Why Wait Webs

WordPress 2.7 recently came out. For those of you who don’t know, WordPress is the most popular blogging platform in the world, and deservedly so. It is highly customizable and extremely themeable. It’s coded with standard, valid XHTML and CSS. My only real complaint with WordPress is that they, like much of the web, chose to use XHTML instead of HTML when there’s no real reason for it. But that’s a topic for another day. As it stands, WordPress is still the best CMS I’ve ever used by far, and that’s why I use it on my own site and recommend it to all of my clients.

I am going to be upgrading this blog and, if all goes well, my clients’ blogs shortly thereafter. Normally I wouldn’t go to the trouble of updating, but this is a big one. Instead of the usual one or two obscure bug fixes, the WP team has completely redesigned the back-end, and from what I’ve seen they’ve done a really good job of turning a great blogging platform into a truly rich CMS (content management system).

Continue reading to find out what some of these great new features are, and for a video showcasing them!

In WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” the look and feel of the back-end is very much improved. The most important thing, in my opinion, is that you can now access important pages with a single click. Previously, the menu/sub-menu setup often required you to click once, wait for the page to load, and then click again to get where you needed to be (even “New Post” was not always instantly accessible). Now, not only have they implemented some robust JavaScript into their menu so that you can get pretty much anywhere from any page, they have also implemented the ability to add shortcuts of your own choosing to your Dashboard. So if there does happen to be some obscure feature in WP that would normally take 2 or more clicks, and you happen to use it a lot, you can still add a shortcut and now you’re able to easily access any page you desire from anywhere in the WordPress CMS.

Another feature, and the one that is getting the most attention, is that the interface is completely customizable. You can get rid of elements in the CMS that you don’t need. If you don’t ever use password protection on your posts for example, you can get rid of the box that takes up your workspace. You can also move things around. Let’s say that you want some extra width-space for typing out your posts. With 2.7, you can move the Preview, Save, Publish, and other buttons that normally occupy the right side of the screen down below your post if you prefer. 2-column or 1-column, it’s all up to you.

Also, they have included a plugin browser in the new CMS. Previously, if you wanted a plugin you had to find it through one of many directories on the web, download it, unzip it, upload it, and activate it. Now not only is all of that automated, but there is a single central place for you to look for plugins (I can’t help but think they might have drawn some inspiration from Apple’s highly successful iPhone App Store, but that is pure speculation).

And the last major addition that I’ll point out here is that from now on, upgrades won’t be such a hassle. The WP team has implemented a one-click upgrade system, which will turn the daunting 2+ hour task of upgrading, which was actually even more complicated than a completely fresh install of WordPress, into a single-click ordeal.

Sounds like a lot of great updates to me! I’m including the video from WordPress’s own blog for you to preview these new features and decide for yourself whether it’s worth the upgrade. Let me know what you decide in the comments!