Archive for the ‘News & Views’ Category
Monday, April 14th, 2008
I know this is coming pretty late for the world of the internet, but I’ve been really busy and I only recently started getting to know WordPress 2.5. All in all, I think that the upgrade is fantastic, and here’s my review of the new features I have used so far:
New admin design
I like the new design for the WordPress admin (and for the WordPress.org site). The colors are ok, but what’s great is that everything seems to be a bit tighter so it’s easier to get an overview of a page quickly, like which plugins you’re using, or the categories.
Smarter layout of admin navigation bar
I think that the new setup of the navigation bar in the admin section is much more user friendly. It separates the features that you use regularly while blogging, like writing and managing posts and comments, from the features that you only need to deal with once in a while, like Plugins, Settings (used to be called Options) and Users.
The only drawback that still exists is that in order to get to anything on a submenu, you have to click on the top of the menu, like Write for example, and only once the page has reloaded can you click on Post. So I’ve installed the Admin Drop Down Menu by Ozh to overcome that, but unfortunately it regroups all of the links into one long navigation bar like in previous versions of WP, which means that I don’t benefit from the new grouping.
More flexible Dashboard
The new Dashboard is a huge improvement over the old one, since it gives you a quick view of the things you need to know about your blog: how many posts, Pages, categories and tags. However, I rarely take more than a quick look at the Dashboard while I’m blogging, so although I can now add my own RSS feeds there, I probably won’t.
Write Post/Page page changes
The new layout of the Write Post/Page page is tighter and smarter in most respects. The important information is at the top, and the new expandable text editor is a pleasure, although the very useful shortcut for adding links - Ctrl+K -does not work in the new text editor. But apparently the text editor no longer messes with your code, which I guess makes up for it. The main drawback to the new layout that I’ve found is that the Post Author drop-down box is all the way at the bottom. When I’m working on multi-author blogs I keep forgetting to change the author to the correct one.
Another annoying thing, but maybe this is a problem with my installation, is that when I first start writing a post and I click on Save, it often goes out of the admin into the front end of the site to show me the page. Also, it creates another version which is saved as a draft, so I end up with two versions of every post I’m working on, and I have to go back and delete the second draft.
Media manager
Managing images, video and any other type of media in previous versions of WordPress was pretty lame. The new image manager is very handy, and allows you to easily upload and insert images, and align them however you want within the text. You can add titles, descriptions, and other information to the images as well.
The video manager has not worked for me at all. When I insert a video URL into the form, it just inserts a link to the video as opposed to embedding it. So I’m still using a plugin for video management. I haven’t tried adding audio or other media yet.
Auto-suggest for tags
Now, when you add tags to a WordPress post, it suggests tags that have already been used on the blog. This is great because it ensures that you do not create multiple tags that are really the same, like “blogs,” “blog,” and “blogging.” However, be aware that it takes a few seconds for the suggestions to pop up. I didn’t realize this in the beginning, and I ended up with multiple related tags.
This new features also means that I can now use one less plugin, which I’m always happy about. Simple Tags (and its predecessor Simple Tagging), you were the best and thanks for everything. No wait - I just checked out Simple Tags and I realized I still can’t live without it.
Automatic plugin updates!!!
Now if one of your plugins needs updating, you get a message that says something like “This plugin needs updating. Click here to download, or click here to upgrade automatically.” Um let’s see - either I can download the new plugin, unzip it, delete the current plugin files from my server to make sure it’s all gone, upload the new plugin and reactivate, or I can click on one link. I’m clicking on the link baby!
No more Category IDs
If you go to Manage > Pages or Manage > Categories, the ID numbers no longer appear. That is annoying for theme editors who want to hard code inclusion or exclusion of pages or categories in menus or in The Loop. You can still find out what the Page or Category ID is by mousing over the title and looking at the link in the bottom of your browser to find the number, but that’s not very intuitive, is it?
No more WordPress bookmarklet
WordPress used to have a bookmarklet and Link bookmarklet that you could drag to your browser toolbar, where it would become a button that you could click to post about a page you are visiting, or to add a link from a page you are visiting. These bookmarklets have disappeared in WordPress 2.5.
That’s it for now. If I discover anything else that is new and interesting, I’ll be sure to let y’all know.
Here are some more good articles on what users can expect from WordPress 2.5:
Wordpress 2.5 - nice security improvements
Themes for WordPress 2.5 and Web 3.0 Design and Functionality - good overview of WP’s new features
Weblogtools: FAQ on WordPress 2.5 and FAQ On WordPress 2.5 Version 2
The WordPress Blog: WordPress 2.5
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Posted in News & Views | 5 Comments »
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Matt has created a screencast that presents some of the new and cool features of WordPress 2.5. The screencast fills a gap that has existed until now with regards to people writing and talking about the new version using only screenshots and descriptions. Seeing the system live really brings home how WordPress 2.5 signals a pretty new approach to WordPress blogging in so many ways.
Here are some of the points that I found most interesting:
- The dashboard is fully editable. I mean fully. Fabulous.
- One little click and the text editor becomes full screen. Usability heaven.
