WordPress 2.5 Released

Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Dougal

If you already run WordPress, then you’ve probably seen the other announcements in your Dashboard about the release of WordPress 2.5. There are plenty of details in the Development Blog posting, so I won’t rehash the feature list here. I’ll just point out a few important details.

First of all, in my post about Release Candidate 1, I mentioned that I had problems with the plugin updater. Since that time, I have been able to upgrade complex plugins with out a problem. I didn’t do extensive testing, but I feel like this is probably safer now. Other folks on the wp-testers mailing list have reported observed improvements similar to mine.

Next, I’ll point out that since the introduction of the WYSIWYG editor back in version 2.0, I have always stuck to the “Code” editor. And on top of that, I have disabled the auto-formatting (wptexturize and wpautop) filters. I’ve always entered every bit of HTML within my posts by hand. Starting with version 2.5, I’m going to relax my grip and hand the reigns back over to the system. I’ve disabled my “untexturize” plugin, and switched to the “Visual” editor as my default. The Visual editor should be just fine for most of the posts that I write. And on those occassions when I need to do something advanced (like <code>, <ins> or <del> tags, my standard “pull-quote” div for images, etc), I can seamlessly switch to the HTML view and back, without worrying about the Visual editor messing with my manual edits later.

And for those of you who might wonder, but haven’t seen it mentioned, the new improvements will be filtering into WordPress.com and the WordPress-MU codebase very soon.

ShareThis

Filed in WordPress, Release, Plugins, Announcements, announcement, wp25, wysiwyg | Comments (0) | Permalink

MD5 Password Hashes for 2.5

Friday, March 28, 2008 - Ryan

WordPress 2.5 uses a new password hashing scheme. Plain-old MD5 hashes are no longer used. If you share your users table with other applications or with other WordPress blogs that won’t be upgrading to 2.5 all at once, you’ll probably want to continue using MD5 hashes rather than the new hashes. We’ve created a plugin to accommodate this. With the plugin, your 2.5 blog will continue to use MD5 hashes. You should install and activate this plugin immediately after upgrading to 2.5. Users that login prior to installation of the plugin will get the new hashes, but after the plugin is active those users will be moved back to MD5 upon their next log in. If you ever want to move to the new hashes, just deactivate the plugin.

If you want to use a hash other than MD5, the plugin demonstrates how easy it is to change how passwords are hashed. Use the MD5 plugin as a template for creating your own hashing plugin.

Filed in WordPress | Comments (0) | Permalink

WordPress 2.5 Release Candidate 1

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - Ryan

Release Candidate 1 of WordPress 2.5 is finally here. We’ve already received a lot of feedback. If you have comments regarding the new admin design, shoot an email to 2.5-feedback@wordpress.org. I’m collating feedback and making a list of most frequent suggestions. We’ll use this feedback to guide the final round of UI work.

Filed in WordPress | Comments (0) | Permalink

WordPress 2.5 RC1

Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - Dougal

The first release candidate for WordPress 2.5 was announced last night. The adventurous among you can download it for testing. New features include:

  • Faster load times.
  • Multi-file uploads.
  • New “Media Manager” for images, audio, video, etc.
  • Built-in gallery function.
  • Built-in (and pluggable) Gravatars support.
  • New backend design.
  • One-click auto-update for plugins.
  • Reactivate plugins after a ‘Deactivate All Plugins’ action. (my feature! :) )

As a long-time WordPress user and developer, the new design for the back-end admin screens threw me at first. I had the same questions that I saw many others post to the mailing lists. “Why did they clump these links together, and move these other ones to a different spot on the page?” But the more I’ve used it, it became obvious that the new menu layout made sense. The most frequently used items are prominent. The less-often needed ones are moved out of the way, but still easily accessible. I’m still not totally thrilled with the color choices (some elements don’t have enough contrast, to my eyes), but it turns out the the admin screen colors are pluggable, as well.

One of the more exciting features (IMO) is the one-click plugin updater. When you see a notification that a new version of a plugin is available, you’ll also see an ‘upgrade automatically’ link. If your server supports all the functions needed, clicking the link will download and install the new version for you. I will note that on my server, this feature does not always work flawlessly, and I’ve sometimes had to quickly download and install a plugin manually to fix a broken plugin. I’ve shared my observations on this, and I hope that they’ll be able to make this feature more robust before final release. My advice is to use this feature with caution for now. But I’m hoping that my problems with it are due to my server, and that I’ll have better luck when I get things moved to my new host.

Overall, I’m liking the new release. I haven’t had a chance to play with the media management and gallery features yet, but I’m looking forward to giving them a try. I think the new admin arrangement will be easier for new users, and I think most established users will come to appreciate it, too (and for those looking for something even more different, there’s the Fluency Admin theme).

As always, when toying with pre-release code, don’t forget to back up your database and files before you upgrade! Give it a spin, kick the tires, and let us know what you think.

