December 11th, 2008
The new WordPress 2.7 has just been released and it looks great. I udpated to the RC1 earlier this week, and was very impressed. I wasn’t expecting the full version to be released so quickly afterwards, but I would highly recommend it. The new UI far trumps 2.6. The video below is a good run down of what has changed.
March 29th, 2008
WordPress 2.5 has finally been released to the public for download. I’ve successfully updated to this version and had no issues with plugin compatibility. I look forward to working more with this over the next few weeks and getting used to the new design. The more I use it, the more things I find that I didn’t notice before.
In addition, WordPress.org has also been redesigned and closely matches the design of the new admin design as well. I like it a lot, and it’s very clean and structured. So for all of you WordPress people, go download the latest version. Hope you like it!
February 16th, 2008
Browsing at 9rules, I came across a member site linking over to a demo of the alpha version of WordPress 2.5. As a WordPress junkie, I had to give it a try, and thus far, I am liking what I am seeing. The admin panel looks a whole lot cleaner than the currently cluttered version of WordPress. What helps this de-cluttering is the effective use of the main navigation.
In it’s current state, all of the options in the main nav is overkill. I would assume that on a typical login, the items such as User management, Plugins, and Settings aren’t needed since those things aren’t touched very often. Version 2.5 creates this separation by making the main navigation only the elements that are more relevant on a typical login: Write, Manage, Design, and Comments. I’m don’t 100% agree on Design needing to be there in that main navigation though. And I love the comments icon that shows the count of comments. Very nice touch.
Another major improvement is the dashboard. Right now, the dashboard is pretty much crap with a whole lot of irrelevant information. I personally don’t like seeing feeds from the WordPress blog, or other WordPress sites. What I DO like seeing is information relevant to my blog, which 2.5 has done. The WordPress blogs feeds are still there, but closer to the bottom of the page and not as dominant on the page as they currently are.
The post pages are quite cleaner too, moving all of the right hand items down below the text area post for the content. Though it makes for much more scrolling, I don’t see it as a huge issue and it doesn’t make my eyes wander all over the page.
There are many more changes, however those were the couple that stood out initially. Since it’s still in alpha, I would imagine there will be many more changes, but as it is now, it is still quite an upgrade from the current state of the dashboard. I very much look forward to this new release though, which looks to be in just under a month. Is Happy Cog still on this redesign?
What do you think of the changes in the demo?
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