Here’s the email I received of some of the proposed changes to WordPress – a lot of them look super exciting (goodbye IE7!) and plenty of them are just amazing.  What’s your favorite?

User Feature: Media Uploader (azaozz)

· Definitely v1: Integrate Plupload into dashboard. (GSoC project)

· Probably v2: Improve our image manipulation and gallery management.

· Nice to have: Kill all thickbox usage, move everything inline.

User Feature/UI: New User Experience (jane, koop)

♫ Feels Like the First Time ♫

· 1st time install welcome screen – intro text and checklist of “steps” to get going.

· 1st time post-update welcome screen a la Mozilla.

· 1st time exposure popup for new features a la facebook, twitter, etc.

Note: Matt says WordPress.com is working on similar features there. Will connect with them and see if/where there is overlap and work with them when possible to free up some of Koop’s time.

UI: Responsive Admin (saracannon with azaozz, koop)

Make the admin dynamically display nicely on devices of various screen sizes (including wider screens) and human interface mechanisms, such as touch. Plotting and specifics to happen on UI blog and in weekly UI meetings.

UI: Improve Admin Bar (koop, jane)

Continue the admin UI work started in 3.2 and work toward combining admin bar (in dashboard) with admin header to reduce duplication and save vertical space.

Internal: Performance Improvements (markjaquith, jon)

· Permalinks

o #17177, #15915, #16687, others

o The permalink structure is highly desirable, but it doesn’t scale beyond 50 pages or so.

o /%postname%/ permalinks without performance penalty

o /static-slug/%postname%/ permalinks without performance penalty

o Consider retiring verbose rewrite rules all together in favor of queries.

o Finally fix the issues relating to special characters in permalinks using an upgrade routine (#16036 and others)

· Nav Menus

o #14134, #16799, possibly others

o Fix the issues around saving menu items.

Deprecate IE7 in the Admin for 3.4

Everyone hates IE7. It’s insecure. Let’s make it go away. Also, dropping IE6 didn’t give us much beyond goodwill, because most of the hacks we needed for IE6, we also need for IE7. So we could actually clean up our CSS a bit if we dropped IE7.

Not happening for 3.3, will target 3.4. Once we hit freeze or RC someone could start working on this to have it ready to go in the minute we open 3.4, to provide the maximum testing time.

API: Meta Improvements (ryan, koop, others)

· register_meta, new caps, *_metadata_by_mid() (nearly done)

· Nice to have: WP_Meta_Box (proof of concept posted)

API: Settings API Improvements (ryan, petemall)

· Convert table markup to CSS

· Nice to have:

o Make settings fields/forms/errors construction less painful

o Use the settings API in the Network Admin

o Kill options.php as a POST handler

Internal: Language Packs (nacin)

Merge in GSoC project. Will require quite a bit of development across GlotPress, api.wordpress.org, and core. (As in, needs additional owners.) In the next week we should come up with a plan of action for how it should all work, as there are currently many questions. (#18200)

Update/Upgrades (nacin, dion, otto)

· Internal: Partial build updates, version 2 – md5 verifications of files – nacin, dion

· Feature: Ability to install child themes (in the theme directory) via the theme installer – otto

· Enhancement: Core changelogs via the update check, to entice updates

Secondary Items

API: Editor API improvement (azaozz)

Update/refactor Quicktags (mostly done) and combine all supporting functions.

User Feature: Press This

Plugin now, target 3.4 for core.

o Make Press This better in a nebulous and undefined way.

o Browser extensions? See also

Mixed Bag

These are things we really want, but no one is assigned to them. This is a great opportunity to earn some core cred by taking a greater role and spearheading development of a feature.

o UX: Dismissible admin notices.

o UX: better management of workflow in editor (joe is currently editing this post any changes etc)

o Design: HTML E-Mails – Leverage Wojtek’s GSoC work

o Performance: CSS files merge/remove duplicate styles

o Death: remove (finally) compat functions from the widgets API and cleanup converting of old settings, and keep widgets while switching themes (will require copious unit tests first)

I’ve seen a lot of hateful comments on TechCrunch regarding their new design.  I’m going to officially go on-record and say that (from a design standpoint) I really like where they’re going with the new style.  But, beyond that, under the surface, there’s a few other things that appear to be going on (I say appear because I don’t have access to the backend system, so I can’t tell you exactly what’s going on) that are fantastic uses of new WordPress technology.  My favorite thing, however, is the use of multiple “post layouts” on their archive/index pages.