ShareThis

Filed in WordPress, beta, Upgrades, Announcements, Avatars, wp25, cms, contentmanagement, Gallery, gravatars, rc1, releasecandidate, testing | Comments (0) | Permalink

Admin Color Schemes in WordPress 2.5

Monday, March 17, 2008 - Ryan

Weblog Tools Collection provides the low down on the new admin color scheme selector in WordPress 2.5, and Ozh demonstrates how to create your own custom color scheme. Much of the discussion surrounding UI changes dwells on colors. Debates over shades of blue can go on endlessly. So, we’re including two different color schemes for the new admin and allowing custom color styling. The default color scheme will be our new “Fresh” look featuring light shades of blue. A “Classic” look is also available for those who like the darker blues seen in previous versions of WP. If neither of these suit your tastes, you can provide your own color stylesheet.

Filed in WordPress | Comments (0) | Permalink

digging into boring Pi, getting out of boring time

Friday, March 14, 2008 - michel v

I figured it would be nice to start a new year on this blog on Pi Day. So happy new year, two months and a myriad of unposted posts late!
So hi again, my three visitors. How does it feel to read me saying “hi again” every six months or so?

Filed in new year, Pi | Comments (0) | Permalink

Roadwork Next 15 Miles

Thursday, March 13, 2008 - Dougal

I am preparing to move all of my web and email hosting to a new server. I’ve been fortunate to have an in-trade hosting arrangement for many years now (thanks to Jeff at Iguanasoft!). But my host’s owner is winding down some of his equipment, and I had outgrown the server I was on. I’ve secured a new server at Slicehost (a 1024slice running Ubuntu), and I’ll be transitioning my data over the next couple of weeks, as time allows.

I mainly mention this as warning that if my site appears to be down, email bounces, or any other strangeness occurs, it might be because I’m in the middle of moving things around. It will probably be another couple of days before I start shaking things up. While I’m moving thing around, I might try consolidating some of my stand-alone WordPress sites into a WordPress-MU setup. That would make upgrades and other site management tasks a bit easier, I think.

With a little luck, and a lot of attention to detail, you might never know that I’ve changed anything. Yeah, right! ;) Watch this space for further announcements.

ShareThis

Filed in WordPress, Linux, hosting, Blogs, Tech, Announcements, Personal, Servers, Services, slicehost, 1024slice, app, moving, slice, Ubuntu, wordpressmu, wpmu | Comments (0) | Permalink

Easy Gravatars 1.2

Thursday, March 6, 2008 - Dougal

Earlier today, I released Easy Gravatars version 1.2. The only change (besides confirming that works in WordPress 2.5, currently in beta, due out next week) is that when installed under WordPress 2.5 or newer, it will use the new core get_avatar() function to generate the image tag. And since get_avatar() is a pluggable function, other plugins could conceivably use it to generate avatar icons from other services, and Easy Gravatars would then use the new service too.

If that doesn’t make sense to you, don’t sweat it. You can upgrade and it will work fine (on both older versions of WP and the upcoming version 2.5). Or you can keep the previous version, and it will continue to work fine, too. The only way things would work any different is if you are running WordPress 2.5 (or later, one day), and if you had an additional plugin which defined a new get_avatar() function.

ShareThis

Filed in WordPress, Plugins, CSS, Avatars, gravatars, avatar, gravatar, images, personalization, plugin | Comments (0) | Permalink

Avatars in WordPress 2.5

Tuesday, March 4, 2008 - Ryan

Weblog Tools Collection has documented the get_avatar() function present in WordPress 2.5 so that I don’t have to. Big thanks. I can scrap the avatar post I haven’t got around to writing and instead answer some of the questions that popped up in the comments to the WTC post.

Gravatar is the service used by default. get_avatar() is completely pluggable, however, so any service can be used. get_avatar() is built-in so that themes will have some fixed API on which they can rely, regardless of whatever avatar service is being used behind-the-scenes.

In addition to accepting an email address or user ID, get_avatar() accepts an entire comment object. This is a convenience for using get_avatar() in the comments loop.

The avatar support in 2.5 does not attempt to add avatars into your existing themes. Themes must be written to use get_avatar(). Dynamic addition of avatars is left to plugins.

Avatars are displayed in several places in the admin. They will show up when managing comments, for example.

Display of avatars can be completely turned off via a preference. When turned off, no attempt is made to connect to an avatar service.

Filed in WordPress, Avatars | Comments (0) | Permalink

39 is a joke [Flickr]

Sunday, March 2, 2008 - michel v — intraordinaire.com

michel v — intraordinaire.com posted a photo:

39 is a joke

(“Blague” means joke.)
Spotted in my street. Paris, february 2008.

Filed in street, wall, graffiti, joke, streetsign, blague | Comments (0) | Permalink