Subscribe to RSS!
Join Us!
Follow us!
WordPress 3.1: New Features and Fixes
WordPress fans rejoice! The latest version of the popular blogging script has been released. WordPress 3.1 brings a few new features and tools to help you blog. If you are already a WordPress user, you can easily upgrade the script by logging into the admin section or by downloading the latest version and upgrading things manually.
New Features in WordPress 3.1
So, what is new in version 3.1 of WordPress?
- The blue admin color scheme has been refreshed, to put more focus on your content. If you want to give it a try, log into WordPress’s admin section. Once inside, go to Users > Your Profile and select the Blue admin color scheme. Then, just press the “Update Profile” button at the bottom of the page.
- The new admin bar will appear across the top of your website, when you are logged into WordPress and will give you easy one-click access to all your favorite dashboard tools. You can edit the page you are on, add a new post or a new page, jump to your Widgets section inside of WordPress and much more.
- When adding a new link, you now have the option to either enter the destination URL you want to point to or do a quick search for pages that might be related to your keyword you are linking to.
- Post Formats have also been added to WordPress 3.1. A Post Format is meta-data that can be used by a theme to customize the appearance of a post.
- The writing interface inside of WordPress has been cleaned up too. New WordPress users will hopefully be a little less intimidated by all the bells and whistles that used to be there by default. If you want something back that you are missing – click on the Screen Options at the top of the page to bring it back.
- WordPress’s importing and exporting tools have gotten a major overhaul too. They now include author information, better handing for taxonomies, and support for navigation menus.
Check out the WordPress Codex for a full list of updates and improvements. It is also worth noting that some 800+ bugs were also fixed in WordPress 3.1. In my opinion, WordPress is moving away from being just another blogging platform and is really turning into a dependable content management system that is very flexible and easy to work with.
What are your thoughts on this newest version of WordPress? Let us know in the comments or head on over to our Facebook Fan Page to sound off!
Posted in: 
Well I am Joomla fan and when should you start talking the fun of new Joomla 1.6 ?
I have a WordPress installation via Fantastico. The Fantastico control panel still shows 3.0.3 as the latest version. Should I wait for Fantastico to show the 3.1 upgrade and apply from there, or can I only do this from within my WP site? And if I upgrade from within the WP site, will Fantastico be aware of the upgrade? I don’t want to break anything.
For anyone wondering, you can go ahead an update WordPress to 3.1 from within the WP dashboard. No need to worry about Fantastico even if that’s how you originally installed it. The upgrade process went smoothly for me. YMMV, make sure your plugins, themes, etc. are all ready to work with 3.1, and as always, backup your site files first just in case!
Well its good that you support Joomla 1.6 too. New Joomla 1.6.2 stable will be released within 2 days now so hopefully it will be supported too..
cheers!
I agree that WordPress seems to be becoming a more mature CMS that might be usable for something else than just blogs. I can’t (still) say I would consider it over Drupal 7 though.