Thoughts on WordPress 3.0

It’s been in beta for a while (and, yes, I admit, I’ve been using nightly builds on here for a month or so), but WordPress 3.0 is finally out. Now includes some great new support for custom post types, menu management (originally by WooThemes) and the merge between WordPress and WordPress mu.

The new custom post type support could really do well at duplicating Tumblr functionality – although it’s still a bit strange because it’s dependant on at least the theme supporting it, and I’ve not really seen anything thrown about the community yet as to which post types should be considered standard for ‘tumblelog’ themes – obviously this is something that’s pretty important, because if you decide to change your theme and it defines differently-named post types (or misses a type out completely), you’ll ‘lose’ those posts somewhere inside your post table.

I think that WordPress still needs to raise its game in regards to multi-site functionality – it should work out of the box with something akin to ExpressionEngine’s Multiple Site Manager add-on – but it’s understandable that it’s early days. All in all, those who have been using Mu no longer will have to endure the delay between an update’s release and it being available to Mu, and presumably they can now also automatically install updates.

It’s all really great stuff in the build-up to WordCamp UK 2010 – which is taking place in Manchester in the middle of July.