I think TechCrunch has stumbled onto something that I may use in future designs.  If you scroll down their home page, their articles are differentiated between two or three different layouts (I count two so far, other than a third that I’ll mention specifically in a minute).

Looking at the photo above, those are both in the same loop, but have completely different layouts.  I love this idea.  It gives a bit of depth to the site and allows the author to customize the article for his/her own style.

That said, it’s super easy to do something like this in your own blog.

The Code

First thing’s first – if you’re like me, you love using great plugins, so download the “More Fields” plugin and create yourself a new write panel in the options menu.  There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this, but the end result should be a write panel with a drop down menu and two options (We’ll call them layout 1 and layout 2 with values of layout1 and layout2 respectively). Your meta key can be called whatever you want – mine will be “layout” for ease of use.

Next, we’re going to split the loop up into two different pieces – one for layout1, and one for layout2  (this is a very simplified layout, mind you).  We first have to define a variable for our custom field data (handled via a handy-dandy drop down).  Then, we can use IF THEN statements to get the data based on which value is passed:

<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<?php $snvlayout = get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘layout’, true) ?>
<?php if ($snvlayout == “layout1″) { ?>

<!–LOOP STYLE 1 GOES HERE–>

<?php } else { ?>

<!–LOOP STYLE 2 GOES HERE–>

<?php } ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<div class=”navigation”>
<div class=”alignleft”><?php next_posts_link(‘&laquo; Older Entries’) ?></div>
<div class=”alignright”><?php previous_posts_link(‘Newer Entries &raquo;’) ?></div>
</div>

<?php else : ?>

<h2 class=”center”>Not Found</h2>
<p class=”center”>Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.</p>

<?php endif; ?>

Once again, this is more to show you where the new code is going – everyone’s loop styles will be different.  Combine this with Post Formats (like TechCrunch’s third style – the status update) and you can showcase all sorts of post styles – all without leaving the comfort of your post loop.

These loops also translate over to single posts, archive pages, and any other style you need.  Want a drop down menu that will control a full column vs standard page layout?  Doable with this code – and a few modifications.  The possibilities are endless!

I’ve just downloaded a local copy of the brand spanking new WordPress 3.2beta1 – and let me be the first to say… it’s gorgeous.

Simplicity is the motto here, and the UI design team has done an outstanding job in streamlining a lot of the elements down.  I mean, take a look at this new interface:

Everything looks… clean.  Lots of clean lines, clean divisions; the blue color scheme will follow soon, but for now the monochrome one looks downright beautiful.

And that’s not all – they’ve added a brand new ground-built full screen editor:

Now you can edit both HTML and Visually without any of the distractions of tags, categories, etc; perfect for people (like me) who like to do other stuff while writing posts (also like me).

Oh… and there’s also Twenty Eleven:

BAZINGA!

From the official site:

Here’s some of what’s new:

• Performance improvements like you wouldn’t believe. What’s that mean? Things are faster!
• Distraction-free Writing. The visual editor’s full-screen composing experience has gotten a major overhaul, and is now available from HTML mode, too. More than ever, WordPress allows you to focus on what matters most — your content.
• Admin UI Refresh. The last major redesign of the WordPress admin was in 2008. This isn’t a major redesign, just a little facelift to keep us feeling young. WordPress turns 8 later this month, you know.
• New Default Theme. Introducing Twenty Eleven, based on the popular Duster theme. Rotating header images, post format support, and more.
• Browse Happy. WordPress is made to work with modern browsers. If you visit your Dashboard using an outdated web browser, we’ll let you know there’s a newer version available.
• Admin Bar. We’ve added more links to the admin bar to make it even more useful.

