WordPress 2.6 First Impressions
July 15, 2008
At first my impressions are anything but favorable. I downloaded the zip file as I have done many times before. I created a new folder and database for it on my server. I uploaded to said folder waiting to do a famous five minute install, which is typically faster than that, but get zilch. Just a blank screen on my browser, no we can’t find the wp-config file, no please install this or that, just nothing.
I consult the literature and still nothing. I am going wa different route now. I am going to upgrade a local installation and see what I get. Boom loads right up with an upgrade screen when I log in. This was as short and painless as I have come to expect with WordPress.
Let’s move on to the features. I had to actually check the version information to make I had actually upgraded. It wasn’t until I reached the plugins that I found anything differences what so ever. My God I have been asking for this upgrade for a long time. I can activate all my plugins at once. On top of that it lifts and separates the active plugins from the inactive ones. This makes up for the fact that the default admin color scheme is crappy with very little contrast.
What I don’t like about this so far the worst feature of WordPress 2.5 is still horrible in version 2.6. The widget page is still an ugly nightmare. This is the one feature most of us bitched and moaned about and submitted poll after poll on saying we most wanted fixed. Alas maybe when they get around to version 4 or 5 they will get it through their head that we really didn’t like that cluster-fuck. All in all though, it doesn’t look like much has changed in the operational methods. Stay tuned for more information and other reviews.
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Looks like a promising version.
I’m glad you’ve decided to be an early adopter so you can work out the bugs for the rest of us. I’ll wait for version 2.6.1. I’m not entirely happy with 2.5, but I won’t mind holding off upgrading until the kinks get all worked out in the new version.
And, hopefully they’ve fixed the upload problems that I’ve had in 2.5.
dcrs last blog post..Happy Birthday to Me, Er, This Blog!
I am not going to installing it on anything I can’t afford to lose at the moment. I am revamping a few older plugin based themes to work with it, but I am not crazy enough to adopt it for myself on Day 1.
I am waiting for 2.61 as well because I have been told there is a major security fix in it.
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I personally am not in a big hurry to upgrade to 2.6 I have put it up on a few test blogs and frankly I’m still having a problem with it both on my local server and my host doing a clean install. I have to do it as an upgrade for it to work. I am pleased to note it works well with most of my premium themes on other other sites I have tried.
Another new feature I do really like is the theme preview. Before you commit to using a theme it will give you a overlay window that lets you see how the main page and links work in it. It is cool for looking at themes that don’t have preview images. It also has themes listed on multiple pages which took me a minute to figure out why my test blog with more than 200 themes suddenly only had a few.
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yah, I agree I hate the widgets on 2.5, it’s a nice idea but it’s flaky and it depends on how the theme is put together. I don’t worry about “losing” anything, you save your old installation and database and if it turns out to be a cluster-fuck you just put everything back the way it was. But INEVITABLY if you just rush right out and upgrade about 2 days later there’s a zero day attack and the exploit is all over bugtraq, and the developers sheepishly say, “oh uh, right, we accidentally left a hole fo a SQL injection, sorry, here’s a patch for that.” I haven’t upgraded, and your post confirms my decision to wait.