WordPress 3.1 “Reinhardt”, named after the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, was released to the public today.

The most immediately obvious change is a simplified writing interface, as some of the less commonly used options are now hidden by default. It works for us, but if you find you’ve lost useful features then clicking on Screen Options will allow you to bring them back.

And another up-front addition is a new Admin Bar, which provides speedy access to comments, various useful dashboard pages and so on. Again, opinions on this have been mixed, but if you decide you don’t need it then the Admin Bar can be disabled from your Users “Personal Options” panel.

It’s now also much easier to create internal links, thanks to a new link option that allows you to search previously published content for a particular keyword or phrase.

Elsewhere, the new Post Formats help theme developers apply different styles to various post types. A Network Admin menu centralises the options necessary to manage a multisite network environment. And with more than 2,000 code commits and 820 closed issues in this release, there’s plenty more to explore. Check the Codex for the full list of changes, and then download Reinhardt to try it for yourself.