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WordPress 3.6 – blogging gets even easier

By

Neville Hobson

•

WordPress 3.6A new version of the WordPress blogging platform and content management system was released on August 1 that not only fixes some bugs and improves security, but also brings a raft of new and enhanced features and functionality.

WordPress version 3.6 includes a new default theme, Twenty Thirteen, with a contemporary look and feel that lets you focus on your content far more than before, in a design made for media-rich blogging.

As the theme is a responsive web design (just like its predecessor default theme Twenty Twelve), it will look good and work well on any device – from a large widescreen desktop monitor to the compact touch-screen of a smartphone – without a plugin or any other external add-on needed.

If you’re just getting started with WordPress, or you’re thinking about a new design for your blog, Twenty Thirteen will work for you right out of the box. It will also give you a great foundation for your own customizations through creating your own child theme.

Of all the improvements and new features in WordPress 3.6, perhaps of most appeal to me and my WordPress blogs is the significantly improved support for audio and video with a new HTML5 media player as part of the WordPress platform that does away with the need for a specialist external plugin just to play the media.

As the media player isn’t Flash-based, an advantage is that it will work on Apple devices like iPhones and iPads.

There’s enhanced audio embedding that lets you embed songs, albums and playlists from Spotify, Rdio and SoundCloud just by pasting a URL into a post on its own line.

Like this, from SoundCloud:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/96585117″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

There’s no special pop-up to add it to or something on the editing menu you have to open – just paste it into your draft post. The actual code I pasted is this:

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/96585117" params=""
width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

(The song, “In My Demon’s Name,” is the latest track from my favourite rock noir band, Belladonna, who make their songs available on SoundCloud. Check them out.)

For editing your posts, there’s a much better autosave, the behind-the-scenes method that saves your draft posts automatically at regular intervals when you’re logged in to your blog and in editing mode.

There’s also better post locking when you have multiple people who might be editing posts – easy to see who’s editing what and what to do if they’ve left a draft open that you need to work on.

These are just a handful of the great features in WordPress 3.6 – see the release announcement or the WordPress Codex for a complete list of everything including the bug and security fixes.

Or, view this cool video that presents all the new stuff in an entertaining way.

([Later] If you read this post on an Apple or Android device, you won’t see the video – because it’s a Flash video, as Armin Grew notes in the comments below. Ironic, to say the least.)

If you’re already  running WordPress, you should upgrade. If you’re not too bothered about all the bells and whistles, still upgrade if only because of the bug fixes and security improvements. As WordPress now runs 19 percent of all web sites in the world, it’s a hot target for hackers, crooks and others who will cause damage if they get into your blog (and whatever you do, change the default login user ID from ‘admin’ to anything else!)

So do yourself a favour – upgrade to the latest version. The simplest way is to use the automatic update feature in your WordPress dashboard, making sure you back up your database first. Just in case. Then, hit the ‘Update Now’ button in your WordPress dashboard.

WordPress Updates

Happy blogging!

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34 responses to “WordPress 3.6 – blogging gets even easier”

  1. Armin Grewe avatar
    Armin Grewe

    Hm, while the Soundcloud embed works on Android the embedded video doesn’t, as it uses Flash. These days this sentence also applies to Android:
    “As the media player isn’t Flash-based, an advantage is that it will work on Apple devices like iPhones and iPads.”

    1. Neville Hobson avatar
      Neville Hobson

      Ironic that WP’s own video showcasing the new version is a Flash video! And you’re right – it doesn’t work on Android, not on my Galaxy SII running Android 4.1.2. I’ll note this as an edit to the post.

  2. Danny Brown avatar
    Danny Brown

    Hi Neville,

    Nice overview and I’ve loved WordPress since I started using it about 6 years ago now. It just keeps getting better and better.

    Not sure if anyone’s mentioned this, but when reading on phone (Galaxy SIII), the comments are pushing off to the right, so you miss some copy. Just a heads up – cheers for the overview!

    1. Neville Hobson avatar
      Neville Hobson

      Thanks Danny. Re the comments on mobile, yes, that’s a problem one I’m not sure how to fix. Maybe to do with the theme perhaps CSS if so), maybe the comments system.

  3. George avatar
    George

    Thanks for another great post Neville!

  4. Bruno Amaral (@brunoamaral) avatar
    Bruno Amaral (@brunoamaral)

    Apart from what is new around wordpress 3.6, there is an interesting thing about their main plugin, Jetpack. With it you can add a bunch of interesting features from faster image loading to infinite scroll and mobile notifications of comments as long as you authenticate with wordpress.com. It allows you to like a post, on wordpress.com and follow blogs via your wordpress.com dashboard.

    Automattic has been very smart in the way they included social network features into wordpress, without us fully realising they where there.

    1. Neville Hobson avatar
      Neville Hobson

      Yes, quite a few useful features in Jetpack. I have very few of those enabled but they appeal to many bloggers.

  5. Neville Hobson avatar
    Neville Hobson

    Thanks George.

  6. john Mayer avatar
    john Mayer

    I must cheers Neville hobson on a such a wonderful & informative article on wordpress blogging.

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  9. Creative Agency Secrets - new business development avatar
    Creative Agency Secrets – new business development

    Neville, on FIR you mention “Social simply” a plugin — but I can’t find it (all I can find is Simply social) Could you give me a link?

    Thanks – loving FIR as ever….

    1. Neville Hobson avatar
      Neville Hobson

      Rebecca,I must have meant Social, the plugin by Crowd Favorite – http://wordpress.org/plugins/social/

      Re FIR, thanks :)

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  11. Abhishek avatar
    Abhishek

    Nice Post hobson, Thanks

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