If, like me, you use wordpress as a daily tool to design, develop and launch websites, you’ll probably be interested in what the creators over at Wordpress are doing with their soon to be released update, version 3.0.

What’s new?

Here are the promised features:

  • New default theme including extended customization options (background color).
  • Choose your admin name and password during installation.
  • Wordpress MU (multi site wordpress) interegration.
  • Custom post types.
  • Menu management built into the “appearance” tab.
  • General back-end theme design.
  • Bug fixes.

New Default Theme

Although 99% of people will probably switch this theme off, it’s a decent looking theme (although far from the best I’ve seen) with plenty of customization options.

Easier installation

The addition of allowing developers to define their admin username and password instead of being given a forgettable, randomly generated one is a blessing for anyone whos job involves setting up multiple sites a month. I can remember more than one occasion where I’ve had to go direct to the database to reset the password. This will be an understated but useful feature.

Wordpress MU collaboration

With vanilla wordpress 3.0, bloggers will be able to roll out multiple blogs running off the same backend. Although this includes no groundbreaking features that haven’t been seen in Wordpress MU, it is definately nice to have from the outset should a Wordpress project scope change half way through development.

Custom post types

Although there are many plugins out there that have fixed this issue (my favourite being Pods CMS, highly recommended even after WP3.0 comes out), Wordpress is going to get a lot easier from the outset to create a custom post type. Although you can do a lot with posts and pages, there are plenty of occasions where you may need a type of content on your site that can’t be categorized as either.

Menu Management


For any developer who has struggled to figure out the right combination of exludes and includes when using wp_list_pages(); this is going to be a stand out feature. Using a WYSIWYG approach to designing the menu, this will be endlessly useful and very nice when handing over to clients. Definatly a lot easier to teach a non technical person a drag and drop system than telling them to manage parameters in the wp_list_pages function.

General polish and a tidy up

Overall there seems to be a general tidy up to the codebase and graphics. Hoverovers seem crisp, pages are more responsive and we’re promised several pages worth of bug fixes ensuring there are no hangovers from the 2’s.

So, how can you prepare your site for the major update?

If you are a developer running a vanilla rollout of any of the later 2.x’s then there should be no issues for you as the core codebase behind Wordpress remains the same. If you are a plugin developer the best way to approach the update is to get the latest beta/release candidate version and throwing it on there. Considering WP3.0 is only weeks away from launching, the base code will more than likely remain the same – which should give you a good idea of how well (or not as the case may be) your plugin will be supported. If you have any concerns over how well your site or plugin will work with 3, I’d recommend keeping an eye on the forums or the bug tracking site.