WordPress 3.1 “Reinhardt” Released, New Feautres Added

For WordPress users all over the world, today has been a pretty busy day as yesterday saw the release of the much-anticipated WordPress 3.1 of the popular blogging platform. Codenamed “Reinhardt” after the famous jazz musician Django Reinhardt, the new version not only adds a slew of new features to WordPress but also improves security and usability.
But unlike security updates, which should always be applied as soon as practical, this is a version in crease and it may be that many WordPress users will want to hold off on updating, at least until a few bugs are detected and ironed out.
However, those who do update now are going to be rewarded with some very compelling features and a lot of smaller improvements that will likely make the risk and effort more than worthwhile. Still, the choice is yours so the best thing you can do is see what’s new and decide if WordPress 3.1 is a version you want and need today.

What’s New in WordPress 3.1

According to the WordPress Codex, there are a lot of new features to be found, however, here is a quick rundown of some of the more compelling and anticipated new items.

• Internal Linking: Available only with the visual editor (which has also been updated) WordPress now offers a “Link to existing content” dropdown that lets you easily search for and link to previous posts on your site.
• Admin Bar: When logged into your site and visiting the public page, you’ll see an admin bar across the top, similar to the one on WordPress.com blogs, that will let you access admin functions directly going to the admin area.
• Post Formats: A theme feature that allows posts to include metadata that instructs the themes to display them in a different manner.
• Cleaned Up Admin/Writing Interface: The admin area of WordPress has been streamlined, in particular the writing page. Admin area CSS has also been cleaned up.
• Security Updates: WordPress 3.1 comes with a slew of security updates, including an improved password recovery system.

After a full day of playing with WordPress 3.1, I think my favorite of the new features is the admin bar. With one-click access to stats, post/page editing and much more, it’s a very convenient way to make quick fixes and get updates on your site.

The internal linking feature also works very well, though it’s frustrating that it has to be used with the visual editor. As a die-hard HTML junky, I’m not sure this will sway me to using the visual editor more, though the revamped TinyMCE is very good.
Since Post Formats and other theme features will require theme support to happen, those who use WordPress 3.1 right now won’t see much benefit from them. However, as soon as new themes come online to use these features, they could be a boon.
All in all, WordPress 3.1 is a solid release and one that is probably well worth downloading, however, it likely isn’t for everyone, at least not yet.

Should You Upgrade?

Since the Post Formats and other features will be more relevant down the road (though some themes and theme frameworks have already integrated them) the real question is whether features like the admin bar, internal linking and so forth will be valuable to you.
For most, I suspect the answer will be yes. Though they might not be features that set the WordPress world on fire, they are practical and useful tools that will benefit bloggers greatly. Unless you have some clear reason not to upgrade, namely plugins or themes that aren’t compatible, you probably will want to.
Of course, even if the features themselves aren’t enough to warrant clicking the “Upgrade” link, the security enhancements and more subtle improvements may well push it over the top.
In short, there’s no single ground-breaking feature in WordPress 3.1, save features that won’t become truly wonderful until much later, but there are more than enough smaller improvements to make it worthwhile, especially since it only takes a few moments.

Bottom Line

If you haven’t upgraded your WordPress yet, now is a great time to do so. Even if you don’t get much benefit out of it today, you probably will see some powerful new theme elements come out of it down the road.
However, even the immediate benefits are useful and can provide some real benefit, even if you aren’t compelled to tell the world about how great they are.
In short, WordPress 3.1 isn’t so much about completely revolutionizing WordPress, instead, it’s about setting up for the next series of improvements which, in turn, will set up for the next.