Be Aware:

• WordPress has new system requirements: PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0.
• Internet Explorer 6 will no longer be supported.
• The favorites menu has been removed. If you’ve written any plugins that use this menu, it’s time to switch over to an admin bar placement.

Known Issues:

• We haven’t updated the blue admin color scheme yet, so do your testing in the gray zone for best results.

WordPress 3.1, codename “Reinhardt”, released today to much fanfare and rejoicing to all.  But what’s so special about the new version? Look no further:

Internal Linking

One of the best new features of 3.1 – this brings Internal Linking to the forefront, allowing you to quickly link to old posts, pages, or other content types.

Admin Bar

Also super important – this adds a bar to any logged in user that has commonly used functions or actions within easy reach – I love the fact that I can edit the page right from that link, as well as heading straight to the add new page or post menus, and even to the CSS editor.

Streamlined Writing Interface

A lot of the options in the interface have been hidden by default for a more simplistic interface – you can click the “Screen Options” tab to bring them back, but on my screen all it showed was the title, content, publish box, categories, and tags – and all in one SEO, but that’s a plugin – everything else had been hidden by default.

Post Formats

Post Formats allow you to choose different styles of posts depending on what format it is.  This lets you specify video, audio, “asides” or other types and format the style of the post accordingly.

Network Admin

This is more multi-site related, but this takes some of the functions out of the normal admin menu and drops them into a network admin – useful for actions that are specific to the overall network administrator

List-type Admin Screens

Notice how the above columns can be sorted either by Title, Author or Date –this makes sorting content even easier.  Any list-style content type (posts, pages, even plugins) can be sorted.

Import/Export Overhaul

Improved Export functionality lets you choose exactly what types of content, and what other data, you want to export.

Custom Content Type Improvements

FINALLY allows for creation of archive pages for custom content types, as well as better controls in the menu and capabilities.  Good times.

Advanced Queries

Allows for querying posts by custom field data and using multiple taxonomies – basically, gives you better control on querying content no matter what content you need to query.

New Admin Color Scheme (Blue)

It looks real purdy In all seriousness this really goes a long way in refreshing the blue admin screen.  Kudos to my homegirl Sara Cannon, as I believe she played a part in the new color scheme.

So yeah, there’s lots of great stuff coming down the WordPress pipe.  If you haven’t updated, there’s nothing that should break anything you already have, so go forth and update!

Short answer: Yes.

The longer one: WordPress has been around for over 7 years now.  From its humble beginnings as the blogging software that took down MovableType, it’s morphed and changed and evolved itself into the number one content management system (or CMS) on the web today.  WordPress powers over 10% of all websites on the Internet – that’s saying something for a software managed, controlled, and kept up to date by its userbase.

But, I’ve always heard that if all you use is a hammer, every problem starts to look like it can be fixed with a nail.  So, does WordPress really work for all the reasons people say it does?  Can WordPress really benefit a business that switches its site over to a platform?

I think so.  And I can prove it.

Let’s look at a typical business site.  When you want to view a business online, you typically look for three things:

1. What their website looks like (personality, atmosphere)
2. What they’re saying (content, information)
3. How to get a hold of them.

So, one by one, let’s look at these very vague ideas (like I said, every business is different, but when I look at a business’ site online, this is what I look for) and relate them to a WordPress site.

Look and Feel

Granted, one of the caveats of WordPress (if there is one) is that themes tend to look alike.  Change a few colors, the fonts, and add a few images and one theme can turn into another one very quickly, with a sort of resemblance between the two.  However, WordPress has thousands (if not tens or hundreds of thousands) of themes that do look different. And, besides the tons of free ones, there are quite a few themes that you can pay for that are customizable to the point that anyone can have a decent looking site quickly and on the cheap (If you’re really wanting a special look, though, there are a good many designers out there [hint, hint] who can customize WordPress to do exactly what you want it to).

