Yesterday, December 10th, WordPress 2.7 RC2 was released, and a day later, which is today, December 11th, the stable version of 2.7 is finally released. A month overdue from it’s supposed release date, but the wait was well worth it. I have been following and testing the WordPress 2.7 since it’s pre-beta days, and I became a first-hand witness to the evolution of 2.7’s development. The transformation I witnessed was awesome, and I realize that I now regret not getting screenshots of each and every iteration that has become what it is today. The new administrative interface is more intuitive. The new features and functions the developers integrated is somewhat the answer of a typical users usual gripes.

Here are some screenshots that I managed to get before and after WordPress 2.7 was released.

In one word, spiffy.

SPIFFEH!

Kudos to the WordPress Developers. This is truly one great milestone in the history of WordPress.

Here’s another quick post of a screenshot of the new Admin interface of WordPress 2.7 (currently RC1). It has two color schemes, gray and blue. Below is the blue theme, obviously. Heh. Choosing one or the other sports their own icons from the recently concluded WordPress Project Icon.

Final release is coming very, very soon.

Here’s a quick post of a screenshot of the new dashboard of the upcoming and much-awaited WordPress 2.7. The icons, they are new. And well-designed.

New Icons! Yay!

I can definitely smell WordPress 2.7 RC1 in the air. And the final release is coming real soon. So far, it’s smelling very good.

Here’s yet another screenshot of the new Dashboard of WordPress 2.7 (currently version Beta3-9791). And look, they used Verdana, my favorite font.

Screen fonts FTW!

Here’s a quick post of a screenshot of the new Dashboard of WordPress 2.7 Beta 2. It’s getting prettier everytime, but I think this is the last iteration of the aesthetics upgrade of the dash, that is, until they think of something else to change.

So 2.7 is not bleeding anymore and WordPress developers have finally let the cat out of the bag. A lot of people have been testing it prior to its beta release, and most of the “complaints” are aesthetic-related. I know I’m guilty of some. I’m blaming Jane Wells for whetting my appetite for 2.7 when she posted a couple of articles showing screenshots and detailed descriptions of the new dashboard. But of course, I kid.

Now that Beta 1 is out, it is definitely time to give it a real test drive. I’m not talking about installing it on a subdomain and checking the new features out. I’m talking about real-world scenarios wherein a hundred people try to comment on one of your entries just to test the comment reply button and if it indeed threads comments, one of the new features 2.7 offers. Comment threading is theme-dependent, and it may be as simple as copying and pasting some code, but if you live to customize, it will NOT be a walk in the park.

Take for example, this site’s theme. Customizing the comment form alone gave me headaches for weeks. But I did learn a great deal when it comes to theme customizations and functions when using WP2.7’s built-in comment threading.

The developers also beefed up a lot of the previously offered features. The Media Library is now more customizable. The Comments can be closed if an article is at a particular age. And you can control how deep threading comments will be, which has a maximum of 10 levels, for now.

The new interface, which is a far cry from 2.5, is really a hoot to work with. For me, it basically tells you what you want to know and gets out of the way for you to be more productive in producing your blog’s content. It’s more conducive to writing than before. In other words, I simply love it.

Of course, using a beta version on a production blog is risky, and I know the risks involved. I simply had to do it for the sake of real-world testing and I want to see how it all pans out. I believe the only major hurdle the developers are trying to overcome are the aesthetics of the Dashboard, which is supposedly unfinished and needs a lot of work if you compare it to their target “look.”

Although WordPress won’t be able to release 2.7 on time (November 10th), the progress they show on an almost nightly basis is a glimpse of things to come. I surely can’t wait for 2.7 to be finally released as a stable version.

Cheers to the WordPress developers and their commitment to providing quality software.

P.S.
Comments found on the comments section of the Dashboard were from Ade, L.A., and Carlo. Please don’t sue me.

Out of sheer boredom, I decided to install and try out WordPress 2.7-hemorrhage, and so far, I like the changes made to the admin UI. The animated dropdown menus are quite smooth, but it takes some getting used to, with it being on the left side and is vertically oriented.

By default, the Content tree is expanded. This section is not quite new since it is just a renamed Manage page, but with more focus on content-related stuff. From here, you can manage Posts, Comments, Links, Pages, etc. The Media Library can also be found here. What I like about this section is that you don’t need a plugin anymore to quickly reply to a comment. I believe Ozh’s Absolute Comments plugin made it to core. This makes replying to comments A LOT easier. Also, the Quick Edit feature of the Posts page in this section lets you change the title, slug, date published, category, tags, and status without needing to edit the whole post. You can also make it a sticky post, but I believe this is dependent on the theme to be able to use this feature properly. Writing a new post has been improved, as the page is beefed up with settings that lets you display or not certain post properties. The tags and categories section is also moved to the right side of the post entry box. Finally.

