The long awaited version of WordPress that integrates WPMU for multiple sites as well as an improve dashboard with thousands of bug fixes has arrived! Check out the full blog post over at the WordPress blog and watch the video for highlights. I will be offering a WordPress 3.0 training so make sure to sign up for the Freshworkshops newsletter!
WordPress 3.0 Improved Features
Multi Site Support – Now a single code base supports both single blogs and multiple blogs. I first tried out WPMU in 2008 to easily manage my client’s blogs in one spot.
Following Richard’s instructions for WordPress Mu with Domain Mapping, I was able to get it setup in a weekend where I had different domain names connected to the same WPMU install but dishing out different sites for each! I was stoked! I documented my steps in Google Sites along with all the plugins I was using and began setting up “business blogs” for clients. Over time, WPMU fell behind in development where new features were months behind the single WordPress version. I broke my clients out of WPMU into individual blogs. One of the big benefits of WPMU for multiple domains is I only had the update WordPress and the plugins in one place. When WordPress introduced automatic mass plugin updates in 2.9, it made WordPress site management so much easier! Now, you can enjoy the 7 years of WordPress development on one blog or on 4,000 as they roll out!
Update: Andrea_r points out in the comments that multiple domains can now be controlled by a plugin. w00t!
Improved Taxonomies and Post Types - A taxonomy is a way of organizing content. Posts in the past have been text but now can mean an image, a video and more! Categories and tags are for posts but imagine you wanted attended conferences and made videos at each one. You could create a custom post type for “video” and then a taxonomy called “location” and it would be easy for your visitors to find videos created at SXSW, BlogHer or the Web 2.0 Expo without making them look through non video posts. Justin Tadlock wrote a great piece last year on understanding WordPress taxonomies. I’ve been using his taxonomy “series” plugin for a while on one of my sites to list out content.
Menu Management – Tired of using 3 plugins to create custom menus? Find your WordPress website customers are frustrated they cannot change the navigation? Say hello to built in menus which will allow you to list posts, categories, pages and more any way you like! I use Exclude Pages From Navigation, My Page Order and another one I can’t think of right now to control the primary navigation of a WordPress website. At Zendesk, they’re already using 3.0 because we have a “menus” option in the dashboard.
Loose Change
- If you design for WordPress, there are a TON of new functions available including child theme calls to help you make your sites even more awesome (How much more awesome can WordPress get?)
- Want to have the login box show up on the lower left hand corner of your site? No problem! You can easily call the login form and place it anywhere you like.
- Find yourself adding an account in WordPress as a place holder for later integration or assignment? You can now create a user with no role or permissions.
There are a ton more of great improvements and features which you can read about over on the WordPress Codex (aka WordPress Documentation).
