The developers of WordPress began working on WordPress 3.1 in September 2010, their next major release. WordPress 3.1 is scheduled to be released to the public in December, 2010 to early 2011.

Rumor has it, the target release date is December 15, 2010.

Things are already well underway with enhancements and bug fixes. Currently, there are a total of 477 Trac Tickets submitted by WordPress users and 242 of them have already been closed.

What's in store for WordPress 3.1?

It seems that WordPress 3.1's primary focus is on UI and code cleanup and avoiding schema changes. However, there's some great new features coming such as…

• Internal Linking — A new button in the WYSIWYG editor where you'll be able link to your posts or browse a list of existing content by title, date, author, etc. so you can link to them. NICE, what a time saver!
• Post Templates / Post Styles — Create multiple templates and users will be able to choose how they see your posts.
• Theme Admin UI — Making the way you browse and administer your themes much easier.
• Ajax Admin Screens — Smooth out pagination when browsing your posts, plus an advanced search and sorting feature. Wow, another time saver!
• New Admin Bar – One-click access to the “Dashboard,” new post form, etc. Logged in users will be able to connect to the back and front end of the site easier. According to Matt Mullenweg, this is the “first step toward a front-end editor”.

These are just a few enhancements said to be coming in WordPress version 3.1. You can find out more by reading “What's Coming in WordPress 3.1 (Features),” at wpbeginner.com.

After a quick review of the WordPress Trac for 3.1, I did note many bug fixes and an assigned “security” ticket for Password Reset Improvements.

WordPress 3.1 Demo

You can see WordPress 3.1-alpha in action now by going to: http://demo.talkpress.de/trunk/.

You can log-in to the Dashboard with “demo” as the username and password at http://demo.talkpress.de/trunk/wp-admin/.

Important Announcement:

As we get ready for this new major WordPress release, please keep in mind that WordPress 3.1 is the LAST major release to support PHP4 and MySQL4. WordPress.org has announced their end of life cycle for PHP 4 and MySQL 4.

I'm looking forward to this end of life cycle. Goodbye PHP 4 & MySQL 4! It's one step closer for all of us to have better WordPress security.

The PHP 5 and MySQL 5 series are much more secure, closing many security vulnerabilities and added improvements since the version 4 series.

WordPress 3.1 Resources:

• WordPress 3.1 Project Schedule
• WordPress Trac Milestone 3.1
• All open WordPress 3.1 Tickets
• WordPress Roadmap
• All WordPress Versions, release dates and change logs
• Bug Tracker – Future releases and links to their milestones

I'm looking forward to WordPress 3.1. I'd like to thank each and every WordPress developer and contributor for your continued efforts and improvements to WordPress!

Leave your feedback

If you know of any new security improvements scheduled for WordPress 3.1, please leave us a comment below.

Feel free to share your thoughts or concerns about WordPress 3.1 by leaving a comment below.

Securely yours,

Regina Smola
WordPress Security Specialist
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