WordPress 2.7 has been released. This marks the third major upgrade this year (2.5, 2.6, and 2.7) and in itself, one of the most revolutionary changes to come to the platform in quite some time.
Some believe that this update makes up for a lot of the “backwards” interface that occurred in Version 2.5, as the general feedback has, for the most part, been extremely positive.
{Official Release Post at WordPress.org}
The release has been named “Coltrane” after John Coltrane, an American jazz saxophonist and composer.
Features
I’ll be outlining some of the prominent features of this version, although this list is nowhere complete.
Here are all the “minor” features:
• XMLRPC Comments API
• Keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation.
• Sticky Posts – A check box is now displayed on the write screens, displaying your selected post(s) at the top of the page even after new posts have been made.
• Theme update API, similar to plugins.
• Dashboard and write box rearranging.
• One-click plugin installs.
• Reply to comments from admin area.
• Core updating.
• Frame-like method for moderating pings/trackbacks.
• Plugin browser embedded.
• PHPXref hosted on WordPress.org.
• Separate Large and Full image sizes, related improvements.
• Comment threading.
• Comment paging.
• Batch and inline editing.
• HTTPOnly cookies.
• Column hiding for all management pages.
• Post box hiding for all edit pages.
• Upgrades and install over SFTP.
• Template tag wp_page_menu wrapper for wp_list_pages and support for Home page.
• Post Editor – The update notifications have moved to the bottom of the writing area, as well as the word count. Additional icons for embedding media will enable fast posting of media from external sources.
Commenting System
Within the comments area, you’ll find some new, revolutionary features. First of all, you’ll be able to quickly moderate comments from this page, without ever having to click on individual comments as before.
You’ll find the following links: Unapprove | Spam | Delete | Edit | Quick Edit | Reply; all within each individual comment. Some of the common, mass features are still available, such as bulk delete, approve, mark as spam, and the ability to separate them by comments and pings.
The main benefit of this area: you will save time not having to enter multiple pages simply to edit or flag a comment as spam. You don’t have to go to the actual page (outside of the back end) to reply to a comment.
There are also shortcuts, making it even simpler to moderate and manage your comments. Be sure that you have Keyboard Shortcuts enabled from the Your Profile area before using them. They are as follows:
• Pressing j moves the current selection (light-blue background) down.
• Pressing k moves the current selection (light-blue background) up.
• Remember that you must first have a comment selected on the page to perform any of the tasks.
• After you reach the end of the page or go to the top of a page, you will be taken to the next/previous page, allowing you to perform the necessary actions.
• Pressing a approves the currently selected comment.
• Pressing s marks the current comment as spam.
• Pressing d deletes the current comment.
• Pressing u unapproves the currently selected comment, placing it back into moderation.
• Pressing r initiates an inline reply to the current comment (you can press Esc to cancel the reply).
• Pressing q activates “Quick Edit,” which allows for rapid inline editing of the current comment.
• Pressing Shift-a approves the checked comments.
• Pressing Shift-s marks the checked comments as spam.
• Pressing Shift-d deletes the checked comments.
• Pressing Shift-u unapproves the checked comments.
• Use the Shift-x command to select comments for the bulk actions.
Onto the front end of each theme (as long as the theme designer/you have implemented the feature), you will be able to use threaded comments, which will likely evolve to includes some of the features of IntenseDebate, acquired by Automattic earlier this year.
Posts Management may get some of the same features, but for the time being, there aren’t quite as many – bulk editing, editing categories, author(s), comments, pings, status, and sticky are editable (you previously needed a plugin to edit them directly from the management page), ensuring that small updates don’t take more than a few seconds.
Tag Management
You’ll find that it is much easier to manage tags, being able to display all tags on one page, while also being able to display specific information about each tag. The whole process of adding and organizing tags is easier, minimizing the time required between tasks.
Plugin Installation and Updating
This is by far one of the most time-saving features, although I was using a plugin allowing me to upload new files before 2,7 was released.
