WordPress 3.0 Released

[travelin cat]

WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten. Theme developers have new APIs that allow them to easily implement custom backgrounds, headers, shortlinks, menus (no more file editing), post types, and taxonomies.

[wordpress.org...]

[ergophobe]

I've been too busy to check out the beta releases, so I haven't even had a look yet.

Anyone have any first reactions?

[alika]

It broke my featured content gallery plugin. Grr... anyone know how I can put back the old version of Wordpress?

[travelin cat]

I've got a feeling that a lot of plug-ins will not work with 3.0. Time to contact all of your plug-in developers and ask them when their products will be compatible with it.

[vik_c]

It broke my featured content gallery plugin. Grr... anyone know how I can put back the old version of Wordpress?

You didn't back up your old site before the upgrade?

[alika]

I did, and I re-uploaded my entire backup. But I login and it still says I am using Wordpress 3, and my featured content gallery is still gone.

That's why I'm perplexed

[incrediBILL]

Surprisingly, not one WORD(press) about increased SECURITY in that announcement.

Let the HACKING 3.0 commence!

[travelin cat]

alika, perhaps you are seeing a cached copy of the site?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

How long do we have before Google lowers rankings on outdated CMS's (or boosts up to date sites), now that's a question I'd love Matt Cutts to answer.

There are some things I don't like about 3.0 from an SEO standpoint, duplicate content issues (multiple new url's and locations for same content) and it handles themes differently but my existing theme is sufficient already.

from the article...

Normally this is where I’d say we’re about to start work on 3.1, but we’re actually not. We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress. The growth of the community has been breathtaking, including over 10.3 million downloads of version 2.9, but so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else. Over the next three months we’re going to split into ninja/pirate teams focused on different areas of the around-WordPress experience, including the showcase, Codex, forums, profiles, update and compatibility APIs, theme directory, plugin directory, mailing lists, core plugins, wordcamp.org… the possibilities are endless.

emphasis mine, I'd like to take at least those three months to upgrade, until they are done being ninjas and I can figure out what needs changing for my particular site. This isn't just patching of the old system, it's a re-write in many ways.

[ergophobe]

I re-uploaded my entire backup.

Both the files and the database?

Personally, my rule of thumb is to use the most recent version if it's a brand new site, but to wait until at least version X.x.1 to upgrade a site. Given the extent of this update, I'd be in Sgt_Kickaxe's camp with respect to upgrading existing sites.

[Future]

Another massive increase in SPAM(s) ?

[koan]

Did a clean update (erased all files, uploaded new version with copies of old theme/upload/plugins/etc directories) on one of my sites with 3.0, it went smoothly as usual.

[leadegroot]

How long do we have before Google lowers rankings on outdated CMS's (or boosts up to date sites), now that's a question I'd love Matt Cutts to answer.

Come on - there's no hint on my sites what CMS is used; why give the hackers a simple vector to find me?

[alika]

I was able to make it work. It was an incompatibility between the featured content gallery and the WP Security Scan plugin. Prior to 3.0, these two worked well together.

I disabled WPSS and my featured content worked again. I can live momentarily without the WPSS.

[nigassma]

Plugins will catch-up. I did two updates to 3.0 and noticed one slider broken, but it was a handmade one so we fixed it. Everything else was fine. Started creating custom post types already and am excited for multisite (setting that up right now).

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

32MB is the memory limit on some shared hosts. While 3.0 was being tested and tested and tested it wasn't small enough in size to be released. When testing was completed that problem was realized and the butcher job of cutting it to size began without re-testing prior to release. While I'm sure it's safe, for now, this type of lack of foresight (added to the dev team going ninja immediately after release instead of getting on top of issues) doesn't make me want to jump on board just yet.

You can read about the size problem and the butcher jobs proposed in the dev trac - [core.trac.wordpress.org...]

from the trac...

Losing tinymce.js and the importers bought us quite a bit of extra room. There will probably be some setups with lots of plugins and big po and mo files that will bust the limit, but there's only so much butchering we can do. The workaround is to do a manual upgrade. I think we've done enough here.

Doesn't inspire confidence.

Another last resort option: we could remove the Prototype.js/Scriptaculous (290KB) and load it from googleapis when queued from a plugin. It hasn't been used in core for a long time and don't think there are many plugins that use it.

Scriptaculous is actually pretty versatile, removing it for a Google dependent alternative isn't a great idea else plugins could go down due to Google changes which in turn could cause (unknown and untested) problems.

If nothing else, the hack job to cut it to size after testing was complete merrits a little "wait and see" in my opinion. 2.9.2 isn't broken yet.

I totally appreciate the effort these guys put into wordpress but it's code and needs to be done right including testing, no exceptions.

The final entry in this trac...

There's not much more we can do here for 3.0, which goes RC soon. Addressing root causes will have to wait for 3.1.

That speaks volumes, especially since 3.1 is being put off. Problems are known, no solutions were completed, instead some changes were made to mask the symptoms (according to the dev trac). What else isn't fully up to par? I'll let early adopters find out and wait for 3.1. Hopefully Google isn't quick to the punch with not up-to-date installation penalties (if there is such a thing).

leadegroot - give me a link to your site and I'll tell you what version it is, there is always a way to find out.