- The interface has all sorts of Ajaxy stuff, which seems to make uploading and interacting with dialogue boxes a lot smoother…and prettier.
- A built-in photo gallery which looks great. This gallery allows you to add groups of photos right from the text editor and create albums and galleries. You can see examples on Matt’s blog
- The new tagging interface is way more user friendly, with the ability to easily add and remove tags, and my favorite new feature: auto-suggest. This ensures that you don’t end up with duplicate tags within your blog, like “blog,” “Blog,” and “Blogs” by suggesting existing tags to you as you type. This is really great because it means I can knock one more plugin off of my “always use” plugin list - this time it’s Simple Tags, which is a great plugin, but I’m always happy to use less plugins.
- Matt had five wisdom teeth pulled, and he sounds like it. Poor Matt. I know how that feels, and all I can say is that I hope you have a really speedy recovery, and “Refuah Sheleimah” (right Raanan?).
Matt also points out that the community has started a list of which plugins work with WordPress 2.5, and which don’t, and from what I can see most of the plugins I use on a regular basis are compatible. Phew.
Here’s the screencast, but I suggest you visit Matt’s original post on this subject at the WP developer’s blog since the quality is much better there:
Posted in News & Views | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008
Normally I don’t get excited about WordPress updates because they tend to be pretty incremental (and cause a lot of stress). WordPress upgrades usually add a few features and a lot of bug fixes, which is great but not very exciting.
But I have to admit that I just took a look at Matt’s post on what lies in store in WordPress 2.5, and I’m actually excited about the new version. People like the team behind Automattic always amaze me with their ability to think outside of the box, and innovate beyond what has been expected and accepted.
Those of us who have been using WordPress for a while are used to the WordPress admin, to the point where we probably don’t feel like much is lacking. It seems that new users find the admin confusing and cumbersome, and therefore Automattic has streamlined it in a way that is smart and intuitive.
So here’s an overview of what’s in store as reported by Matt, with my commentary:
The Dashboard
I barely glance at the Dashboard when I enter the admin of my blogs. Most of it is useless, with the incoming links section being the only thing that grabs my attention. In 2.5, the WordPress dashboard will focus on the most relevant tasks at hand for the blogger: a quick summary of what’s published and scheduled for publication, the latest comments and incoming links, blog stats, and WordPress updates and news.
A really exciting addition is the ability to add our own RSS feeds to the Dashboard. That means that users can set their Dashboard to present them with information related to their blog topic, for example, or a project management blog can pull in RSS feeds related to their project. Cool.
Navigation
As I mentioned above, as a longish-time user of WordPress, the navigation in the admin doesn’t bother me. I know where I need to go to get things done, but apparently the navigation can be confusing, and could be improved. So they’ve improved it by separating the main tasks that we do, like writing, managing posts and pages, editing the blog’s design, and managing comments, from the tasks that are used less often.
The only thing I would have done differently is move the blog design editing section to the secondary section. I don’t know about you, but I NEVER edit my theme files from the admin. That just seems too risky. I prefer to make all changes offline using a good editor so that all of the most current theme files are on my hard drive, and if I make a mistake, I can easily undo it.
Write Post/Page
The new Write Post/Page page loses a lot of the clutter of the current layout. Matt says that the new write screen “only displays the information that you’ll use most often.” This concerns me a bit, because I actually use a lot of the stuff that is there, and if I don’t use it all the time, I like to know that it’s there. Hopefully the new layout gives users easy access to everything, even the stuff used infrequently.
What is cool is that the Write page remembers how you left it the last time, and what’s even cooler is that the visual editor now has a full-screen mode!! Although I rarely write posts within WordPress anymore (I use and love Windows Live Writer), the full screen mode will make writing posts within WordPress a heck of a lot more enjoyable than scrolling within the current tiny editor. Matt says this is his favorite new feature, and I have a feeling I’m going to agree.
Manage Posts/Pages
The changes to the management pages seem to be in terms of removing clutter and making useful information more accessible. It’s hard to judge this one without seeing it, but I imagine it will be an improvement in usability.
Colors
The most visible change to the WordPress admin is, of course, its style. The fonts have changed a bit, and the colors consist of lightish blue and lightish orange. While I am a sucker for change when it comes to web apps and the like, these colors seem kind of washed out and hospital-like. But no worries! If you like the old look you can restore them by selecting “classic” under Options.
Even better - you can now have a per-user Admin color scheme! That means that every user on a blog can use their own stylesheet in the admin. PlanetOzh has a little tutorial explaining how.
Testing it out before release
I don’t know if Automattic has ever done this before, but Matt has asked people to test out the latest release and report back with bugs. This is a smart move, since generally new versions of WordPress almost always need to be upgraded immediately to fix bugs and security issues. Hopefully this strategy will mean that we can enjoy our new version of WordPress for a while before having to upgrade.
Summary
What’s amazing about WordPress is that they manage to continually add more features while decreasing clutter. The addition of features does not translate into a weighed-down, clunky interface, which is more than a lot of web applications can claim. I can’t wait to try it out!
