Spanking New WordPress 2.5 – First Impressions

I upgraded our blogs to WordPress 2.5 and I am rather pleased with the new admin layout. I read that this is the first big change since version 1.5 and WordPress has definitely come a long way.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the upgrades went so smooth. All my plugins (30+) worked great after the upgrade except one which I’ll address at the end of the post.

Here are some of the new features/changes I came across in no particular order:

• A brand new Admin layout
• Admin profile color options
• Media Library – shows type of file, date imported and the post it appears in and a Permalink to use it elsewhere
• Supports multi-file upload
• A Manage – Link category option
• View Links (renamed Blogroll) by category and you can order it name or sort it by popularity, address or id
• Manage Posts shows tags, number of comments and status. Also sports a drop-down to view by month
• Search posts & pages (earlier no pages)
• Write screen is cleaner and sports a Toggle full screen option – very useful in my opinion
• Better support for adding different media types in the Write screen
• Excellent built-in Tag management
• Collapsible areas show tags, categories, etc under the post write screen
• The side area has been cleaned up to show just publishing options and some related links
• Related options area gives you quick links to manage all posts, comments, tags or categories
• Write link screen has an advanced option to add an image, rss feed, notes and a rating
• The Widgets page has been redesigned as well with the available, used, unused widgets filter laid out vertically instead of at the bottom of the page.
• Comment area has seen a big revamp as well.. looks and acts more like the Better Comments Manager plugin interface
• List View & Detail View
• Click on the heading to edit a comment – has a nice area to format your comment
• Settings, plugins and users management links separated out to the side
• Automatic plugin upgrade
• One buton deactivates all your plugins
• You can now set a maximum size for images in a post (Settings->Writing screen)
• Gravatar support to toggle display avatars and their rating (Settings-> Reading screen)

Here are some screenshots:

One of the best improvements for me has to be automatic plugin upgrade! This feature just rocks when you have numerous plugins like me and it pretty much becomes a hassle to keep them updated every week. Now, it frees up my time to actually write some content here.

Popularity Contest Plugin Issue

The one plugin that I had a problem updating automatically was ‘Popularity Contest’. But, WordPress Codex’s Plugin compatibility list for WordPress 2.5 already had a note linked to this plugin. Following the note, made the Popularity Contest plugin work just fine.

WordPress 2.5 Image Upload Issue

Also, when I tried to upload the images for this post I got an error with the image upload. Then, I found this useful post from Josh Highland on how to resolve it.

All I had to do was edit the .htaccess file in my server and add the following:

<IfModule mod_security.c>
<Files async-upload.php>
SecFilterEngine Off
SecFilterScanPOST Off
</Files>
</IfModule>

Overall, I am very pleased with the WordPress 2.5 upgrade and gave me a chance to get rid of some of the plugins I don’t need anymore, making way for new ones I want to try.

If you are on the wall about upgrading your blog to 2.5, hope this would give you a little push towards that. This really has to be the smoothest upgrade I have ever done!

Of course, I took the plunge after making sure I had a good backup of my blog and knowing the backing from the incredible community of helpful folks surrounding WordPress. Have you?

Download WordPress 2.5