I hit a big milestone tonight with Using WordPress, reaching the 75% mark finishing writing chapter 13 tonight. I still have to format them in the Pearson Word style, take some screenshots, and record the audio-video parts, but the hardest part is done. This book has certainly been a whirlwind thus far, a huge difference from Create Your Own Blog. There is a bit of an unknown to manage–when WordPress 3.0 comes out and how much of the book will I need to update.
I knew this would be part of the juggling act with this book. I planned for WordPress 2.9 and the new image editor, but I know that WordPress 3.0 brings the merging of WordPress and WordPress MU. Options?
Well I could ignore it like it isn’t going to happen shortly after I’m to finish handing in chapters, but that isn’t a terribly professional thing to do. The smarter thing, which is exactly what I’m doing, is playing with WP 3.0-alpha. Thus far you wouldn’t notice much of a difference (if any at all) between WordPress 2.9 and 3.0 except for the little extra menu item under Tools:
WordPress 3.0 alpha New Blog Network Settings (click for full size)
Yes, this is the merging of WordPress and WordPress MU. How easy is it to make the switch? Pretty painless. After this screen, you get a second screen (the change over is actually complete already) to paste in a new wp-config and new .htaccess info.
Is this ready for non-devs (or authors) to use? Nope. I still have to work out a couple issues on the multi-user version that I have running already. However, I am happy that what I’m seeing right now (with the exception of the very cool looking new default theme) isn’t going to force a major re-write of any chapters nor cause me to have a minor stroke in the process.
Also, thanks to the exceptionally patient folks in the WP dev IRC channel for answering my question (and a little OT banter).
