WordPress is used by more readers of Connected Internet than any other blogging engine or content management system. WordPress 2.4 developed into so many changes to the system that a WordPress 2.4 release has been abandoned altogther. The new release will be WordPress 2.5, and is scheduled for an April 1st release.
There is still a lot of work to be done on the new release before it is launched, but we have some idea of where the WordPress developers are taking us. Keep in mind that at this time WordPress 2.5 is still a moving target, so nothing is final.
Many of the changes in WordPress 2.5 will be of the under-the-hood variety, adding many optimizations, security improvements and bug fixes. A lot of concentration seems to have been spent on giving the administrative interface a face lift, and that’s what we’ll look at first.
The admin backend has received a new color scheme to replace the aging blue theme we are all used to. Unfortunately the new design is even uglier than the one that preceded it. The predominant blue is of the robin’s egg variety. It is complimented by a more traditional WordPress blue along with black, gray, yellow and orange. The admin theme isn’t hard on the eyes, but it isn’t particularly high contrast either, and looks washed out. Hopefully more third party admin themes for WordPress start to crop up, because in my opinion the design has gone from bad to worse.
The new dashboard greets you with a total post and page count, gives category and tag info, and tells you what theme and how many widgets are running. Links to edit the theme and widgets are present in the greeting, along with new post and new page and browse category links. Recent Comments, Incoming Links and Recent Posts occupy the space below the new greeting box.
Plugins, users and settings have been removed from the navbar and given their own spot just under the logout link. The new navbar consists of Write, Manage, Design and Comments entries. The Comment entry features a bubble with the new comment count.
At this time the Write, Manage and Comments interfaces aren’t substantially different from WordPress 2.3. It does appear that they intend to add a media manager in the Manage section, and we’ll have to wait and see what functionality this will include. Those of you using the Wysiwyg Pro editor appreciate how nice it is to have a graphical interface for your stored files, and if they do it right this will be a nice addition for WordPress 2.5.
Under Design, the theme and theme editor interfaces are also untouched. The widgets interface has received a makeover, receiving a two column display. The left column shows all installed widgets, the right column only the widgets that are currently in use for the selected sidebar. It’s not a bad interface, but I don’t think it’s as intuitive at first glance as the old way.
Keep in mind that this is a very early look at WordPress 2.5. We’ll be keeping an eye on it to see what other changes are added. If I sound critical of the admin interface, I also know full well that this is only the skeleton of what will be in the release version. The important improvements to WordPress are ones you can’t see; better integration of javascript, improved image handling, improvements to RSS, and all the things the developers are doing to make WordPress even more stable and secure than it already is.
We’ll revisit the developer’s build next month to see what else has changed.
