WordPress 3.1 introduces internal linking at last

WordPress 3.1 was released last week, and introduces a long-awaited feature – internal linking between posts and pages.

The ability to link from one post to another from within the post editor has always been a glaring omission from the core WordPress system, requiring you to either type in the full URL of the post you want to link to, or to install a plugin to do the job for you.

Now when you click the ‘Insert link’ button, there is an option to ‘link to existing content’, where you can search for a post or page and WordPress will create the link for you. Result!

The down-side is that the link is still hard-coded as a URL (rather than depending on page ID like some internal linking plugins), so if the URL you are linking to changes, the link will break.

Admin Bar

This release also sees the introduction of an admin bar, visible at the top of your WordPress site when you are logged in.

The admin bar contains some handy shortcut links, allowing you to perform a lot of admin functions directly from your site, however, there is currently no option in Settings to disable it for all users.

You can switch it on or off for individual users, but by default it is on, and this may be a problem if you allow users to register on your site, but don’t want them to see the admin bar.

I think WordPress need to make this an optional feature, as it affects the front-end view directly, but for now, you can use the Disable Admin Bar plugin to get rid of it if you wish.

Other new features

There are several new features which make WordPress behave even more like a CMS, such as archive pages for custom content types, and the ability to perform advanced taxonomy and custom field queries.

I haven’t tried any of these features yet, but would be interested to hear if you have any experience of them.

Other new features include:

• streamlined writing interface (clears up your post editor, which is great for beginners)
• refreshed blue admin scheme
• post formats support
• new network admin
• overhaul of the import/export system