Blog Better with WordPress 3.2

WordPress 3.2 -- also known as “Gershwin”, named after American piainist George Gershwin -- is the latest iteration of the popular publishing platform. It has several significant improvements, most notably to how it looks and performs. It aims to provide WordPress users with a faster and lighter publishing platform that lets them work more efficiently with the least amount of distractions possible.

Dashboard Refreshed

The dashboard design has been updated to provide a cleaner look and a more robust code. The typography, the layout and some minor elements have been resized and optimized for an easier navigation experience, but not to the point that it becomes unfamiliar to longtime users. The admin bar has also become more useful with more links to users’ most commonly used pages and tools. Users can now navigate the admin side more efficiently, leading them to blog better.

Twenty Eleven

The WordPress team plans to change the default theme every year and this is the first step in realizing that goal. Twenty Eleven is this year’s default theme and it features a customizable structure that both theme designers and average users will find useful and interesting. It is a fully HTML5 theme to keep up with modern web standards. In relation to that task of modernizing its front end, WordPress has also dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. Browse Happy is also integrated so if a user is using an outdated browser, they will get a nagging reminder to upgrade to the latest version of their browser or download another brand of browser. Aside from this, developers and administrators should also be aware that the minimum requirements for installing WordPress are now PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.

Just Write

With this new version comes a new focus on eliminating distractions when writing, hence the new full screen mode. With a simple click of a button in the post editor page, all the elements of the interface like menus, widgets and buttons all fade away except the post editor. WordPress 3.2 gives users the chance to focus on a single goal which is to just write. Some of the editing tools can still be accessed in this "Zen mode" by simply moving the mouse to the top area of the screen. This full screen mode only takes up the entire browser window, so if you want to use your entire computer screen for this mode, you just need to hit F11.

Security

One of the most compelling reasons to upgrade from older versions of this open source software to Gershwin is the security patch. It has been found by security experts that older versions of WordPress except for WordPress 3.1.4 are highly vulnerable to hacking attacks that end with those hacked sites being used to send out malware. Gershwin does not fully solve all security problems because vulnerabilities in hosting services also contribute to malicious attacks, but this update minimizes that risk significantly.

Bottom Line

With a faster and more secure back end and a sleeker default front end, WordPress 3.2 has all the reasons for bloggers and website administrators to upgrade immediately but not before checking if their hosting provider already supports the platform’s new minimum requirements. Users can now blog better with less distractions and a more efficient admin navigation experience.