Of course, the Dashboard is still there. It was revamped to show a posting area where you don’t have to go to the Write Post page. This makes for quick posting, hence the term “QuickPress.” There’s also an Inbox, which I don’t have an idea what it does except show comments from some post I have no idea what about. I’m guessing this is simply a placeholder for something the developers will be rolling out as a surprise. And I don’t think it has anything to do with email, but I’m suspecting it would be in line with showing comments from WordPress.com posts. It may be another use for the WordPress.com API.

The Design tab is replaced by the Themes section, which allows you to do the same things as before: browse the installed themes, manage widgets, and edit template files. It basically has the same features as 2.6, with the theme preview before activating the theme. However, the developers are planning to automate the addition or installation of new themes from the Directory page of the Themes section. It’s not yet implemented with the current nightly, and maybe added past 2.7, but it will surely make it there.

Managing categories, tags, users and user profiles, the Import and Export feature, and link categories are now in the Utilities section, with the addition of the Inbox. With my installation of this nightly, the Inbox is still not manageable. Nothing new here except the layout. The developers simply organized what can be managed into more sensible sections – Content for content-related stuff, and Utilities for content meta(?)-related stuff.

One other thing that really caught my eye and made me want to deploy it immediately to my photoblog is the new image management features added. With the current stable version of WordPress, you can manage your thumbnail- and medium-size maximum dimensions from the Miscellaneous page of the Settings section. With the upcoming release, still in the same page, you can also control the large-size maximum dimensions and set the default posting settings for the image size, image alignment, and image link. What I’m wishing the developers add to this is the ability to resize the existing images without having to re-upload them whenever you change one of the image size settings. Although far from being a photoblogging platform, these features, together with a photoblog-focused theme, would make a great alternative to other photoblogging or photo gallery platforms.

Although it’s all spiffy and such, 2.7-hemorrhage still has a lot of kinks to be worked out. The automated installation of plugins for one, and the Inbox, obviously. The automated installation of plugins does not quite work for me, although I was able to upgrade my plugins with a pre-2.7 install with no issues. I wonder if this will be addressed when the stable version is released come November. So far, this is the only issue I am having with 2.7-hemorrhage. Hopefully, the latest release will have all the features listed here fully functioning. And about the Inbox, it would be really helpful if there was more information about this new feature.

Another thing to look forward to is the automated upgrade of the WordPress install itself, though there are a lot of things that could go wrong here. It may be included in 2.7, but your mileage may vary. Nothing to do but to keep those fingers crossed.

I finally had a small taste of 2.7, and I am wanting more. I can’t wait to have this installed on my blog. When’s November coming?

WordPress 2.5 is now out. Now I understand why they opted to skip 2.4 altogether and go directly to 2.5. There were a lot of changes and a lot of testers were complaining about the new layout of the Write page. Some plugins don’t work, but most of what I use do. Although there’s a new tag management system built-in, I’m still using Christine’s Tag Managing Thing since it allows me to merge, split, and edit tags AND categories in one place. It didn’t work initially, though, and I had to edit the code, but it was a simple hack and all I needed to do was remove the size attribute of the terms list and add a height attribute to the merge list. All in all, WordPress 2.5 is looking spiffy and a lot smarter.

In a non-WordPress related note, some of you may be wondering about the new site you get redirected to. It’s not actually a new site with new content. I decided to merge all my posts, tech-related or not, into a single site, hopefully making it a bit centralized. Gormful will still be maintained, as well as my Unintelligible site, but both will be redirected to this site.

My lappy’s days are numbered as I’ll be getting a desktop very soon. It’s just not practical to do some work on a lappy. A desktop is still a better choice for work and play. I guess my lappy’s purpose will be reduced to twittering and posting entries. Lappy = glorified word processor.

Oh well. Thanks also to Vance for the heads up on WordPress 2.5 being released. The instant I saw his name on the comment dashboard and I knew 2.5 has been released.

A carpet installer decides to take a cigarette break after completing
the installation in the first of several rooms he has to do. Finding them
missing from his pocket he begins searching, only to notice a small lump in
his recently completed carpet-installation. Not wanting to pull up all that
work for a lousy pack of cigarettes he simply walks over and pounds the lump
flat. Foregoing the break, he continues on to the other rooms to be carpeted.

At the end of the day, while loading his tools into his truck, two
events occur almost simultaneously: he spies his pack of cigarettes on the
dashboard of the truck, and the lady of the house summons him imperiously:
“Have you seen my parakeet?”