Instead of having to browse plugin authors’ sites and download, unzip, and upload the files through FTP to your sever, an automatic method has been implemented, meaning you can browse the entire Plugin Directory from your blog’s backend. It’s simple enough. Search for a plugin, then click install, then activate. If necessary, you can still upload the entire file (ZIP format) to your blog using the uploader (also allows URLs).
A list of tags has been included below this area, while “Featured,” “Popular,” “Newest,” and “Recently Updated” links have been included at the top. You also might notice handy Help drop-down menus at the top of many of the options pages, meaning you’ll never lose yourself in the many features.
Need to uninstall a plugin. You need not worry. You can uninstall a plugin using the included uninstaller or the automatic method if the plugin author has chosen to use it (uninstall.php).
Media Library and Management
The new Media Library area is much more organized than before. You can find the post that the file was attached to, the date, comments for the image/video/etc. and other settings for editing and configuring each piece of media.
Inserting Media and Galleries
When you insert an image into each post, you’ll get the same familiar pop-up box, but there are more features (some that first appeared in previous versions), although there is more support for galleries and the overall look of images on your blog.
Many bloggers prefer to have one-sized images throughout a majority of their blog. This is where the advanced features (found within the Media tab of Settings, although some of the settings were removed/changed before the final release (they may have been worked in somewhere else).
The New Dashboard
We’re saving the best for (nearly) last. The new Dashboard is extremely innovative, yet intuitive. You can quickly post a new post using the QuickPress area, view your “Right Now” stats, access Recent Drafts, Recent Comments, and view news feeds from your favorite blogs. You don’t have to be an expert to use this area, either. You can drag-and-drop elements, completely remove them using “Screen Options,” found at the top of the page, or customize elements by highlighting over the gray header (also allows collapsing).
If there was one blog system, this is the one to include the best balance of style, form, and function, the core elements of a good piece of software. Didn’t like the original Dashboard or that in WordPress 2.5/2.6, then you should like this one. Otherwise, the popular plugins for customizing the layout and design have, for the most part, been updated for the new version.
Press This was added in Version 2.6, although it is still a noteworthy feature, allowing further quick posting and publishing through the use of a web browser “favorite.” Simply drag the shortcut to your favorites bar and you can quickly create a new post, sharing thoughts and links wherever you may be on the web.
Upgrading WordPress Automatically
Another prominent feature is the ability to update WordPress to the latest version, re-install automatically, or manually (also offering the ability to install nightly builds for beta versions).
A final note: I’d like to personally thank the Automattic team and everyone who worked on the project over the past years. Without it, nothing that many of us bloggers do would be possible. Nearly every other platform is extremely inhibitive, without any control over the ethics of how the development of the software is governed, leading to releases that don’t reflect the needs of its users. With WordPress, the team actually listens to what users want, and releases updates based on security threats, making it one of the most secure platforms available.
If you agree with this and the Open Source message, please consider donating to the project. This doesn’t mean a monetary donation (while you can certainly do this through PayPal/credit card), you can also spend time on the forums, coding, writing documentation, or simply spreading the word about the system. Any earnings go towards hosting/operation expenses, domain registrations, contests, legal costs, donations to Open Source projects, and developer rewards.
Upgrading
There are some precautions that you must take before updating/upgrading your installation (whether you are using pre-2.3 or 2.6.5.
First, you want to be sure that you backup all your files, including your database, images, theme, plugins, etc.; anything that could be deleted or overwritten in the installation process. As long as you have a good, working backup of all your files, you have nothing to fear when you go about updating your installation.
After you have completed the backup task, deactivate all your plugins so compatibility is taken out of the picture.
Then, download and extract the installation file to your computer. Delete your old wp-includes and wp-admin directories. Copy the new WordPress installation files to your server, overwriting old files in the root, except the wp-content folder.
For further installation instructions, please refer to the 3-Step Installation Guide or the Extended Upgrade Instructions.
Remember, as the software ages, it will likely become harder to upgrade, as more compatibility issues will arise. The best solution would be to wait until the first beta release (if you are that hesitant), or go about the upgrade process once any problems have work-around solutions created.
