First look at WordPress 2.7 beta 2

by Brad Linder Nov 6th 2008

Automattic plans to release the next major version of its popular blogging client, WordPress, later this month. But if you're OK with running your web site on beta software, you can download WordPress 2.7 beta 2 today. It's relatively stable, and features a whole slew of improvements over WordPress 2.6.

Some of the most visible changes for your readers will be support for threaded comments and sticky posts. In other words, they'll be able to reply to individual comments without resorting to a silly @ symbol, and you'll be able to make an important post hang out at the top of your page even after you've written more recent articles.

But the really big changes are all in the administration area. WordPress 2.7 has a completely new interface that both saves space (by grouping a number of items together in a collapsable sidebar), and allowing you to customize the interface by dragging and dropping widgets.

But the new interface is just the tip of the iceberg. Here are a few of my favorite new features in WordPress 2.7:

You can search for and install plugins directly from your blog's administration page. No need to find and download a plugin, upload it to your FTP server and then enable it. You can take care of the whole thing in just a few clicks.
WordPress 2.7 includes an automatic upgrade script that will download the latest version of WordPress and install it for you.

Overall, WordPress 2.7 replaces at least two plugins I had come to rely on, Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu, and WordPress Automatic Upgrade. I'll be curious to see if the automatic upgrade plugin continues to work with future versions of WordPress though, as it does include a few features that the WordPress auto-upgrade utility lacks, like an integrated database backup tool.

Tags: wordpress, wordpress-2.7, wordpress-2.7-beta2

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

whatever said 10:08PM on 11-06-2008

I still won't use their app until they allow me to password protect the entire site ... without having to deal with a third party plugin.

Mike said 8:15AM on 11-07-2008

Maybe .htaccess is a solution for you

whatever said 11:24AM on 11-07-2008

@mike ... sure, every time I want to add a user or someone wants to look at my site, I'll go sit down, generate a username and password for them, manually edit the file, email it out to them in "plain text", blah blah blah ...

no thanks. I'll stick with my current software that allows users to sign up at their own free will, sends me an email alerting me to a new sign-up, and allows me to approve/deny.

Pete said 8:14AM on 11-07-2008

Wow I must say, this looks awesome! Cant wait to try it.

Greetz Pete - http://www.torrentin.com

Andrew said 10:59AM on 11-07-2008

This should necessarily get to the front page of digg. Currently it has 8 diggs. Help!

Jash Sayani said 11:56AM on 11-07-2008

Wow!!! Just the news I had been waiting for....

BTW, do all plug-ins work ??

Brad Linder said 12:01PM on 11-07-2008

I had a problem getting the WordPress Stats plugin to work. But that mightjust be me. The other 9 or 10 plugins I use all seem to work just fine.

Nina said 3:47PM on 11-08-2008

The new interface is really slick-looking. The new method of adding plugins without downloading is handy, too. That replaces the One-Click Plugin Updater plugin that I use.

I wish that sidebar widgets were a bit more dynamic. For instance, I'd like to customize what widgets appear on the home page, which ones appear on a single entry, and et cetera.

iXpress.me said 6:46PM on 11-17-2008

I am just wondering when they will integrate it into the multi-user version?

http://Joking.Of-Cour.se/
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