Orangescale.NET

Mar 19, 2008 / 2:18 am

What you will see in WordPress 2.5?

in wordpress / tags: features, release, wordpress, wordpress 2.5

WordPress 2.5 was delayed from the release scheduled. But, it’s more about giving better features for everyone. I have been following this 2.5 branch (2.4 was skipped) by upgrading from the subversion for my other blog.

Today, WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 1 was released. I did not wait any longer to upgrade, everything seems nice! You can see some new features offered by the coming 2.5 version at WordPress Development Blog.

There are some nice features come to my attention. What are they?

• Dashboard — It has a brand new design. There are some usefull elements. It’s similar to 2.3 version, but it’s more fresh. My preference: I want to wipe the dashboard. I want to display only elements I need. I want to have it cleaner, removing incoming links, plugin updates, etc. I hope there will be a plugin for this scenario.
• Menu navigation placement also much better. Commonly-used menu is separated from the ‘administration-related’ menu. There are some new phrases for the menu e.g. “Design” (for Presentation) and “Settings” (Options). Some primary menus also moved to sub menu e.g. “Blogroll” now resides under “Manage” tab.
• Dashboard custom styles — By default, WordPress Dashboard uses the “fresh” color scheme. There is another color scheme available. If we want to have our own color scheme, it should be easy. We can create our own plugin for this and upload it. After that, we can choose the new color scheme. And, users in the system can choose their own schemes. More info about this. Just an idea, if we have a blog with some authors we can match the public site and dashboard theme. Cool, eh?
• Bundled gravatar — After being acquired by Automattic, Gravatar is now fully integrated. Gravatar can be integrated easily in theme. If we want to hide it, we do not need to touch the template tags. Just choose between “Don’t show Avatars” and “Show Avatars” from the “Reading” sub menu (under “Settings” tab). (More info).
• Updating plugins will be much easier. If there is an update for installed plugins in the system, we can upgrade it easily. On plugin management page, there is a note like this: There is a new version of {plugin name} for WordPress available. Download version {new plugin version} here or upgrade automatically. If we want to upgrade directly, just click on the “upgrade automatically” link. We will be prompted to another page. Enter FTP information and the new version will be delivered. This probably a quick solution. But there are some notes we need to know before upgrading using this method. If not sure, it’s better to upgrade manually.
• Easier content management. Even this is a personal blog, but we have to deal with some contents, right? We deal with posts, comments, uploaded files, categories, tags, etc. WordPress 2.5 offers a much better content management. Everything should be managable.
• Media management. Uploading files for content will be easier. And, all uploaded files are managable. As a Movable Type user, I think I see some similarities here. I do not want to make a comparison now. But for WordPress, [this is good]. :)

Overall, this new version offers many great features. And, I believe this will make blogging become more enjoyable.

• March 19th, 2008 • # 2:18 am