With over 10 million downloads, WordPress has now overtaken every other open source CMS as the system of choice. For ease of use, level of support and ease of development, it is hands down the most flexible content management systems available. We can also safely say that it has thrown off the shackles of being a blogging platform. With the release of WordPress 3.0 it has taken another step toward global domination. This latest release comes with a few new features, a change of direction and a new look.
Formerly, the standard WordPress, and the multiple user version, WordPress MU stood separately. Now they have merged, allowing administrators to manage multiple websites from within the same system through a new Super Admin page. According to the blog, there have been some 1217 bug fixes in this release, thanks to the hundreds of programmers that contributed their time. The old standard Kubric theme has now gone, to be replaced by a swish new twenty ten theme.
Another change, that will allow developers to breathe a sigh of relief, is that menus will now be directly managed through the back end. No more hard coding template files, and having to update them. All tags, menu items and links can be managed easily.
For those interested in the code, there have been a whole host of additional calls added into the codex, including wp_login_form() allowing you to post a login form anywhere. There is also good news for wordpress owners, as it seems most of the current themes have been updated to be compatible with WordPress 3.0