Summary: Yes

Content

The number one problem websites that aren’t built on a CMS have is that it’s tedious to update.  Most modern websites are built using good solid HTML and CSS – but it hasn’t always been the case.  Older websites are built in tables that are rigid and hard to modify.  Luckily with WordPress we can simply log in and add content just like we were using a word processor.  Have a news release that’s time sensitive? No problem – add a new blog post and it’s out to the masses.  Want to change a word in your marketing copy?  Log in, edit the page, and hit update and it’s done.  One of my clients cut their access time for their website from 1 week (yes, a week) to less than an hour by switching to WordPress

Summary: Yes.

Contact

Having the ability to add content on the fly means that we can also add other cool stuff that enhances the experience of the site.  I always like to add some sort of conversion form, whether it’s just a contact form or even just a newsletter subscription form, to the site.  Both Contact Form 7 and Gravity Forms offer solutions that are as customizable as you need them.  Need the newsletters to go somewhere else? Gravity Forms can jump through hoops if you know how to tweak it.  Or, just send a simple text email to your account when someone wants to inquire on your services – either way, it’s simple and easy to set up.

Summary: Yes.

In Closing

I know there are many more reasons that you could use WordPress for your business, but I wanted to hit the high points here.  WordPress has made its way from a great blog software to an outstanding content management system, and it’s showing no signs of stopping.  Do you use WordPress for your business?  And if so, what keeps you excited about your experience with it?

It’s about that time – the friendly neighborhood WordPress Core Dev Team has been gearing up, smashing bugs, and all around getting ready to release the newest version of the best content management system on the block.  So, what’s new to WordPress 3.1?

Internal Linking

Possibly the best feature coming up, this new feature will allow you to quickly link to internal pages and posts in your blog.  With both recent posts and a search function, this new internal linking structure makes it easy to reference old posts and point back to groups of posts for tutorial series, multi-part posts, or even to a contact or landing page made specific for that blog post.  It’s going to make the lives of a lot of bloggers much, much easier.

Ajax Admin Screens

Plugins, themes, posts, pages; anything that can be paginated in WordPress is now loaded by AJAX.  What does that mean in layman’s terms? Browsing doesn’t reload the page every time you click the next page button – all the content loads “inline” so you have  faster browsing experience.

The Death of PHP4 (YAY!)

This is the last version to support PHP4.  WordPress 3.2 will only support PHP5 and above.  If you’re a power user, you won’t need to worry about this, but you may want to start making the (painless and typically easy) switch to PHP5.  If you need help, and are willing to let me document it, I’ll take a few people up on the offer so I can walk others through it – just send me a contact form submission.

The Admin Bar

WordPress.com users know it, they love it, but there’s now a nice looking administration bar that follows you around if you’re authenticated on a site.  Suh-weet.

Custom Post Templates / Styles

This one allows you to assign different templates to different types of posts.  Have a video post? Apply a video template.  Have a quote, audio file, or “aside” post?  Fantastic – everyone gets their own format, and everybody wins!

The Wrap Up

Those five main features are combined with a host of other maintenance features, some other small adjustments, and a few other items for power users (quickpress template tag, some UI fixes, etc).  Rest assured this will be just as good an update as any in the past, simply for the internal linking and ajax pagination alone. 

If you’re feeling frisky, the beta is live and working flawlessly on my system (not this site, but mitchcanter.com) – so go have fun!

It’s not everyday you see a company whose sole purpose in life is to both do the right thing and make software that works, but Automattic has just proven once again they know what it takes to do amazing things.  Automattic, the founding for-profit company of WordPress, signed over the rights of the trademark to the WordPress Foundation (the non-profit arm of Automattic).  So, what does that mean?  It means that even if Matt Mullenweg steps out of the picture, the WordPress namesake, logo, and core values will live on in the Foundation.  The Foundation hopes that this move solidifies WordPress as a beacon of light in the Open Source world, and continues no matter who’s in charge.

