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Nearly a month is left before long awaited and much talked about WordPress 3.0 comes out. However, we are seeing a flurry posts on WordPress 3.0. Most of the bloggers are writing about this upcoming master piece, so I thought that I should write something about WordPress 3.0 too as Beta 1 has already been released. There are lot of new features in this release and I thought a small walkthrough won’t be bad!

Video for the Lazy Fellows!

Highlight Features of WordPress 3.0

• New menu management feature – This feature will let users to build custom menus with ease. This feature was released as a plugin by WooThemes guys for their own framework, however after Automattic approached them, they allowed them to integrate this feature in WordPress 3.0. Isn’t that generous?
• Improved custom post types, custom taxonomies including hierarchical support – As WordPress becomes the top choice in CMSes, it is getting lot of features that are focused towards easier and better management of content. Custom Post types and custom taxonomies will make things easier for WordPress consultants to customize the websites easily. Learn more about Custom Post Types in WordPress 3.0 over here.
• Focus on Themes – New theme “Twenty Ten” will be the only default theme in WordPress. Kubrick & Classic themes will be removed although they’ll be available in the WordPress themes extend. Other than the shuffle of the themes, coders can also rejoice as they’ll get improved child theme support and a feature where bloggers and web admins will be able to update all the themes in one go. We
• Standalone WordPress and WPMU code merged – So if you want multiple blogs on a single WordPress installation then it surely won’t be problem. You can configure WordPress 3.0 to host multiple blogs as sub-directory or sub-domain. If you are interested in using multiple domains on single WordPress installation then don’t forget to check out Domain Mapping Plugin by Donncha, lead WPMU developer. There is much more comprehensive guide on how to create blog network with WordPress 3.0 over here.

I’m sure now you’ll be convinced that you’d want to upgrade to WordPress 3.0 right away, however it won’t be available till next month i.e. May 2010. Although there are few other things that have changed in WordPress 3.0 and lets have a look at them -

Other Important Features in WordPress 3.0

1. Choose username & password at installation – As we have already discussed that keeping “admin” as the username is not cool but it makes life easier for hackers. To avoid this, WordPress 3.0 will let you choose your desired username during installation itself! Thanks WP Cookies for the image.

2. Custom Backgrounds made easy – WordPress 3.0 will support custom background for themes. By adding only 1 line of code in functions.php of the theme, users will be able to change the background of the blog with lot of ease! This means that any user will be able to literally change the look of their blog in couple of clicks.

3. Introducing Super Admin – Till now, “Administrator” role was the top user and it was able to do all the tasks. However, now there is a new user role i.e. “Super Administrator”. This new user role will be able to manage everything from individual blog features to multi-site features.

Well, there are hell lot of new additions or changes that anyone would love to list in a blog post, however its practically impossible to do so. Some are even way too difficult to explain – however those who are interested in the nitty gritty of the development can head over here and check out the current development process.

I must say that I’m UBER EXCITED about the release of WordPress 3.0. One of the key reason is that WordPress 3.0 will help theme & plugin developers a lot. Its shaping up as a mature CMS and it certainly helps us in faster development. You won’t believe, I literally wish every day that it gets released ASAP! What are your thoughts about WordPress 3.0? Will it be able to compete with Drupal anytime in near future?