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WordPress 3.0 was released a little over a month ago, ushering in a bevy of new features for designers and developers. Just last week, WordPress 3.0.1 was released, fixing a few minor bugs and making some other less visible tweaks.
Lots of the biggest changes to WordPress 3.0 took place under the hood – the merging of the WordPress MU codebase with WordPress proper, custom post and taxonomy types, and support for easy custom menus in themes that support that feature. It’s really easy to add support for some of these features to your existing WordPress theme, but if you’re looking for a theme that works great with WordPress 3.0 out of the box, including support for custom menus, post types and taxonomies, check out our round-up of free themes with superb WordPress 3.0 support.
1. The Morning After
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The Morning After” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/The-Morning-After.jpg”>
One of the original “magazine style” themes in the WordPress world, The Morning After was recently sold to WooThemes. The Woo team has taken the theme, updated it to use their existing WooFramework and added in support for custom headers and backgrounds and custom post types.
The result? One of the all-time-greatest WordPress themes has a fresh coat of paint and is ready to be customized and installed. The theme is available for free, although if you want support, you’ll need to be a WooThemes member.
2. Boldly
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Boldly ” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/Boldy.jpg”>
Boldly from Site5 is a free premium theme that includes support for WordPress 3.0 menus, an Ajax-based contact form, a built-in widget for Twitter and a great slider for the front page.
Site5′s other free themes are also updated to work with WordPress 3.0
3. Calotropis
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Calotropis” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/calotropis.jpg”>
Calotropis is a free theme available from the WordPress Themes Directory that supports different color schemes, a choice of layouts, and WordPress 3.0′s navigation menus. The sidebar widgets are also tabbed and items like the header and background can be customized.
4. Mystique
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Mystique” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/Mystique.jpg”>
Digital Nature’s Mystique theme has long been a favorite at the official WordPress Themes Directory, and the latest updates include support for custom menus, a custom header and its preexisting flexible options and design.
5. TwentyTen
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TwentyTen ” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/twenty-ten-theme.jpg”>
TwentyTen is the new default WordPress theme and it has a lot of options and functionality. Designers can even create their own child themes to customize the look and feel even further. TwentyTen is a great theme to use on your site and also a great theme to dissect if you want to learn more about developing your own WordPress themes.
6. Voidy
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Voidy” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/Diovo.jpg”>
We love the minimalistic nature and clean lines of Voidy. In addition to supporting WordPress 3.0 custom menus, the theme also supports gravatars, threaded comments, and a custom favicon and logo. It also makes it easy to add in your Twitter account.
7. Hybrid
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Hybrid” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/hybrid.jpg”>
Hybrid is considered a theme framework, meaning that it is designed to be used as a building block when creating your own theme or customized site design. Still, even without any stylings, Hybrid is a good-looking theme. As a framework, it supports everything new in WordPress 3.0, plus lots of other optimizations and extra features.
Like TwentyTen, Hybrid is a great way to learn to develop and design for WordPress.
8. Shaken Grid 2.0
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Shaken Grid 2.0” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/Shaken-and-Stirred-Themes.jpg”>
Shaken Grid 2.0 is a really good-looking portfolio theme for WordPress 3.0 sites. It uses the excellent jQuery Masonry to make the layout really tight and top-notch and supports custom post types so you can create a Tumblr-esque experience on your WordPress site.
9. Magazine Basic
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Magazine Basic” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/magazine-basic.jpg”>
Magazine Basic was built specifically for WordPress 3.0 and it offers support for the latest features, plus a fully customizable layout, widgetized sidebar and multiple front-page layouts.
10. The Erudite
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The Erudite” src=”http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/wordpress-3-0-ready-themes/The-Erudite.jpg”>
The author of The Erudite says that it was a theme created for writers who want readers, not visitors. To that end, the theme makes it incredibly easy to focus on content and has some excellent typography choices. You can also choose whether or not to use a dark or light style, and the theme includes support for WordPress 3.0 menus.
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