As always, we are back to give you the update on the new WordPress 3.3 release. Not too long ago we talked about what might be coming in WordPress 3.3 but now, after the feature freeze and the beta version, we can show you what is actually going to be there. So lets jump in and check out some of the new features that are coming in WordPress 3.3!
O for those of you who are curious, the expected release date is November 29th, 2011. So to keep it safe, we should have WordPress 3.3 before Christmas 
Flyout Menus
It used to be that flyout menus would only appear when the menu was collapsed, but this has been changed in the new release. Now you get flyouts even in the full menu which is sure to save you an extra mouse click.
Some folks in the community did not like this feature. While talking with @Otto42 at WordCamp Louisville, we too saw some of the issues people can have with this menu. For majority of the folks, this is a great feature. But there are some of us who have a lot of items in one tab (for example our settings tab). We have a lot of custom plugins that are under there. So our flyout menu takes up the whole screen height in that sense. If you are one of those folks who like the ability to vertically expand and collapse menu items, then thanks to Aaron D. Campbell you can do it with his plugin called Expanded Admin Menus (Your browser must support JavaScript, which most do anyways).
Admin Bar Revamped
The new admin bar is also much more responsive and easier to use. It features dropdown menus that respond onhover, once again saving valuable clicks. The menu has also been rearranged making it a lot easier to find what you are looking for. Several things have been added as well, the most obvious of which is the WordPress icon on the left side of the bar. This icon drops down a menu with many useful links including the Codex and Support Forums.
Previously, you could disable the admin bar while reviewing the dashboard by simply unchecking a box in your user’s profile area. In WordPress 3.3, that option is removed for the good. The core team decided to reduce the vertical space and increase functionality by combining the Howdy area and admin bar together. Quite frankly, we love this new admin bar design. It is simple and elegant.
More Efficient Media Uploader
One of the coolest features that is coming in WordPress 3.3 is the new drag and drop media uploader. The WordPress team has made it incredibly easy to drag files from your desktop and just drop them in the installer. Not only this but they also took all the “add media” buttons and combined them into one to make the interface a lot more simple and clean. The new uploader also has support for HTML5 and Silverlight.
New Feature Tooltips aka Pointers
Whenever there is a new feature added in WordPress 3.3 tooltips will notify users of the addition. This should be a welcome addition especially for those of you whose clients are not very WordPress inclined.
We have already seen plugin developers using these pointers to their advantage. Yoast recently came out with a newer version of his plugin WordPress SEO by Yoast. You can see how he is leveraging these pointers to guide the users throughout his plugin:
Responsive Admin Panel
Although a lot of the responsiveness has been left to WordPress 3.4 it is obvious that steps have been made toward making this release responsive. Its worth playing around with but essentially the widgets are resized and the admin panel adjusts whenever you decrease your browser window size (or screen size).
Permalink and Performance Issue
So you have seen sites all across the web referencing to SEO Friendly URL structure in WordPress. Mostly those articles either refer to simple %postname% or /%category%/%postname%/. The fact is that up until 3.2.1, these permalink rules could cause serious performance issues if your site has A LOT of pages. Heck this forced @chriscoyier to change his site’s entire permalink structure. Andrew Nacin (@nacin) brought up the point that a lot of users are using these permalink structure, so we should figure out the issue and fix it for good. And lo’ and behold this is FIXED! In WordPress 3.3, the core team decided to add Post name as one of the suggested permalink option.
Live Demo For WordPress 3.3
There are a lot of us developers who just simply setup a local install of WordPress and test things out ourselves. But this whole process intimidates beginners. Therefore just like last time, we are providing a Live Demo Site for you to try out all of the new features and get yourself acquainted with WordPress 3.3. Live WordPress 3.3 Demo
Let us know what you think!
