Filed under: Internet, Blogging
WordPress 2.7 coming tomorrow
--
It's a bit behind schedule, but WordPress 2.7 is due out tomorrow evening. Automattic, the company behind the popular blogging platform put out the first release candidate version of WordPress 2.7 just a few days ago, but a beta version has been available for the last few months.
WordPress 2.7 represents a huge shift away from earlier versions of WordPress - at least in the administration area. Most of the changes will be visible to bloggers, but not blog readers. But the changes in the admin area are huge. First, the navigation menus have all been moved to the left side of the screen, giving you more room at the top of the page. The submenus are all also collapsible, which allows you to navigate the administration interface without reloading the page as often.
You can also customize the admin area by dragging, dropping, adding, or deleting widgets like the Right Now screen which gives you an overview of your blog stats or the QuickPress widget which lets you create a post using a stripped down WYSIWYG editor right from the start page.
WordPress 2.7 also lets you search for and install plugins without leaving the admin area. And for the first time, an automatic upgrade tool is included in WordPress so you can upgrade to WordPress 2.7.1 or 2.8 or whatever new versions are on the horizon without having to fire up an FTP client.
The upgrade tool also means that if you just can't wait until tomorrow to try out the new version of WordPress you can install the release candidate today and initiate an automatic upgrade tomorrow. For some reason WordPress still does not provide a simple way to backup your database before upgrading though, so you may want to install a third party plugin to backup your data before upgrading just in case something goes wrong.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jash Sayani said 1:55PM on 12-03-2008
Finally.... The wait is almost over... But I'll wait till all the plug-ins are updated..
Reply
ash said 1:55PM on 12-03-2008
Wow, it looks great, but I still can't switch over from Drupal because there's still too much hacking involved to make it a CMS and theming isn't as easy for me.
Reply
Justin said 1:55PM on 12-03-2008
Will this update re-enable the pictures on Download Squad? I am very disappointed when I go to the Download Squad page and see that only the first few article summaries have pictures. The last few are just the article summaries. Anyone else see this or is this just me?
Reply
macboy14 said 2:41PM on 12-03-2008
It is supposed to be like that.
DaKingsta said 3:33PM on 12-03-2008
Yeah, it's supposed to be like that.
I don't really like it - since the images are kinda what pulls me into the article when I'm actually visiting the page.
Justin said 4:10PM on 12-03-2008
Yeah, I figured it was "supposed" to be like that. It started when DLS changed to their new format. I am of the same mind as DaKingsta, that the image pulls me into the article. I am less inrested in articles that I 'don't see an image for. Any DLS writers/admins care to comment as to why this change took place? Can you cahnge it back to an imge for every article that has one?
Christina Warren said 2:55PM on 12-04-2008
We don't use WordPress (we use an in-house CMS), but our design and backend wizards are working on something that should offer up a solution for everyone who misses the pictures. The goal initially was to try to provide a more clean design -- but we hear your feedback and my boss assures us that something awesome is in the works.
Thanks for reading and for your feedback, we seriously appreciate it!
Justin said 9:22AM on 12-05-2008
Christina, THANK YOU! I totally thought the requests to get all the pictures back was being ignored. Just knowing that plans are there to bring them back reinstills confidence in DLS. Y'all are great! Keep up the great work!
Enrique Gutierrez said 5:16PM on 12-03-2008
"an automatig upgrade tool" - middle of the 4th paragraph.
Those are great UI improvements on the backend. Can't wait! I'm under the impression that themes and widgets won't be much of an issue if it's mainly admin, at least I hope it doesn't cause many issues.
Reply
Matt said 11:07PM on 12-03-2008
Just to clarify, it's going live on WordPress.com tomorrow for final testing to work out all the bugs with 4.5m beta testers before releasing to WordPress.org as a download.
Reply
Shawn Handyside said 7:28AM on 12-04-2008
I think I'll continue to stick with 2.3.3 thanks. I just got my main blog working just the way I want it.
Reply
stick said 7:29AM on 12-04-2008
@shawn
enjoy your security flaws
Reply
erichansa said 7:29AM on 12-04-2008
Looks awesome! Much improved, not just an incremental bugfix.
Reply
Gudowski said 5:59PM on 12-05-2008
where is it to download? on official wordpress.org i see only rc1 and 2.6.5 :(
Reply
Velvet Blues said 9:19AM on 12-06-2008
... waiting for WordPress.org to release its version.
Reply
Ed Penano said 1:01PM on 12-06-2008
This is going to be sweet! The admin panel looks GUI GUI goodness friendly.
Reply
orlando said 11:18PM on 12-06-2008
I'm unable to see the official 2.7 release on wordpress.org. The only version available there is 2.6.5. THERE IS NO 2.7 OFFICIAL RELEASE. WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL 2.7?!?!
Reply
Deepak said 1:52PM on 2-09-2009
I am just setting up my first wesite with Wordpress and am looking for a good book for Wordpress 2.7? There is a Dummies book on wordpress and I believe there is a second edition coming out.
Has anyone got this new edition and is it any good? My undertanding is that the dashboard is very different from the earlier versions of wordpress and webdesigners are having problems because of the new layout.
Reply