Web Talk

The long awaited WordPress 2.7 is finally out. There are really a lot of things to speak about this new release. It mostly focalizes on the so-called backend, which is the area were the blogger works by writing and posting new articles, moderating comments, managing plugins and the whole blog frontend. As usual, after a new WordPress version is releases a lot of plugins stop working, even if it has to be said  the WP-guys are always good and considerate with them. In fact they tend to make as less changes as possible in order to preserve plugins’ functionality.

Anyway, if you want to see if the plugins you are using work properly, here is an interesting page where you can see what plugins work and what don’t. The next WordPress version namely WordPress 2.8 will see a lot of improvements in the way plugins are managed and I expect a lot of problems will arise because of this. Even if it is a  little early, if you want to know more about WP 2.8 click here.

As stated before there are a lot of news in WordPress 2.7. Let’s see together what they are:

• New way to manage and moderate comments thanks to keyboard shortcuts.
• Comment threading. This means  the theme will show a better comment layout. In fact comments can  now be threaded, paged, etc. This feature needs a theme WordPress 2.7 compatible to work. If you want to make your theme compatible with the new way comments are shown, read this guide.
• You can now reply to comments directly from the admin panel.
• New layout for every option in the admin panel. Everything has been re-arranged in the admin panel following thousands of suggestions coming from WordPress users. You can expand and collapse sections to reveal the submenus. You can also “shrink” everything to icons and this will offer you the maximum working area to work. Also, the entire navigation column is collapsible.
• WordPress upgreader. Now you can avoid the pain of manually upgrading your WordPress, just by clicking a botton. WordPress will update itself in  a few minutes putting your blog offline, disabling plugins, overwriting old files with the new ones and reactivating your blog once the procedure is finished. This features has meant the end of the excellent WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin.
• Sticky Post. Now you can post a new article and keep it at the top of the front page even after new articles are added.
• Plugin installer. Basically, you can install plugins directly from the Administration panels. You can search for new plugins by tag, plugin author, or by subject. Once you spot one you like, install it right away!
• Etc. etc. etc. There are a lot more to be said. If you want to know more, visit the official WordPress 2.7 page listing all new features.

I like this new WordPress version a lot. I think WordPress is the best blogging platform ever. User-friendly, easy to navigate and explore, easy to set and use. It is definitly the blogging platform you need if are serious (or funny) about writing online! Have I managed to convince you?  Yes? Well, you can download WordPress for free here!