Blogging Tips

Just a short while ago Automattic, on their official WordPress blog, announced the release of WordPress 3.0, code named Thelonious. The release marks one of the biggest upgrades in the history of WordPress and the thirteenth major release to date.

WordPress 3.0 was released after three release candidates and an extensive round of beta testing and is easily one of the most anticipated releases of WordPress so far. It is also one of the most important in that it represents a major architectural change for WordPress, namely the integration of WordPress MU into the WordPress core.

However, as millions of WordPress users start getting their update notifications soon (mine has yet to appear), the question will be raised as to whether or not it is worth upgrading or if it is best to wait. The answer, most likely, is contained within the release notes and an understanding of what’s new with this version.

What’s New in WordPress 3.0

In their official video, which is embedded below, Automattic lays out what’s new in 3.0 and demonstrates many of the features visually.

However, for a quick overview, here are some of the key features:

• Merger with WordPress MU: WordPress Multi-user has been folded into the main WordPress core, letting users create multiple blogs from a single WordPress installation.
• Streamlined Updates: Users can now update the blog and up to fifteen plugins at once. WordPress will also now put the blog in “maintenance mode” for visitors during the upgrade process. Users can also update themes via this process.
• Lighter Admin Interface: WordPress 3.0 also introduces a new administration interface designed to be lighter and to reduce distractions. The new interface also has contextual help on every page.
• Theme Custom Menus, Background and Headers: Theme developers now have access to new APIs that lets users pick custom backgrounds, menus and headers, reducing the need for users to edit theme files directly to manage these elements.
• New Default Theme (Twenty Ten): To go with the new theme APIs, WordPress no longer uses Kubrick as it’s default theme and now uses Twenty Ten, a more modern and flexible theme that takes advantage of the features above.
• Custom Post Types: In addition to Posts and Pages, users can now designate different post types. This pushes WordPress away from being just a blogging platform and into being a content management system where users can edit and create any kind of content within the backend.
• Shortlink Support: WordPress now has built-in support for URL shorteners, including Automattic’s own wp.me shortener. This will be great for Twitter users who wont have to leave their backend to generate short URLs.
• Select Admin Name: Finally, in a feature that will improve WordPress security, users now choose a default admin name when setting up a new blog rather than defaulting to “admin”. This will eliminate the need to create a new administrator account and delete the “admin” one to ensure maximum security.

In short, the new feature set is very compelling, especially if you use WordPress as a CMS rather than as a blogging application. However, most of the features won’t be useful from day one and, instead, will have to wait until new themes and new sites are built using the additional features.

This, in turn, has the potential to easily open up a whole new audience to WordPress, namely those that currently only use CMS systems such as Joomla and Drupal.

Should You Upgrade

Personally, I am a believer in upgrading to the newest version of WordPress as soon as practical. I’ve never had any issue with WordPress updates in the past and don’t expect one with this update. With that in mind, I will be updating as soon as I am able to from within my backend.

The fear most users have when updating WordPress is plugin compatibility. Fortunately, I’ve heard no reports of plugin problems with 3.0 and that lack of news has been confirmed by other WordPress experts. Many sites have been running 3.0 since the release candidate or even beta stage without major problems.

Given the amount of testing that this version went through prior to release, it seems unlikely, though certainly not impossible, that there will be an emergency follow-up release. Given that, quickly, the 2.9.x branch will begin to suffer from feature and possibly security rot, it’s probably wise to update as soon as possible.

That being said, those with high traffic or mission critical blogs may wish to wait a few days and see if there are any compatibility issues they need to be aware of, especially if you have plugins that have not been explicitly updated for 3.0 that you can not operate your site without.

In short, wait if you must, but upgrading as soon as possible is still probably the best move.

(Update: I was able to use the upgrade feature to complete the update to 3.0. The update went smoothly on my site and no problems arose.

Bottom Line

WordPress made a major leap forward with this version but it may not be a leap that current users see any immediate benefit from. New themes will have to be developed to see the benefit of the new theme APIs and non-blog users, that likely use another platform currently, will be the greatest beneficiaries of the new post types.

Other than the new interface, URL shortening and streamlined updates, there isn’t a great deal that a typical single-blog user will benefit from right out of the box.

However, WordPress 3.0 is definitely a forward-looking release, thinking more about what people will do with WordPress months and years down the road than what they will do tomorrow.

In that regard, WordPress 3.0 very much represents what the future holds for the platform and that makes it crucial users get on board as soon as practical.

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