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.

Lately, I've been playing around WordPress 2.5 RC1 and it was refreshing to use the new Admin interface. It is cool to the eyes and it loads up pretty quick. I must say I'm impressed with the changes and updates Automattic made to WordPress. Some of the new features are a welcome addition too, like the tag management system they have put in place. It displays like the category management page and mimics its features too. From the tag management page, you can add, edit, and delete tags much the same way as categories. It's no Tag Managing Thing, but if you prefer using core features than plugins, this is a very great addition. Another feature worth mentioning is the automatic plugin upgrade system. In RC1, you need to input your FTP credentials in order to perform the automatic upgrade. In WordPress 2.5 RC2, however, you don't have to. The process involves downloading the plugin from the WordPress plugin repository, unpacking the update, removing the old package, installing the latest package, and if the plugin is active while auto-updating, it will deactivate the plugin first before installing the new version, then reactivate the plugin. It will then tell you that the plugin is updated successfully. And it's all automated. One thing to note though, is that you should beware of using the automatic plugin upgrade, as outlined by this article. Some of the issues outlined in the article was already addressed, but not all, so if you are not sure if the automatic upgrade will wreak havoc on your blog, make sure you have a backup and perform the plugin upgrade manually. I tried it on some plugins that query the database and so far, no issues. Lucky me. About the new interface, it is easy on the eyes and a bit more organized that shows the designers are obviously keeping the user experience in mind to make it more user-friendly. One thing I've noticed on the Write page is that it has a subpage that lets you add links, and when you go to the Manage page from the Links subpage in Write, you don't have to click on the Links subpage in Manage. You're already there. The interface is clearly smarter than before. Also, if you are using the WordPress.com Stats plugin, an overview is displayed, and configurable, on the dashboard itself. It can be configured to show daily, weekly, and monthly stats. The feeds in the dashboard can also be configured to the feed of your choosing. Pre-2.5, you can also do this, but you have to go into the code of the core itself. Pretty scary. 2.5 however makes it a whole lot easier to configure what you want to see and which feeds you want to read from the dashboard. All in all, WordPress 2.5 focuses on the user-experience, making it very easy and user-friendly, so that the blogger can focus more on blogging itself.

This is one of the conundrums, so to speak, that I always think of whenever a new software version is released, especially with open source software. No matter how good the software developers are, in a matter of days, or weeks (if lucky), they will be releasing a security patch or bug fix. The beta testing stage isn't always as effective as it is supposed to be. Maybe the reason behind this is because beta testers know how to fix things and already have a game plan as to what should be done versus what ordinary, technologically-deprived noobs would do. Here's a suggestion: fill the beta testers roster with idiots and dummies. That way, most of the bugs will be quashed before the release date. There's just one problem though. The developers would then need tons and tons of patience. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud if I should upgrade immediately to WordPress 2.5 when it comes out. Although there's not really a major revision to the way the core processes data, meaning, the database schema is still the same as of 2.3, there shouldn't be a lot of glitches. However, there are additional functions that might clash with a number of plugins that currently provide the feature that is yet to be included. One of the plugins that might be affected is the Tag Managing Thing by Christine from the Internet. There will be a tag management page included with the core of WordPress 2.5. If it doesn't clash, the next question I have to answer would be which one to use as the main tag manager. Another plugin that might be affected is the Gravatar plugin. WordPress 2.5 will have built-in support for gravatars. However, I don't think this will be as affected as the previous plugin as WLTC's Ronald Huereca points out that you can enable or disable the built-in gravatar support and just use the plugin. One thing they didn't mention, though, is if the option is enabled or disabled by default. Installing is easy. Upgrading, however, is another story. And this is mostly for theme developers. So based on my fickle-mindedness and inability to stick with the decisions I make, I think I'll just wait for March 10th and see if I'm in the mood for some code-wrangling, or simply hitting my head with a brick.

The next major release of WordPress, version 2.5, is almost here. A release date of March 10th is scheduled and the developers have decided to put the development on feature freeze as they focus more on bug hunting and polishing the features and code already in there. Chris Johnston was also generous enough to host a demo site, but was abused and hacked to redirect to some other site. The link to the demo site was removed from WLTC and The WordPress Podcast. Ryan has it though, but it might be gone soon, so if you want to see what the new Administration area looks like, head on over to his blog and look for it in the Comments section. I tried logging in and I checked out the new design, and honestly, I didn't expect to see the new colors, given that the new colors are mostly in the same range as the colors here. The new design is refreshing, and quite a big step away from the hues of blues in the current (almost previous) versions. The Dashboard is more organized, and the whole Administration area is restructured to give more focus on what a blogger would do rather than be suggestive of what should be done. Besides the colors of the Administration area changing, another feature that caught my attention is when I went to the Manage tab. There's now an option to manage tags. This is a feature that, at first, was not really planned and will not be put in core, leaving tag management to plugin developers. One too many cherries on top of the begging and pleading and it was decided to put it in core. At least, that's how I think it went. Anyway, the tag management page looks a lot like the category management page. Let's just see if this scales with a thousand tags to manage. Hopefully, it will. And gracefully, as it does. All in all, having been able to test-drive WordPress 2.5 only whets my appetite even more and I can't wait for March 10th. A new look to the Administration area is one of the things the developers did right. I just hope everything else is also the same.

WordPress developers have finally decided to include a management page for tags, and it will be bundled in the upcoming version 2.5 of WordPress. It was developed initially using the Advanced Tag Entry plugin, but Christine's plugin already does most of the tag management needs. It would make sense if they just slapped Christine's plugin into the core. In addition to the tag management page being developed to be included to the core, the Uploader is also being redesigned. I checked out the ticket and there has been significant changes to the code of the Uploader. Other changes and updates, as reported by Westi, simply went over my head as it doesn't make any sense to me. Shows how much I know about WordPress development and PHP stuff, which is almost non-existent. Anyway, there's a $5000 bounty offered by Calais to the plugin developer that would create a WordPress plugin that will suggest semantic tags, among other things. IMHO, this is another great reason to start developing for WordPress. A lot of cool stuff going into the development of WordPress 2.5, which makes me wish I focused on programming a long time ago.