WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious”
Well… yesterday on June 17, 2010 WordPress released 3.0 final version titled “Thelonious” (not sure about the title meaning).
Main 3.0 feature that I was so much waiting for was supporting custom types. To understand is good to list built in types. It is (and was probably all the time) post, page and attachment. Those who familiar with WordPress database structure knows that field “type” was all the time here and both posts and pages were stored in the same database table. So letting define custom type was very natural move. I surprised why it took so long to admit the lack of this freedom.
The reached milestone raised WordPress to new CMS level. Yes, now I may call it CMS. I’m still disappointed why there is no any graphic user interface to manage these custom types. You cannot find anything about it reviewing admin panel. Well… I hope it won’t be left just for plugin coders and soon it will be added in the coming versions. Now it is possible only by writing some code. Just few lines – that is good, API is really simple but you have to find the code snippet “somewhere” as the default theme doesn’t have it. Untill now it is “hidden” feature like “featured thumbnail” that appeared since 2.9 version but known only for theme developers.
Another new feature that makes WP stronger CMS is letting define menus. Well, unlike custom types, menu management is built in admin panel and you cannot miss it. Just expand admin menu item “Appearance” and you will see it. Now WP theme code may be cleaner as there won’t be reason to check which menu item is active. It was really annoying doing that.
It is important to note that section “Menus” in admin panel starts working only after you add widget “custom menu”. If you didn’t do that (like me) by clicking on menu item “Menus” will see the following notification (I see it only for a few seconds and it dissapears – probably “bug”): “The current theme does not natively support menus, but you can use the “Custom Menu” widget to add any menus you create here to the theme’s sidebar.”
Another important thing about 3.0 version – from now it is multiblogging system. MU (multi user) WP and standard WP is merged to one.
I forgot to mention about new default theme called “twentyten” or 2010 (year of the release). Cubric theme was there 5 years along with us and decision to leave it shows only one thing – 3.0 is absolutely new thing.
Talking about upgrade… Till now my blog was ran by 2.7 version (obviously too long avoided to blog here). I clicked to upgrade automatically and after few seconds it was upgraded. Everything works fine.
This is the main new features that I could not leave without mentioning it. More about the new release: http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/.