .WordPress 3.0.1 – Posted July 29, 2010 by Andrew Nacin.

After nearly 11 million downloads of WordPress 3.0 in just 42 days, we’re releasing WordPress 3.0.1. This maintenance release addresses about 50 minor issues. The testing many of you contributed prior to the release of 3.0 helped make it one of the best and most stable releases we’ve had.

Download 3.0.1 or update automatically from the Dashboard update menu in your site’s admin area.

Note: If you downloaded 3.0.1 in the first 20 minutes of release (before 2200 UTC), you’ll want to reinstall it, which you can do right from your update screen.