WordPress 3 released
WordPress 3 has been released and although the new version isn’t an entirely new animal there are a couple of improvements that I have noticed.
Firstly, the MU (multi-user) version is now merged into the mainstream product. WordPress MU enables you to install a single version of WordPress for multiple sites. The multiple sites would then have the features same plugins. This seems to be aimed at organisations that want to offer users/members/staff their own blogs.
Version 3 now has “Custom Post Types”. Previously this was restricted to Posts and Pages. For example, let’s say you want to have a Parts catalogue: in 3 it’ll be possible to create a new type of post called “Parts” that will contain the appropriate fields. This is a significant improvement in capability and also allows wordpress sites to resemble a CMS without the need for hacking the back end.
WordPress 2.9 has an option allowing you to create category templates using the slug, i.e category-slug.php. In WordPress 3.0, you can create specific templates for each author. The function get_author_template(); has been expanded in wp-includes/theme.php.
The menu system has been enhanced with Ajax so that you will be able to drag and drop pages, posts and categories in a similar way to the widget management screen.
The existing default theme, a study in boredom, is much smarter, easily customisable and a long overdue improvement. The theme has Custom header, Custom Background, Clean Design, Multiple Widget Areas, Cascading Menus and a lot more.
Version 3 includes a number of other more minor changes, including allowing you to change the default user from “Admin” to your choice and easier management of a theme’s background graphic.
I’m a huge fan of WordPress but I don’t believe that this update, useful though it is, does enough to open it up to non-technical users. There’s still a lot to be done to encourage users to customise their blogs more radically and effectively – it’s still all too easy to identify a WordPress site within moments because even simple design changes require knowledge of CSS.
Lets see what WordPress 4 promises!. To stay updated with WordPress Development follow: http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/
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