WordPress 2.7 Review

Earlier today, I uploaded and installed WordPress 2.7 Coltrane. This is my first post with the new and from appearances and features, greatly improved WordPress.

As usual (for me anyway), the upgrade was a painless process. It was actually quicker than the last one I did a few weeks ago.

The first thing you will notice is the completely new interface. The developers have spent a lot of time listening and have made usability improvements in every area.

Dashboard

When you login, you are greeted by a completely new Dashboard. In the upper right corner of the screen is a ‘Screen Options. button that allows you to select the options to display in your dashboard by checking or unchecking the various modules.

Another cool feature is the ability to move the items in your dashboard into different positions that suit your workflow. It is a simple matter of grabbing the top of each modules window and dragging it to your position of choice. Now you have complete control of the features you want and the location of them on your screen.

Vertical Menus

One of the most prominent new features is the inclusion of vertical menus. This is a great improvement, as navigation is greatly simplified, with each section using Ajax to display a list of options for you to click.

This provides a major speed improvement, as it means you have far less screen loads to get to the section you want to edit. As an example, the Appearance menu option already has the current theme listed, making it possible to go directly to the theme options in one click.

Top level navigation items are Media, Links, Pages, Comments, Appearance, Plugins, USers, Tools and Settings. If you prefer not to have the vertical menu taking up valuable screen space, you have the otpion to minimise it to the side. Mousing over each icon provides the menu item subset. A very nice feature.

Plugins

Plugin management just got a whole lot better, with the ability to search for plugins directly from the dashboard. Do a search for a specific term, such as twitter and you get a rated list of the available plugins from the WordPress plugin repository.

Installation can now be done directly from the dashboard; you no longer have to FTP your plugin files to the server. This is another great improvement for those new to the technology.

Likewise, future upgrades of WordPress itself can be done in the same manner, so no more uploading and overwriting files.

Threaded Comments

Threaded comments is a welcome addition to the core functionality of WordPress. Many blogs already have the feature via plugins and services such as Disqus. I personally use Disqus on another blog, so this will give me a chance to compare that over the inbuilt system.

Sticky Posts

Another little feature that people have been requesting for a long time, is the ability to make a post ’sticky’, i.e. keep it on the home page no matter how old it is. Making a post ’sticky’ is just a matter of checking the box.

Take a look at the video below and then go ahead and try it yourself. As with all things though, be sure to make backups, just in case you have some problems…..