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Jan 04, 2008 / 1:52 pm

Administration Panel Preview for WordPress 2.4

in wordpress / tags: design, movabletype, screenshot, wordpress, wordpress 2.5

You probably have heard that WordPress 2.4 will be released on January 24, 2007. The mnjor changes is probably on the administration panel interface. According to Codex, here are some changes that will be applied on the next release:

• Redesigned administration panel
• Widget-based elements for Dashboard — Something like having custom elements in the dashboard using WordPress widgets? Sounds good.
• Undo for comment editing — So, we can revert to the original comments posted(?)
• Search to posts and pages.
• And some other new features and improvements I believe…

I was curious about the new admin interface. And since I also use WordPress (not here, but for my other blog), I took the risk to upgrade my WordPress from the Subversion. The upgrade process went smoothly, and finally I can see the new admin interface. Well, because it’s still in the development process, we can not have whole features yet. Here are some screenshots if you want to see how the new admin area interface looks like.

General Overview

There are some new “words” we will find in the dashboard. For example, there are “Settings” (previously: “Options”), and “Design” (previously: “Presentation”). Some new placements for navigation and other “shortcuts” will be helpful for users and they can be seen easily. Probably, we will need time to be familiar with the new interface, but it should not take long. It is almost the same when Six Apart released its MT 4.0 version. I think Movable Type 4.0 had more drastic changes, so having a new interface for WordPress should not be a big problem.

Dashboard

I like the new interface. Well, it’s not completed yet, but it looks nice. More whitespace, simpler interface and more useful shortcuts. And it looks fresh. We can see most elements offered by WordPress 2.3 branch like recent posts, recent comments, and recent incoming links (using Google Blogsearch).
There is an enough contrast on the navigation menu. I think the navigation menu texts are more visible. Okey, it’s more about taste.. :). The fonts are also bigger. When we have a basic WordPress installation, we’re probably more comfortable with less menu. But, having some plugins installed (and they add new menu in the navigation) probably will make it more crowded. Hey, it’s a risk. :)

New entry/editing screen

All menu/entry fields remain the same. There are changes on the text formatting toolbar. Editing toolbar icons are new. In entry composing screen, there are some new icons. It seems that there will be a new mechanism on media uploading. Probably, WordPress 2.4 will handle media uploads better, like uploading/inserting video, audio files, and images — or, other media types?

Overall, the administration panel — for me — is much better. It should make blogging more easier and interesting… :)

• January 4th, 2008 • # 1:52 pm