WordPress 2.3 Beta 1 was released yesterday, August 27, 2007. Its first release candidate will be available on September 17. From now until its final release on Monday, September 24, 2007, there will be a beta release for WordPress 2.3 on every Monday. While testing WordPress 2.3 Beta 1, there were several noticeable changes and additions:

Tags

The first obvious addition is the tagging system that was not available in previous WordPress versions. Tagging allows more room for the organization when your simple list of categories isn’t going to cut it anymore. For details about this new feature, read Ryan Boren’s post, WordPress 2.3 Taxonomy Schema.

Here are cropped screenshots of the tags input space and listing.

The_Tags()

The default WordPress theme, Kubrick, introduces a new template function that you can use for your own theme (after upgrading to WordPress 2.3),

. There’s no documentation available for it yet, but it should be pretty simple to modify. Here’s the basic structure:

• Whatever you want to appear before the list of tag links goes in between the first set of single quotes.
• Whatever you want to appear in between tag links goes in the second set of single quotes.
• Whatever you want to appear after the list of tag links goes in between the third set of single quotes.

For example,

will give you:
Tags: tag1tag2
The empty space after “Tags:” in the first set of single quotes is what separates “Tags:” from the tag links listing.

will give you:
Tags: tag1 tag2
The empty space in between the second set of single quotes is what separates the tag links.

will give you:
Tags: tag1, tag2

will give you:
Tags: tag1, tag2

is a line break, which you can’t see in this example. But, you get the idea. You can put almost anything in the third set of single quotes just like how you did it with the first and second sets. Whatever goes in the third set comes after everything of the tag links listing.

Tag Converter

This tool / feature allows you to convert categories into tags. This tool is available at Manage > Categories, at the bottom of the page.

Tag Importer(s)

WordPress 2.3 comes with an importer for version 3 of UTW (Ultimate Tag Warrior) Plugin. Unfortunately for Simple Tagging and Jerome’s Keywords users, those importers are being tested. Users of UTW earlier versions also beware, it hasn’t been tested with versions earlier than 3.

Empty Categories Listing

With earlier versions, WordPress does not list empty post categories in the sidebar. However, WordPress 2.3 does. Correct me if I’m wrong, this change might have been made as early as 2.2. I’m not sure, but I just noticed it in 2.3 beta.

Blogroll Links

Probably due to the sponsored links in WordPress themes debate, the not-always-popular default blogroll links have been changed.

Changed to:

• Development Blog
• Documentation
• Plugins
• Suggest Ideas
• Support Forum
• Themes
• WordPress Planet

From:

• Alex
• Donncha
• Dougal
• Matt
• Michel
• Mike
• Ryan

Dashboard Link URL

Perhaps, my favorite change is this; the dashboard link now links to admin/index.php instead of admin/admin.php?page=index.php, which makes a big difference because admin.php?page=index.php doesn’t take you back to a dashboard that lists your latest comments, posts, links, and WordPress news.

No Sandbox?

There was talk about the Sandbox theme getting packaged with the WordPress core, but it’s nowhere to be found in the themes folder. I haven’t kept up with all the WordPress behind the scene stuff so I don’t know what’s going on there. Maybe Sandbox will get bundled with WordPress 2.3 final release?