Using WordPress 2.5 RC1

As promised, I got WP 2.5 RC1 installed on a development blog tonight and have spent a little time clicking through it.  I’ll say this much already for the Dashboard…it is much better organized for authors/editors/administrators.  The big tabs on the left are for “Write”, “Manage”, “Design” (formerly “Presentation”), and “Comments”.  Anything else you’d want to do is still there–“Settings”, “Plugins”, “Users”, but located off to the right side.  There are two BIG and OBVIOUS buttons for “Write a New Page” and “Write a New Post”, presumably the two things most users want to do the most.

As far as new features go, the big one that jumped out at me immediately is the ability to add more than one photo at a time.  Same goes for other media like video and audio.  Also you don’t have to scroll down on a laptop to Publish anymore.   “Publish Status” has been moved to the top right of the posting area.  Kinda of nice, since you have to do this every time you post, huh?

I’d like the ability to change the order of the components/widgets/whatchamacallits on the posting page to reorganize them if I’d like.  I have some fields that are added with plugins that I use quite often, while others that ship with WordPress I hardly use at all.  The ability to resize the posting area is nice as well.

Speaking of plugins, I haven’t seen any issues yet.  The (manual) upgrade went fine as well.  As far as nuts and bolts go, 2.5 gives you the ability to manage tags just like you manage categories, links, posts, and pages.  But I’d have to say that my favorite new feature or enhancement is in the theme management section.  The editor is larger, and the theme pages are listed along with the appropriate .php file names.  Same goes for the plugin editor.

Overall, I’m pretty happy.  Haven’t done any comparisons with the actual database yet.  Too tired and will pick at it tomorrow.

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One Reply to “Using WordPress 2.5 RC1”

  1. i’m still on ver 2.3 and have never upgraded wordpress. any issues with upgrading a live site or any gotcha’s i need to look out for?

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