Personally, I think it really goes to show you that the people behind WordPress don’t just see themselves riding the WordPress gravy-train.  It shows me that they really do care about the community that they help to foster, and that we, as WordPress developers and users, will always be the major voice in what goes on – even if the management of the company changes.

Kudos to you guys at Automattic – can’t wait to see what amazing things you do next.

WordPress 3.0 has plenty of new features, and all of them are worth mentioning and diving deeper into.  Over the next few days I’ll be diving into the finer features of the newest incarnation of the WordPress platform.  Everything from Custom Post Types and Taxonomies to navigational menus and all of the custom functions you can sink your teeth into.  Today, we start with the most prolific change to hit WordPress 3.0 – the inclusion of a navigational menu generator.

WordPress’ navigation options before 3.0 were very… eclectic.  There were about 3 to 4 different plugins I used to achieve the desired effect (My Page Order, Exclude from Page Nav, 301 Redirect, etc).  With the advent of WordPress 3.0 came a breakthrough in its jump from a blog platform to a content management platform: navigational menus.

The menu above looks like any typical navigational menu, but the difference lies in the backend.  You don’t need to know page ID numbers, you don’t need to use funky page reordering to get things to work right – all you need is two snippits of code and you can add dynamic navigation to any WordPress site.

First, the function (place this code in your functions.php file):

add_theme_support( 'nav-menus' );

That’s it – for the function, anyways.  Now, find in your theme where you want to put your navigation.  You’re looking for either a hard coded navigation, an unordered list (a typically form of navigation styling and structure), or the function <?php wp_list_pages( ); ?>.  Once you’ve found that, replace it (or add in) this code set:

<?php wp_nav_menu( ); ?>

That’s all there is to it.  Your theme is set up for  navigational menus that you can control in the WordPress backend.  One thing worth mentioning is that this is the default setting.  It will pull the class from whatever you name your menu in the next screen.

What’s that?  You want to add some pages?  Sounds great – click on the Menus tab under appearance over on the left side of your dashboard.

You’ll notice three things on the left side of the menu: Custom Links, Pages, and Categories.  Pages and categories are pretty self explanatory: you can add links to category listings or the pages of your WordPress site.  The custom links box allows you to give an external or custom link/label a place in your navigational menu – good for linking to social networks, other sites, etc.

Up on the top-right corner of the page is a tab called “screen options”.  Clicking this will bring up the advanced options for the menu navigation, such as the class you wish to give your links, XFN relationships, etc.  It also brings up menus for inserting posts and tags into your navigational menu – good if you have an intro post you like to point your visitors to.

If you missed my session at WordCampFayetteville over the new awesome features WordPress 3.0 will have, never fear.  For one, the new release candidate (a stable version, but not quite ready for deployment) is out, and most of the bugs have been squashed.  Not all, but that’s ok, I’ll talk about that in a bit.

So, what do you have to look forward to in the newest version of the most popular blog/CMS ever?  Well…

1) A New Default Theme (Hallelujah!)

Gone are the nasty default blue chunky headers, and in its place is an elegant, streamlined photo header complete with drop down navigation and stylish polished features.  There are a total of 6 sidebar areas (2 side, 4 footer) and loads of customization options (background, header, etc).

2) MultiUser (MultiSite)

Taking the golden child of automattic and the still-ok-but-not-one-you’d-take-home-to-your-mother stepchild and merging them together has been no easy task.  But, the awesome people at Automattic have done just that – they’ve merged the codebase for MU and WordPress together to one.  This means that now there’s a new “MultiSite” WordPress option when you’re installing your new WP installation, and you can convert existing installations over with a few simple edits to your wp-config.php file.  There’s also a new role – the SuperAdmin, which will have admin access to all sites, and let the individual sites have their own separate admins.

