Pods 2.0 is finally out, and here is the official announcement:

Pods 2.0 has arrived!

The wait is over… Pods 2.0 is out and it’s revolutionizing the way you’re going to build sites and applications with WordPress!

You may have already noticed, but we had a soft launch of Pods 2.0 a few weeks ago on September 21st. We’ve been working on bug fixes for the past few weeks to ensure maximum stability and backwards compatibility before going full force with our 2.0 announcement. That point has been reached and we’re ready for the flood of new users that awaits, including our awesome Pods 1.x users who are anxious to upgrade.

What’s New?

Check out a few of the cool things we’ve done for Pods 2.0 – even more is on the way for a tandum release alongside WordPress 3.5 on December 5th!

• Slick new interface, fully revamped to make managing your Pods easy and stress-free
• Large performance enhancements using transients and object caching (reducing queries per page load in both dashboard and site to the lowest possible number, sometimes that’s ZERO)
• New Upgrade wizard screens designed by RD2 will help you upgrade from previous versions and report any potential known issues beforeit actually upgrades your site
  • We’ve partnered with Automattic to offer 1 free month of VaultPress service to users upgrading from Pods 1.x, you will see the offer in the upgrade screens.
  • We’ve also partnered with iThemes to offer 25% off of a BackupBuddy license to users upgrading from Pods 1.x, you will see the offer in the upgrade screens.
• Our Add New Pod wizard guides you through creating or extending content types with custom fields
  • Create New Content Types
    • Custom Post Types
    • Custom Taxonomies
    • Advanced Content Types (each type lives in it’s own table, outside of the WP object architecture)
  • Extend Existing Content Types
    • Post Types (Posts, Pages, Existing Custom Post Types)
    • Taxonomies (Categories, Tags, Existing Custom Taxonomies)
    • Media
    • Users
    • Comments
  • Choose to store your data using meta-based storage (default) or custom table-based storage
• New Field Editor and Field Types
  • Date / Time – Date, Time, or both
  • Number – Plain Number or Currency
  • Text – Plain Text, Website, Phone, E-mail, or Password
  • Paragraph Text – Plain Paragraph, WYSIWYG (TinyMCE or CLEditor, or add your own), or Code (Syntax Highlighting)
  • Color Picker – Choose colors, because colors are great (Using the default WP color picker, Farbtastic in 3.4)
  • Yes / No – You can’t really go wrong with a checkbox, but we’ve added a few charms to make it stand out
  • File / Image / Video – Upload new media or select from existing ones with our Media Library integration, or use a simple uploader, your choice
  • Relationships – Relate any item, to any item of any WP object type or another Pod, now with improved Bidirectional relationship support
• New grouping fields API on the Add/Edit forms for Post Types, Taxonomies, Media, Users, and Comments (We’re adding a management UI for this coming in 2.1)
• New Shortcode popup integration with TinyMCE editor (now provide one-off templates within the shortcode itself)
• New Widgets (and provide one-off templates within the widget itself)
• New Form UI front and back
• New Attachments option available for File Uploads allows you to click “Attach” and select media items from the normal built-in WP Media Library pop-up
• Migrate: Import from Custom Post Type UI (Import Custom Post Types and Taxonomies created by the Custom Post Type UI plugin, import them all or choose a few)
• Basic WPML Integration and confirmed Polylang compatibility
• Fully Localized interface and error messages! All of our text strings in the plugin now run through the i18n functions. We don’t have any translations yet, but we’re looking at getting GlotPress setup for translators to start getting in.
• Requires at least WordPress 3.4 and is tested against WordPress 3.4 and 3.5 releases

What do you think of Pods? Are you using it already, or do you plan to use it in any upcoming projects?

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