WordPress 3.0 – it’s official!
WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious” was officially released yesterday. Now, I posted before about the cool new features of WP 3.0. I’ve been using it since the Alpha, and I’ve been very impressed.
I’ve been getting a ot of questions in my inbox, as well as on Twitter, about how it’s going. A lot of people out there are pretty wary of immediately upgrading to a new version of WordPress, and typically wait until at least the first “patch” release before they’ll implement it.
Believe, me, as a user of WordPress since version 1.5, that’s my typical stance. I’ll wait until the first or second “security release” comes out before I dive into a new version. It’s actually a very smart move, and I don’t fault anyone for taking that safe stance – especially with clients.
However, this particular release was too mouthwatering for me to wait on. I have a pro-bono client that I’ve maintained for about three years now. It’s an extensive local nonprofit club in my area, that wants to “get into the new age” and go digital. In September, they will be beginning their new year, and they want to be completely paperless. They’ve had me code and test and manage their site during all of this time, and I’ve been constantly working on the site – as I learn new things that would streamline their site and it’s effectiveness, I apply it. However, there’s always been this one sticking point with me: their newsletter. Apparently, their newsletter isn’t a “normal” one, and I’ve had to hack and pray to get their newsletter to function the way it needs to. (Their list of requirements is seriously long, so I won’t go into it here.)
But then the clouds parted, and the angels wept when I saw WP 3.0 Alpha. Because of this particular client, I dove in. I NEEDED my sanity. I NEEDED this site to work as it should.
Granted, I’m not finished with it yet – when I say their list of requirements is long and convoluted, I mean it. THREE YEARS people. That’s how long I’ve been pulling at this thread, trying to get it to make sense and work right. And I have until the end of August to get it going good and proper. Because of this client, Iv’e actually gotten to dve in and get to know this new version, and I must say I adore it.
I’m positive there will be bugs and patches released – every WordPress version goes through this. But this time I actually got to participate in the process. I joined the WP Testers list and saw what these people do – and it’s amazing. There was one moment where I actually found a bug, and I briefly though about actually helping out and applying a patch for it – but I’m not secure enough in my skillz, so I didn’t. I reported, but I let someone else fix it – because I was sure that whatever fix I put in would break something else LOL but because I just sat back and listened to this list, I saw what was oging on, became familiar with things that really aren’t even in the Codex yet, and I got to toy with it like you wouldn’t believe. many of the plugins and functions I use work fine – but a few did not, and I had to fix them (I shall have to post what i did so others can benefit from this): two major ones (for me, anyway) were the Userextra/Usermeta plugins, and the function for Custom Write Panels, the tutorial as written by Liam McKay over at wefunction. LOVE Liam. He’s so smart – and very kind and helpful. But I feel all empowered and stuff because when I used his tutorial in 3.0, it broke – and I FIXED IT! (I also figured out how to add checkboxes, radio buttons, etc. for the fields too. There’s another post coming up I guess!)
Anyway, I just wanted to post about this because I know a lot of people out there are very wary. But I’m telling you, this one’s worth the risk. There’s so much goodness in this release that I just don’t know how you can wait. At the very least, you should download it and play on your own development server – it’s so worth it.
And yes, I know I haven’t upgraded this site yet. There’s a good reason for that – and it pretty much involves “new design so why bother?” LOL