Wordpress 3.1 Review

Autmattic - the company behind wordpress, world's most popular blogging software has released the latest version 3.1. I immediately downloaded and installed the software to see what's new. Here's my short review of new features in Wordpress 3.1 -

1. Post Formats:

Wordpress finally introduced the 'Post Formats' - which is not like the 'Post Types'. This feature is not a 'must-have' but the theme designers can make good use of it to offer 'Tumblr' like experience.

Following are the supported post formats -

aside - Typically styled without a title. Similar to a Facebook note update.

gallery - A gallery of images. Post will likely contain a gallery shortcode and will have image attachments.

link - A link to another site. Themes may wish to use the first tag in the post content as the external link for that post. An alternative approach could be if the post consists only of a URL, then that will be the URL and the title (post_title) will be the name attached to the anchor for it.

image - A single image. The first tag in the post could be considered the image. Alternatively, if the post consists only of a URL, that will be the image URL and the title of the post (post_title) will be the title attribute for the image.

quote - A quotation. Probably will contain a blockquote holding the quote content. Alternatively, the quote may be just the content, with the source/author being the title.

status - A short status update, similar to a Twitter status update.

video - A single video. The first

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#

I'm currently going through this feature to understand more about it. However, it does look very interesting.

2. Easy Internal Linking:

Wordpress 3.1 makes it super easy to find and link to your related posts. This feature is going to be very useful to regular bloggers who often want to link their content internally. If you right-click on any word or a group of words, WordPress will automatically search for those words and find out related posts. You can then simply link to those posts with just a click.

3. Admin Bar:

The wordpress authors, editors and administrators now see an administration bar over their posts. This is a welcome feature and makes it easier to access the most commonly accessed sections of wordpress. Authors can easily approve new comments to their blog, edit a post, add widgets, plugins all while on the site's front page.

4. New Theme For Backend:

I like the refreshing new light blue theme on Wordpress admin panel. You can swich to any of the admin styles from the Personal Options setting under your settings tab.

Overall - Wordpress 3.1 takes the WP platform as a CMS to next level. I'm sure there more exciting stuff in next versions of WP!