14 DAY TRIAL // It's been a month since WordPress 3.1 landed and work on the next major release, WordPress 3.2 has already started. It's still in the early stages though and WordPress developer Mark Jaquith has laid down the main guidelines for the upcoming release highlighting what developers should be focusing on.
Speed takes a top spot in wanted changes for WordPress 3.2 along with simplicity. The next release should be faster and lose some of the cruft that has built up over the years.
Another big change has to do with dropping support for older software, namely PHP, MySQL and Internet Explorer 6. As of WordPress 3.2, PHP 5.2.4 and above will only be supported and MySQL 5 will also be required.
WordPress 3.1 took more than half a year to bake, though this was because the team took time to upgrade other parts of the platform. For WordPress 3.2 the plan is to shorten the development cycle and push the update out the door faster.
The big new feature in WordPress 3.2 will be a new Distraction Free Writing interface.
"This is our headline 'ooh, shiny' user feature. Replace our current fullscreen implementation with something more beautiful, more useful (in terms of line-length and font size), and simpler (only limited RTE functionality)," Jaquith writes.
"Look at WriteRoom, OmmWriter, http://www.quietwrite.com/ for inspiration. Koop is investigating this, and may crank out a quick plugin to jump-start development efforts," he added.
Finally, speed is a big drive. The main developers are working on several areas to improve performance, but the goal is to improve WordPress one small piece at a time.
"There are a bunch of little things we can do to make WordPress load or at least 'feel' faster," Jaquith told developers. "Everyone can get involved here. Pick sometime small and manageable that will make WordPress a little faster. Together, they’ll add up to a bullet point in the release post," he wrote.