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.
PHP 5 is now the standard for WordPress (thank goodness!) and Internet Explorer 6 support is dropped. This means that legacy system clutter is dropped to make way for systems that are current, as well as systems to come.
Go check it out if you’re brave, or wait for the RC, but either way, this is a version of WordPress to anticipate greatly.