[lorax]

Updated 16 sites without an issue. It seems to perform better than v2.9.2 for speed but that's just my observation and not tested.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It was designed to update once and run multiple sites from that one install, has anyone tried that out yet ?

[ergophobe]

SK - you're referring to the merge with WPMU I assume?

I haven't looked at WPMU in a long time, so not sure this is absolutely right, but my memory is that WPMU requires you to use one DB for all sites.

So in terms of "update once" for WP3, the problem is that if you currently have a lot of standalone WP installs, it's not going to suddenly roll them into one database and therefore can't update in one operation.

FYI - in the Drupal world, I found the multi-site function to be a major hassle unless your sites are all using the same base theme and plugins. What happens is you have one module that doesn't get ported to the new version and so all of your other sites are stuck using an older version until that one module upgrades. I eventually sucked it up and split the sites to use separate code bases.

I'm not sure how that compares in the WP world.

[bateman_ap]

It was designed to update once and run multiple sites from that one install, has anyone tried that out yet ?

I have been running the beta for a while now to test out the multiple site bit, was using WordpressMP before that but it had its own set of problems.

However 3 is very good IMO, themes and addons can be installed on a site by site basis to answer ergophobe's concerns. Still had the eternal permissions problems though. All of my themes installed perfectly on it, however I don't really use many plugins but would assume they won't work until you try them, it seems to be a fair old rewrite under the hood.

I recommend installing it on a test server and having a play..

[ergophobe]

themes and addons can be installed on a site by site basis to answer ergophobe's concerns.

I don't think I explained this very clearly. Let's say I have two sites. Site 1 runs plugins A, B and C. Site 2 runs plugins A, B and X.

Wordpress comes out with a new version that fixes crtical security issues, but also makes some changes that require plugins to be updated. The developers for A, B and C all update their plugins, but plugin X is an abandoned project and will not run on the new version of WP.

Now I'm stuck - I have to either stick with the old version of Wordpress, update the plugin myself, find a replacement plugin, or go without. If it's critical for the one site, all sites are now held hostage and I can't upgrade the Wordpress core until I solve the plugin situation.

[ergophobe]

>>Google

So the question I always have to ask when people wheel stuff like this out is a sort of Ockham's Razor of Google Ranking Factors question - what reason would Google have for discounting sites running on outdated CMS software?

- they are already checking for malware
- they are already checking for content freshness
- they have already said that HTML and CSS validation are not factors in ranking

How could ranking a site on Wordpress 3.0.1 lower than a site on Wordpress 3.0.2 serve the user better?

[edit: strange - my browser is not refreshing the cache and it was showing me a several day old version of this thread, with the Google question as the last one. I knew something seemed strange. Sorry all]

[TheOpiProject]

I'll probably give wordpress a go.

[claus]

I'm using the WP Hive plugin on some (customer) sites for running multiple blogs from one WP codebase/install. I'm almost certain that upgrading to 3.0 will smash the whole setup, and I'm not inclined to give it a go just for the fun of it. Actually it's been a few versions since the last time that collection of blogs was updated. But that's just a symptom of a general WordPress problem:

The WP plugin system is quite a bottleneck for getting people to upgrade. Often the core functionality of a site can depend on a plugin or a series of plugins.

So, when the CMS gets updated there is quite a risk in upgrading, as it might spoil your whole site because some plugin does not work with the new version.

So, even though the plugin system is smart it just may be the most serious security issue with WordPress as well.

---
ADDED:

> Multisite

I just read the Codex Page [codex.wordpress.org] and it says that the multisite capability of WP3 only goes as far as subdomains or sub-folders. Ie. the blogs must be in subdomains or sub-folders.

So, you can't run multiple blogs with their own separate domain names from one 3.0 install (at least not without some major .htaccess hacking). Too bad, I have no clue why the developers didn't consider that if you want to run two or more blogs you might also want to do so from two or more domain names.

[shallow]

The WP plugin system is quite a bottleneck for getting people to upgrade. Often the core functionality of a site can depend on a plugin or a series of plugins.

So, when the CMS gets updated there is quite a risk in upgrading, as it might spoil your whole site because some plugin does not work with the new version.

I'm very reluctant to have my web developer upgrade to 3.0. I have full faith and confidence in my web developer but almost every time he's updated a plug-in something breaks. In one case, I spent over 300 dollars for him to set up someone else to come in and find a fix, and it's only partially fixed.

I still have a few plug-ins that were installed some time ago, they broke somewhere along the line, and are still not working.

I don't have unlimited funds, and there are other things I want to do with my site. If I constantly spend money to fix plug-ins, I won't have money to do the other things that I consider more important at this time.

Is there any reason I can't ride 3.0 out for a while and stick with my current version (I think it's 2.9.2)?

[ergophobe]

Hey shallow - as I said, I only do security upgrades right away. If I were starting a new site, I'd start with 3.0, but I have not upgraded any sites and won't upgrade any until at least the first minor version update of WP.

If you have some plugins that really matter, I would set up my site in a sandbox, do the upgrade and see what happens. This is not hard to test.