I upgraded our blogs to WordPress 2.5 and I am rather pleased with the new admin layout. I read that this is the first big change since version 1.5 and WordPress has definitely come a long way.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the upgrades went so smooth. All my plugins (30+) worked great after the upgrade except one which I’ll address at the end of the post.
Here are some of the new features/changes I came across in no particular order:
- A brand new Admin layout
- Admin profile color options
- Media Library – shows type of file, date imported and the post it appears in and a Permalink to use it elsewhere
- Supports multi-file upload
- A Manage – Link category option
- View Links (renamed Blogroll) by category and you can order it name or sort it by popularity, address or id
- Manage Posts shows tags, number of comments and status. Also sports a drop-down to view by month
- Search posts & pages (earlier no pages)
- Write screen is cleaner and sports a Toggle full screen option – very useful in my opinion
- Better support for adding different media types in the Write screen
- Excellent built-in Tag management
- Collapsible areas show tags, categories, etc under the post write screen
- The side area has been cleaned up to show just publishing options and some related links
- Related options area gives you quick links to manage all posts, comments, tags or categories
- Write link screen has an advanced option to add an image, rss feed, notes and a rating
- The Widgets page has been redesigned as well with the available, used, unused widgets filter laid out vertically instead of at the bottom of the page.
- Comment area has seen a big revamp as well.. looks and acts more like the Better Comments Manager plugin interface
- List View & Detail View
- Click on the heading to edit a comment – has a nice area to format your comment
- Settings, plugins and users management links separated out to the side
- Automatic plugin upgrade
- One buton deactivates all your plugins
- You can now set a maximum size for images in a post (Settings->Writing screen)
- Gravatar support to toggle display avatars and their rating (Settings-> Reading screen)
Here are some screenshots:
One of the best improvements for me has to be automatic plugin upgrade! This feature just rocks when you have numerous plugins like me and it pretty much becomes a hassle to keep them updated every week. Now, it frees up my time to actually write some content here.
Popularity Contest Plugin Issue
The one plugin that I had a problem updating automatically was ‘Popularity Contest’. But, WordPress Codex’s Plugin compatibility list for WordPress 2.5 already had a note linked to this plugin. Following the note, made the Popularity Contest plugin work just fine.
WordPress 2.5 Image Upload Issue
Also, when I tried to upload the images for this post I got an error with the image upload. Then, I found this useful post from Josh Highland on how to resolve it.
All I had to do was edit the .htaccess file in my server and add the following:
<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>
Overall, I am very pleased with the WordPress 2.5 upgrade and gave me a chance to get rid of some of the plugins I don’t need anymore, making way for new ones I want to try.
If you are on the wall about upgrading your blog to 2.5, hope this would give you a little push towards that. This really has to be the smoothest upgrade I have ever done!
Of course, I took the plunge after making sure I had a good backup of my blog and knowing the backing from the incredible community of helpful folks surrounding WordPress. Have you?
Nice Post buddy. It will be very helpful when i upgrade .
Madhur Kapoor’s last blog post..Free disk space by deleting System Restore Points
Hey Madhur, thanks a lot! Hope you don’t come across too many issues with the upgrade. The image issue caught me off guard but the fix worked like a charm.
K-IntheHouse’s last blog post..Spanking New WordPress 2.5 – First Impressions
I absolutely love the new admin theme, it is much better than the ugly old one. I’m also very glad that the gravatar acquisition has added some value so quickly.
Michael’s last blog post..Links of Interest 4/2/08
Hey Michael, me too! Despite a lot of criticism from a lot of people, I think this is a step in the right direction for WordPress. Gravatar support just made it sweeter. 🙂
WP 2.5 now looks good after few days of usage. I upgraded the next day it was launched, thanks to Keith for his wonderful plugin.
Nirmal’s last blog post..Search Files Faster in Windows with Finder
Upgraded a few days ago and new version is mind blowing!
I love the Full Screen feature in the editor, I might even ditch WLW for it 😉
Plus the image uploader has been improved a lot… Earlier you had nothing more than the browse and upload buttons 😀
Nirmal.. Keith has done an awesome job with the plugin and I love the WP 2.5 admin so much I don’t even use a admin theme for it.
Shankar.. it sure is very pleasing to the eye and the functions are lot quicker to respond than before. Just loving it and couldn’t ask for more. 🙂
Indeed, WP 2.5 is very cool but the widgets section is darn annoying. You cannot drag and drop one left sidebar widget to the right sidebar. Though this is not a big issue, it is a pain when you try to move one widget to another sidebar.
I have my story about this here
I just converted one of my blogs over to WP 2.5 and so far, I’m very impressed with the user interface. It seems to take a lot less clicks to get from one task to another.
I’m adding my plugins back one by one because some of them don’t play well with others, so fingers crossed that they will all be compatible.
And, within days, we had bug fix 2.5.1 and I’ve already seen a couple of blogs running advance copies of 2.6
David Bradleys last blog post..Evolution 2.0