As I mentioned in my last post I’ve been following the development of WordPress 2.7 pretty closely for the past few months, playing with the nightly builds and finally upgrading my production sites a couple of weeks ago with the release of the third beta. With a release (or at least a release candidate) imminent out I figured I’d share some thoughts on some of the new features and enhancements that I think are great… and not so great.
There’s been plenty of discussion within the WordPress community around rolling out another major UI update on the back of the what was already a pretty radical change in WordPress 2.5 earlier in the year but I’ve got to say, I really don’t have a problem with the approach Automatic have taken here. With 2.5 the admin UI was desperately in need of an overhaul, as evidenced by the many plugins around that did just that, and it was indeed a vast improvement over its predecessor. But let’s be honest, it wasn’t “great”… it’s already starting to look a bit tired and there are plenty of frustrations, like the number of clicks required to perform the most common tasks like as writing a post.
What had to happen next was a more robust process of evolution, which is exactly what HAS happened. Weather you agree with or like the result or not, a process of testing and user feedback has happened since WordPress 2.5 that has resulted in an even more radically different UI that this time reflects what the majority of users (at least those that spoke up) want and offers a far better, more scalable platform for further evolution going forward. And I for one love it!
Some of the new admin features include:
- More concise, vertical, navigation menu’s that can also be minimised to just icons with hover dropdowns and a new quick links menu for easy single click access to common tasks.
- Updated dashboard with draggable, configurable panels and a clearer overview of the current status of your blog.
- “QuickPress” simple post entry from the dashboard.
- Manage and reply to comments directly from the dashboard comments panel or comment list.
- “Screen Options” configuration settings for most pages that allow you to configure the interface to include only the elements you actually use.
- Directly browse for and install plugins from the admin interface replacing the need to manually download plugins and upload via ftp.
- Update WordPress itself without the need to download files and upload via ftp.
- Cleaner, more functional lists for posts, pages, comments etc. with Quick Edit and bulk actions.
It’s not all in the admin though… there’s plenty of new juice in the front-end too with sticky posts and threaded comments (additional plugin required).
Overall WordPress 2.7 feels more like a mature, professional, REAL web application. It is clean, simple and makes performing common tasks easier and from my experience at least, seems considerably faster than previous versions (another popular gripe among users).
I’m more “Super Pumped” about this release than any before it and I for one can’t wait to start getting my hands grubby tinkering with all the new toys at our disposal.
Rock-on WordPress!
Note: While the post title says “the good, the bad and the freakin’ awesome”, in writing this post I was unable to think of anything BAD… perhaps later.
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