Wordpress 2.7 has been released Wordpress 2.7 Review

Wordpress 2.7 Review

Wordpress 2.7 was just released, and I am happy to say that they did it right.  I upgraded one of my smaller wordpress sites using the automatic upgrade plugin and dove in. Here is my review of Wordpress 2.7.

I'm glad to say that the water's fine.  First of all they rearranged the interface. Now the navigation menu is in the left sidebar. It uses JavaScript (probably AJAX) to give expanding sub-menus so it takes fewer page reloads to get to specific items.

New Color Scheme

The new color scheme uses different shades of gray and a light blue link color. That light blue link color makes my eyes sore with my flat panel display, but I suppose it looks good on CRTs.

Menu Icons

WordPress now has icons for each item in the sidebar navigation.

Write Posts/Pages Fixed

I don't know about you but I was so ANGRY when WordPress moved the category list from the right sidebar to below the post write area. I was so upset that I had to scroll down just to select a stupid category, something you have to do every post!  Thankfully, the category selection box is back to where it belongs in the right sidebar and above-the-fold.  It took a while, but I'm glad it is back  They also put Tags there which also makes sense.

They also added back the Preview button that had been removed a few versions ago.

New Screen Options

For those who are looking for a more minimalistic Wordpress, their prayers have been answered.

You can now click on "screen options" which is in the upper right part of WordPress, and you get some check box that you can check/uncheck (or "tick") to show or hide different parts.

New Quickpress

Quickpress is a nice option for people who want to just log in and start posting. In your Dashboard page (the page you go to after you log in), there is a Quickpress box which lets you just type a post title, content, and tags then save as draft or publish.

The only problem with that is that there is no way to select a category. I may not need all the bells and whistles, but I think the category is just as essential as the title. Hopefully they'll fix that or someone will make a plugin to put that there.

Plugins Page NOT Fixed

One change I didn't like with WP-2.5 was how they got rid of drag and drop widgets. This was especially useful when you had 2 or 3 sidebars defined. Unfortunately the drag and drop widgets are still gone. You still have to click on "add" and you still have to select the sidebar in a drop-down menu.

Add (install) Plugin Feature

Now, you no longer have to download a plugin and upload it via FTP to your server. I'm sure I'll love this feature because I have many websites (most use Wordpress MU and I don't know if Donncha will let us yet. He said to check the trunk or the current beta, so that is on my to do list.), but for the few regular wp sites I have, this will save time.  Just search for the plugin by term or if you've downloaded it to your computer, you can select it and upload it through the webpage. You're still uploading, but you don't have to extract the folder and move it over, you save plenty of steps either way.

Core Wordpress Upgrade

Finally, you can upgrade your core installation files. No longer do you have to go through the drudgery of downloading-extracting-copying-uploading-via-ftp to update WordPress to the most current version. Go to Tools-Upgrade and it will give you the uption to update online or

Updated Comments

You'll need to update your WordPress theme to use the new features. Comments now are threaded. Visitors can reply to a comment and it will be a thread instead of just having the new comment at the bottom like before. This is great for people who have good reader participation. It will be much easier to see what is happening.

Did I miss any changes in WordPress 2.7 that you think are worth mentioning? Please add a comment.