Preview: WordPress 3.0

I was very excited when I read of WordPress 3.0 multi-site network capabilities, so much that I had to install it to find out how it worked. How could I not? WordPress 3.0 even has its own meme. Don’t blame the kitteh.

WordPress Beta Plugin

I first installed the WordPress Beta Plugin on one of madbadcat.org‘s test sites and upgraded to the latest build of 3.0.

The upgrade was really easy. I do, however,  suggest that you run the upgrade on a parallel site before upgrading your live site. And backup your database.

WordPress 3.0 Dashboard

The 3.0 dashboard has a nice platinum color scheme and each admin screen now has a little button that reads “screen options”.

Clicking on this expands a list of check boxes that allows you to customize the information displayed. You can choose, for example, to display (or not) the category descriptions. There are similar options in the other admin screens.

Click on any of these images for examples of these new options:

Creating A Multi-site Network

I couldn’t find an area for multi-site management so after some research I came to think I had to do a fresh install to set it up correctly. (To be fair I only skimmed the article. Blame it on my ADHD)

So I made a special install (Madbadcat.org/go) and imported all the filler content I used to set-up sites. (Pilfered from Studiopress.com and WP-Candy‘s most excellent workflow suggestions for wordpress designers.)

Before I could continue I had to decide on a theme- preferably a magazine theme- that:

1. …wouldn’t make me do extra work to create thumbnails. I love the Studiopress themes but I hate the tim-thumb deployment and as someone who runs very image-heavy site, the idea of having extra steps involved with creating a post thumbnail just sets me teeth on edge. Its ok for some of my clients who post one or two articles a week but I post 1 or 2 articles a day (or more) on various sites before I start my day as a freelance graphic designer.
2. …didn’t require I read a manual to install. Thesis and WooThemes are gorgeous- all of them. I have installed them for very happy clients. I ahven’t used them enough to be super-familiar with tehm and, well, blame it on teh ADHD again, but I just didn’t want the distraction of having to awaken some dormant knowledge somewhere in my lizard brain. I wanted something simple but not too simple. Tall order, right?

Magazine Basic Theme By Bavotasan.Com

Then I ran across this Magazine Basic Theme by Bavotasan.com. Check it out in action here- great layout, clean design and very VERY user-friendly. The best part? It’s free. (This theme requires its own review- coming soon)Digitalapplejuice.com may be swapping themes over next holiday weekend.

Click on any of these thumbnails for screenshots of the Magazine Basic Theme’s backend:

Creating a Network

Step 1: You have to edit the wp-config.php. (For more info about how and why, go here)

Step 2: Update the .htaccess as directed by Dashboard > Network .

The database set-up for the additional WordPress install looks like this:

I was very excited at the prospect of managing multiple installs. For many projects, and Digitalapplejuice in particular, it would be great to set up the content in sections instead of categories- sort of like meta-categories. I got even more excited when i peaked in the database to see how the additional blog was identified. Notice that the creation of additional sites gets a BlogID number.

Apparently, multi-site  navigation is not something planned for Wp 3.0,  according to the Scribu of the WP-Testing Digest. I am sure that someone smarter than me will design a plugin to accomplish this.

WordPress 3.0 is scheduled for release in May of 2010.

I cannot wait.

For more information about the options in the Dashboard > Network, visit this Codex page.

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