3) The Menu System

In my opinion this is the “game changer” for the new WP release.  This custom navigational menu system will allow you to create menus from pages, categories, and even external URL’s.  Support for drop-downs can be styled in, as does the new theme, and allows for a super-easy way to customize WordPress like never before (without having to move around, code, or plugin your way to a nice navigation menu).

4) Custom Taxonomies and Post Types

They’ve “sort of” been around a bit, but not in an easy to use form.  Now, they are.  Custom taxonomies allow you to sort posts outside of the normal category/tag elements.  Have a certain color you reference in every post?  Create a color taxonomy and let your users search by color, and not category.  Custom post types let you specify taxonomies inside of them, giving you even further separation (a custom post type would be similar to how Tumblr does things – photos, text, etc.)

5) Choosing Your Own Dang Username

Been missing, been needed, and it’s here – and it should help eliminate 33% of all of the security issues for brute-force attacks.  And, please, don’t set your username as admin – do us all a favor.

6) More Features

Some minor features, such as author templates, a welcome guide, URL shortlinks, automatic inclusion of feeds with a function and others are also included.

What can I do to help?

If you’re willing to go ahead and run the RC (I did, and I have been since beta with 0 problems) then do so.  That way, if you find a bug, you can submit a ticket for it and help out 1000s of other users who may have that same bug.  If you’re a developer, submit your tickets to trac and watch the fun.  Get involved with the mailing list, the IRC chat, or other places to help submit the tickets and get it fixed.  We are what makes WordPress so awesome – the community.

So what about you? What are you most looking forward to about WordPress 3.0?

UPDATE: I managed to write this into a plugin – Facebook Like Button

Since Facebook announced a few days ago that you would be able to use its OpenGraph technology to “like” pretty much anything on the Internet, I took it upon myself to test out a few solutions for adding a “Like” button on the site.

It turned out to be fairly easy, but not as easy as just adding a plugin and doing forth (at least, it’s not yet, anyway).

Our Plan of Action:

1. Download and Install the plugin
2. Editing the core file to allow for correct width and color scheme

Step 1: Downoading the Plugin

I looked through quite a bit of plugins to find this one, and I had to get it from his website because it’s an alpha release, but the Facebook Like Widget does it cleanly and with little fuss.

Step 2: Customizing the Plugin

OK.  Editors note: normally I do not advocate editing the core of a plugin.  Why? Because when you update (and you should!) it will over-write what you did.  However, since this is an alpha release, and I’m almost positive the next changes will allow you easily do these changes, I think once or twice is ok.

You’re going to want to click into Plugins > Editor, and choose the “Facebook Like Widget” plugin from the list.

There’s literally about 20 lines of code:

<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Facebook Like Widget
Plugin URI: http://allanjosephbatac.com
Description: Add a Facebook ‘Like’ Button Widget to your post pages. Increase visitors!
Author: AJ Batac
Version: 0.1
Author URI: http://allanjosephbatac.com
*/

function add_facebook_like($the_iframe = ”)
{
    $the_perma    = rawurlencode(get_permalink());
    $the_iframe    .= ‘<div id=”facebook_like”><iframe src=”http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=’.$the_perma.’&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=600&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=dark” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” style=”border:none; overflow:hidden; width:600px; height:auto;”></iframe></div>’;
    return $the_iframe;
}

add_action(‘the_content’, ‘add_facebook_like’);
?>

The bold, color coded areas above show the areas you can change. The width corresponds to how wide your blog is.  if you don’t know, then just leave it at the default (450px) and you should be OK.  However, your friend’s “faces” won’t go to the edge of your content.  In yellow is the “color scheme”.  If you have a light background, choose “light”.  If you have a darker background, like my site, choose “dark”. 

That’s it – the like badge will show up at the bottom:

And will also show up on your friend’s “Recent Activity” stream:

Keep in mind, this is not the most elegant solution, but until others come, this is a great way to get it on your site quickly and with very little editing.