I already mentioned my opinion of the theme selection in my previous post about WordPress 2.6, so I'm going to leave that out of this entry.
I just updated one of my WordPress 2.5.1 sites to WordPress 2.6. I used the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin which saves you the steps of a manual upgrade. I didn't get any errors, and I've been using this plugin since upgrading to Wordpress 2.5. This plugin is not yet for use with Wordpress-MU, so don't try it until the plugin's webpage says otherwise.
I mention this because Wordpress Multi User is changing its next release from 1.6 to 2.6 to help reduce upgrading confusion. I personally think it will cause as much confusion as it will remove, but I digress.
The automatic upgrade plugin never reenables my plugins after upgrading Wordpress, but now it isn't a big deal since Wordpress 2.6 lets you activate or deactivate more than one plugin at a time. No more one at a time change drudgery.
After upgrading I reactivated my plugins and used the plugin updating feature that was added in Wordpress 2.5 to update my plugins that had notices. You'll want to check every week for plugin updates. A few plugins seem to break or act funny after every Wordpress version revision.
I do not see any of my current plugins breaking with this version. My page loaded no problem. I didn't get any strange PHP errors either.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
WordPress 2.6 was released on July 15 2008
WordPress 2.6 is out
If you are using WordPress, and you probably should be if you are not, you'll want to know that WordPress 2.6 has been released.
Widget Bug Fix
First of all, it fixed the Javascript bug that came with 2.5 that made moving widgets a pain.
Plugin Management Improvements
It also separates active and inactive plugins on the plugin page so it is easier to manage them instead of one big list like before.
If you upgrade your install or WordPress, you can finally enable and disable more than one plugin at the time. That takes a lot of the work out of updating!
If you decide to replace a plugin with a new one, you still need to upload the new one via FTP, If you forget to delete the plugin being replaced, you can now select it from the deactivated plugins and select delete. That will also save some time.
Remove and Auto Blogging Setting Change
If you use any remote or autoblogging software, you'll now have to enable it on the Write page since it will be disabled on any new installations.
Theme Selection Pain
The theme selection page is now more work than ever! You now have to go through a theme preview page which appears in an iframe, so it is two clicks instead of one. I like having previews. I don't like being forced to see a preview! They could have added a button or link for switching to one, but they didn't.
If you keep people from framing your site via Javascript as a security measure, you'll now have to remove that code before you'll be able to switch to your theme otherwise you'll see a preview page with no switch to theme link. What a bummer!
Post Revisions
Wordpress 2.6 includes the ability to go back and see previous versions of a post. It will inflate your database a bit, but it will help with those oops I didn't-mean-to-make-those-changes moments.
Image Captions
With WordPress you can add captions to your images, so now you can actually tell people what is in an image and have it appear together.
Google Gears
Google Gears is a caching system for administration files, it is supposed to speed up the process. You have to click on Turbo to enable it. You also have to install Gears in your web browsers.
There are more changes, but they are pretty minor.
Should you upgrade now? It is normally best to wait a couple weeks before upgrading Wordpress because there is the risk that a plugin you use will be broken.
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