Links
— Core Update Host Compatibility
— Plugin Compatibility for WordPress 2.7
— Theme Compatibility for WordPress 2.7
— The Visual Design of 2.7 – WordPress.org
— WordPress 2.7 Wireframes – WordPress.org
— 5 Amazing New WordPress 2.7 Features – NETTUTS
— 20+ Great WordPress 2.7 Compatible Plugins – Mashable
— WordPress 2.7: If You Don’t Like It, Change It – ReadWriteWeb
— WordPress 2.7 Upgrade Tips – Lorelle on WordPress
— Definitive Sticky Posts Guide for WordPress 2.7 – Nathan Rice
Upgrade Now
There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t check out the features of the newest version of WordPress. Millions of blogs have already contributed to the “testing phase” of the newest version, meaning that you have little to fear – it is a nearly flawless experience once you have downloaded and installed the update.
On the other hand, what new features would you like to see in the next (2.8 and beyond) version of WordPress? There has been talk about more social networking/media integration, as the Automattic team owns several properties in that field, although Matt may keep the platform strictly blogging. Only time will tell.
More than 200,000 Downloads within the First Two Days of Release
Here are some of the features that did not make it into this release.
• Default shortcodes, taken from WordPress.com.
• oEmbed support, tied in with shortcuts.
• Better UI for post revisions, maybe an optional field to say what changed in a version.
• oAuth support.
• GeoData for posts, comments, attachments, etc.
• Duplicate post Tags UI for other taxonomies.
• Template tags to do everything the custom gallery on http://ma.tt does.
• Codepress code highlighting for template editing.
• Menu editor.
• Unbalanced tags across more and netpage tags.
• Sitemaps by default.
• Refresh of the importers.
• Gallery post_type.
• Versioning of template edits.
• Documentation links for functions used in currently-edited templates.
• MPTT for heirarchies.
• Automatic notification of theme updates.
Features I (We) Would Like to See in Future Versions
There is no doubt that this is one of the most complete and comprehensive updates to WordPress since the code reworks in version 2.3 and 2.5, although there are some features that I would still like to see.
I believe that themes and the process of editing plugins needs to be improved. Despite the fact that this area is supposed to be reserved for people who are typically more inclined into editing the code, it should be made “workable” for people who have less knowledge about coding plugins, themes, etc.
If everyone had the ability to control nearly all aspects of their site, WordPress would become even more powerful. It isn’t that these features are required – there are third-party tools available to make the task easier. However, imagine the ability to rearrange widgets as they appear on your blog, much like through a customized “home page” that iGoogle, My Yahoo, and others offer. You wouldn’t have to go from one page to the next simply to add a widget to the second column. As themes continue to evolve, it may become more necessary to implement this feature.
Additionally, even people experienced with code find the default text editor hard to use, as all text appears the same – nearly all raw code editors allow you to instantly view text with highlighted and separated markup, speeding up the entire process, making it easier to see what you need to edit.
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For the most part, the WordPress team has addressed issues that were scheduled to be implemented in the previous release but didn’t make it into the final release and the features freeze. So, theme updates and better editing may come along in due time – possibly within the next two significant releases.
We can’t expect too much on the front of a “Visual” editor for themes, as it would involve a lot of unnecessary code (making the system more reminiscent of Blogger’s) than the rather compressed theme coding in WordPress. Some premium themes have begun getting closer to this, but again, it isn’t uniform, and varies (with many themes having little to no back-end features, let alone documentation).
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Here’s another issue that I see happening. While the overall speed of WordPress has remained quite consistent, improving with the latest releases, if additional features are continually added through future releases, will plugins even be necessary other than for adding niche-specific features to our blogs? One day, whether next year or even further down the road, the Automattic team could potentially build bbPress into the back-end of WordPress – it is already available as a fairly “complete” version, linking your blog and forums together.
As blogging evolves, what will happen to WordPress as it becomes an ever-growing platform, especially with the large influx of new users/members over the past several years? In my opinion, there is still a lot of growth to be had, especially considering contenders – take a look at some of them here. A good percentage of the 200+ million visitors to Blogger/Blogspot.com will likely “graduate” to a more advanced system likely WordPress (managed or self-hosted).
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What are some of the features you are looking forward to in the next release? Are you satisfied with the current release – what would you have changed?
