According to Web Blog Tools Collection, the WordPress development team held a meeting this past Thursday, laying out their plans for the next update to the popular blogging software for websites.

In WordPress 3.1, users can expect heavy UI changes and code cleanup for performance boosts. There reportedly won't be too many new features, no "big new API's" or schema changes. WordPress 3.1 is expected to have a short development period, with a lot of testing time, and is scheduled for a mid-December release.

While WordPress 3.1 will be focusing on code cleanup, there will be some new features such as a wordpress.com-inspired admin bar and theme browser, as well as post templates/styles, and a "separate network dashboard."

The new feature submissions for WordPress 3.1 will be ending on October 15th, followed by a code freeze on November 1st, and then a string freeze on December 1st. The beta period is reportedly going to begin on November 15th, and the final release is scheduled for December 15th.

WordPress 3.1 will be the last WordPress release that supports PHP 4 and MySQL 4, meaning you can expect WordPress 3.2 to sport a slew of new features.