WordPress just announced that the next version (3.2 beta) of it’s software is available to software developers and beta testers for download. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 3 months since the last release already.

I took this opportunity to install it and check it out, and let you know of any changes that could impact your next upgrade when WordPress 3.2 final is released in late June.

Even though some of the features in this beta release are cool and useful, and we all want them now, I want to stress that this is a beta release, and should NOT be used in a production environment.

SPEED!

The main emphasis of this release was performance.  And from what I can tell, it delivers.

 

The admin panel seems snappier to me, and the pages seem to load quicker too.

It’s really hard to tell for sure on a demo site that’s not under load, on my local machine, and doesn’t have any content in it, but comparing the same setup to a WP 3.1 site I have in the same state, it still feels like there are speed improvements.

Excited to see this in action on a few live sites.

Full Screen Editing

This is an improvement that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.  An enhanced full-screen editing mode that allows you to intuitively use either HTML or Visual editing mode, and can update from full screen too.

 

Full screen allows you to see a better representation of what it will look like in your final post, and frees your mind from the distractions of all the other buttons and interfaces in the admin panel.

The full screen editing is very ajaxy, and intuitive.

New Admin Interface Theme

With WordPress 3.2 comes a new admin theme – the first since 2008.  The changes are mostly subtle

They are mostly color enhancements, icon changes, and small things of that nature.

However, one thing they did was get rid of was the “favorites” bar, which allows you to quickly add a page or post from the dropdown.  They are moving this content into the admin bar, as you can see in the screen shots.

The admin bar has added several new items that allow you to add content easily, and access other critical admin features with ease.  Personally, I’d like to see the admin bar be customizable like the navigation menus, and with time that may be possible.

However, I’ve never really been a big fan of the admin bar to begin with, and if they are moving that way, I’ll need to turn it on as my default while administering sites.

Twenty Eleven Default Theme

And as promised, every year will have a new default theme, named for the year that it becomes the default. So we’re now going to start seeing the Twenty Eleven theme in common usage.

I have to say though, that when I first saw the bright images, that rotate randomly on each page refresh, I was impressed.

But as I dug in deeper into the Post Formats (detailed in a bit), I was highly disappointed in this theme as one that represents WordPress 3.2 features.  I do hope they upgrade this theme before it goes into production to better represent the capabilities of the final release of WordPress

There’s also a theme options panel, which is very common in commercial themes, but never used by the default theme until now.  I like this direction, as theme options are very useful and specific.

Post Formats

Post formats are a way to stylize your posts in a standard way.  In a way, they are like post templates, but they are stylized according to how your theme designer wants them setup.

For instance, if you have a really awesome quote you want to add to your site, and have it formatted as a quote (fancy quote curls, no title, etc), then you just have to select a “quote” format type, but it only works if your theme supports it.

Post formats have been available since 3.1, but I mention this 1) because they aren’t real well known, and 2) because in the settings, there is now an option to set the default post format type.

Standard is likely the default, and should be unless you will be using one of the other post formats more regularly.

BYE BYE Old Browsers

Apparently if you access your admin panel with an older browser, it gives you a message that you should upgrade.  I don’t have an older browser on my test machine, so I couldn’t see it myself, but it’s part of the Browse Happy initiative that is sponsored by WordPress.

System Requirements Changes

Minimum system requirements were upped a little bit.  The minimum version of PHP is now 5.2.4, and the minimum MySQL version is 5.0.  Be sure to check with your hosting company or web developer to verify that you have the minimum system requirements.

Conclusion

I’d like to remind you that there’s still another month or so (as of this writing) before the anticipated late June release date for the WordPress 3.2 final.  This means that it’s still buggy, and the final touches are being put on it.  What we see today, could be fixed tomorrow, broken tomorrow, or just simply vanished!

What this also means is that you shouldn’t upgrade to this version, unless you’re proactively testing your site, but in a test environment, and not your production site.

The biggest change I can see is the server requirements.  Most hosting providers have this, but it’s a good idea to check beforehand.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to dream big on on the speed improvements.

 

WordPress 3.2 Image Gallery