WordPress 3.1 Rolled Out With Many New Features

On Wednesday WordPress 3.1 was released. Code named ‘Reinhardt’, this new version was supposed to be out in 2010 but because of technical delay it was held back. The previous version was WordPress 3.0 which came in June 2010.

There are certain new features and functions that are especially attractive in the new version. The overall view and dashboard remain the same but the blue admin theme users will experience something new. Only some new functions are added leaving the interface untouched.

One of the features called Post Formats, which is different from Custom Post Types, is useful for theme authors to change their online posts’ look through WordPress. Although not a very substantially contributing feature it is a good one for users. This feature lets you create a Tumblr-like shape on the web page. So now the blogger can decide as to how the post will be aligned. The various options are aside, link, video, image, quote, status, audio, chat or gallery. These options will make the article appear like a quote or a video format whatever the user desires.

Many WordPress theme developers have developed their own themes over time but now with a Post Format theme in place it will make their work easier. These users had to earlier write their own codes and add style sheets to give a new theme; now, all this has been pretty simplified.

Internal linking is another very useful addition to the newest version. This enables the user to go back to any previous article or page which is helpful in case there is additional insight to be given to it. This will ensure that the user doesn’t have to search the entire website or Google out the exact URL for that article. The user should simply click on the link button and enter the desired article. On hitting enter the article will be displayed and the link tab will be filled by the exact URL of that article.

Finally, the admin bar has been given a slight modification. The bar provides tools to the user to make changes to their page and to create new blog posts and access backend features. Usually this bar would be available to the user on every WordPress.com hosted site but now it will be enabled only over one’s own site or blog. Otherwise it will provide fast access to post comments on other articles.