Apr 02 2008
WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Looks Good
Last March 29, I saw another notice in my WordPress control panel telling me that the latest version of WordPress, version 2.5, has been released and my installation must be upgraded. I’ve read from many blogs that this version will bring new looks and speed to the WordPress control panel. So, without further ado, I instantly downloaded the new version from WordPress official website and upgraded mine.
The upgrade process went very smooth and definitely transparent. As usual, WordPress guys made things easy – no “computerese,” no jargons whatsoever, just good steps. After I upgraded, I was redirected to the WordPress login and it is where my impression begins.
The login design has been changed for better. It looks very neat and fresh now, unlike the blue one that we used to see in the previous version which, in my opinion, was large.
The center of improvement came after I logged into my WordPress control panel. I was surprised – indeed, there are big changes. The first thing I noticed basically is the design. The new WordPress 2.5 default dashboard configuration displays recent comments, incoming links, WordPress development blog, popular plugins and the typical box news.
The default main menu now comes with only five items: Write, Manage, Design, Comments and Ratings. The Write menu item when clicked displays the Write Post page featuring the revamped (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) WYSIWYG WordPress blog editor. The Manage menu item lets you manage posts, pages, links, categories, tags, link categories, media library and like before, boasts WordPress Import and Export function. The Design menu, on the other hand, is equivalent to previous “Presentation” menu. The Settings, Plugins and User menu items are now displayed in small font to the upper right portion of the administration panel.
Another thing that is noticeable with the new WordPress is the speed. It is a whole lot faster than the previous one – one thing many bloggers will like (including me). The one-click plugin upgrade is superb. It asks for your domain’s FTP login information, and then it upgrades the outdated plugins for you.
My conclusion is that I very much prefer the previous blue-themed control panel. When I found that the color scheme can be changed to classic through the Settings, however, my little disappointment vanished. Now, WordPress 2.5 looks good and I love it like other bloggers do.
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April 2nd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
You’ll probably notice a couple of bugs like The image and media uploads. The media for example doesn’t work when you upload FLV files.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Yeah, I quite observed that. Thank you for mentioning!
May 28th, 2008 at 10:18 am
[...] personally the new WordPress version has few issues with my web hosting environment. Although in my previous blog post I said that the new features of WordPress are neat, the image upload issue I just discovered made [...]