Falling out and back in love with WordPress

With the stable version of WordPress 2.7 coming out real soon, how can you not be excited?! Together with many avid WordPress users, I’ve griped about how less user-friendly WordPress is since they rolled out WP 2.5, and the people at Automattic heard us. Now, WordPress looks and functions better than I can ever expect. If WordPress was a human woman, she’d be all beauty and brains, a knock-off, a hot chick not to be reckoned with!

Among the features I’m excited about:

1. QuickPress: Having it in the Dashboard looking so cute is definitely a A++! No longer do I have to go to Write every time I need to do a quick post, which I often do on occasions (read: paid postings, ahaks!).
   
2. Core Update: Finally! I feel so happy I could cry… instant WP update is now a built-in feature of WP 2.7! It’s a little more simplistic than other WP update plugins we’re used to, but if you use it in conjunction with WP DB Backup plugin, all should be fine and dandy. If only they could also include back-up feature of the wp-content folder, though. Also, according to a post in Weblog Tools Collection, not all web hosts support this feature fully due to the hosts’ server limitation and setup. Thankfully, my web hosting provider, WPWebHost, passes the test, and I took the liberty of adding them to the list of Core Update Compatibility web hosts in WordPress.org.
3. Oh-so-flexible navigation: Ooh boy, they did a great job with this one. This navigation is exactly what most of us WordPress users need. The menu of each section easily collapses and closes smoothly, and even though at first glance the menu has more sections than WP 2.5, it’s surprisingly much more intuitive and requires less click-and-wait than the usual to get to the options you want to go. The great thing about it is that collapsed and closed navigation remains that way even as you navigate through the Admin interface, then stays that way until you change it yourself. The drop-down Shortcuts on the top right of the admin page is also quite a smart move from the WP developers, featuring links to Add Posts, Add Pages and Manage Comments.
4. Oh-so-flexible Dashboard: I’ve never been particularly fond of WP’s Dashboard. Now, though, it’s possible to totally eliminate the default sections of the Dashboard via the Screen Options (which is also available in every other parts of the admin area). Though useful, I find the Plugins, WordPress Development Blog and Other WordPress News boxes to be a distraction. Now with a few clicks of the checkboxes, I can completely make it vanish into virtual thin air.
5. Pre-WP 2.5-nostalgic Write Post: If you hated having your Categories listed on bottom of your Write Post form like I do, you’ll be happy to know that it has been restored to the right side, just like we were conveniently used to before WP 2.5! You can even drag those boxes up and down to your preference, just like we could in WP 2.3! Even Tags is added on the right side! When I saw this, my body uncontrollably did a happy dance right in my ergonomically-challenged chair.
   

Aside from the fear that my favorite plugins might not work on the next update, I’m not too worried. Still, I feel a noticable slowdown of loading time in WP 2.7 compared to previous version, but I hope it’s due to it being a beta. Anyways, for those of you who don’t have the chance to experience WP 2.7 Beta 2, hop over to my WP 2.7 testbed and log in as general:general (Contributor level, please don’t change the password) to see the limited version of options you can find in WordPress 2.7.

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Posted on 12 November, 2008 under Discovering WordPress