Posted in News & Views | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Trends are fun and fascinating, both online and off. I came across Google Trends a while ago, but I never used it. So recently I decided to see how WordPress measures up against its competition.
First, I compared WordPress to what I figure is its most direct competitor: Movable Type. Since 2004, WordPress has skyrocketed in search volume, while a gradual decline is visible for Movable Type:
(blue is WordPress, red is Movable Type
Then I decided to see how WordPress is measuring up to another Open Source software that’s been around for a long time: Joomla. Here’s the surprise: Joomla is way up over WordPress in search volume!
Do these results mean anything? Could this be suggesting that Joomla is primed to be the next favorite Open Source software, or that it already is?
Posted in News & Views | 17 Comments »
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
Today, WordPress Garage turns one year old. Hasn’t our little baby grown up fast? Blow out the candles…
It is exactly one year ago today that I wrote my first post here. It was about Jerome’s Keywords Plugin, which was a popular plugin for creating tags in WordPress before they became a built-in feature.
The reason I started this blog is because at that time, I was building web sites for clients, but felt that I could not justify creating static sites anymore. I was searching desperately for a solution that would enable me to create sites with a content management system that wouldn’t break the bank, and that I could manipulate and customize without being a programming wizard.
I looked into many open source options, and found that WordPress was easiest to use from the designer/developer’s point-of-view, and from the user’s point-of-view. So my company started building sites on WordPress. As we built, we learned a lot and I felt like we really need a good way to organize the information we were gathering about good plugins and how to use them, themes, and code hacks.
And thus WordPress Garage was born. Between WordPress’ categories, tags, and the search function, I figured we’d always be able to locate the information we need within minutes.
Apparently, others also were looking for this information, and readership grew as well, which is good because it’s a lot more fun to write when you know people are listening.
Birthday presents
In honor of WordPress Garage’s birthday, I have two new presents:
- A WordPress Garage facebook page! If you like this blog, please come on over to this page and become a fan. I’d really like to get to know my readers a bit more.
- The WordPress Garage YahooGroup - I’m on the WordPress Pro mailing list, which is about the most dry and boring list on earth. I suggested that the list become more active, and while people said it wasn’t appropriate for that list, they liked the idea. So, this email list’s goal is to be a place where people can help other people with their WordPress issues. Looking for that perfect plugin? Can’t figure out why your blog is breaking? Join the list and ask!
Statistics and summary
It’s fun to compare my first month on WPG to this last month. Site visits have gone up 1,424%, and pageviews have gone up 841%. Now I get almost 8000 visitors a month according to Google Analytics, and over 14,000 page views. Most of my visitors come from Google Search, with the rest coming from StumbleUpon and other sites. My top referring sites in order of traffic are:
Most popular posts
The most popular posts on WPG at the moment are:
Best WP Garage tips
These posts aren’t necessarily the most visited, but the tips in them are pretty useful:
Most controversial posts
A little bit of controversy adds color to an otherwise boring monologue about loops and plugins. I don’t like to create conflict, but getting people to participate in an active discussion is just fun.
Consumer evangelists vs. lawyers: using “WordPress” in domain names - this is the post where Matt Mullenwegg commented three times. In this post, I argued that WordPress shouldn’t shun blogs (like mine) that use the word WordPress in their domain name, and should rather embrace these consumer “evangelists” who love the product so much that they volunteer their own time to talk or blog about it. After I wrote this post I finished Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin, and he also talks about this idea.
Anyways, Matt and Lorelle didn’t like my opinion, and accused me, or those like me, of “blatant[ly] disregard[ing]…a core tenet of our community,” of being like a scraper, and of legal violations. In the end Matt kind of softened up and he said he’s “thrilled about [me] or anyone who blogs about WordPress.” He said if I want clarification about their policies I should feel free to email or call him. So, mustering up some good ol’ Israeli chutzpah, I called him and left him a message. Despite his generosity, I think this blog is still shunned by the WordPress powers-that-be. Oh well.
Would we use WordPress if there were no plugins? - I just threw out this question to make us think about how valuable WordPress would be on its own. I think it’s value lies in the fact that it supports plugins.
ZDNet says WordPress not clunky, but also not CMS - I referred to an article by ZDNet about whether WordPress is a CMS and sparked a lively discussion.
WordPressGarage is being scraped! I want to stop them…now! - I realized that one particular site was scraping all of my content and republishing it. I threw the issue out to my readers, and got some interesting responses in the comments.
Is WordPress’ security vulnerable at its core? - WordPress is being upgraded all the time because of security issues. Plugins also have constant security vulnerabilities. Is this standard, or is there a problem with WordPress? BlogSecurity.net said there’s a problem with WordPress. Read the post to find out more.
Milestones
- Someone told me that I’m one of the coolest people in the WordPress community! Can you believe it? (No, it wasn’t my mother.) While in the real world I am far from being considered cool (mother with lots of kids who works hard to pay the bills with little time for play), I guess that in the WP community my geekiness is…cool…or something.
- WordPressGarage listed as one of Top 40 Blogs About WordPress!
- I’m sure there was something else I got excited about over this past year, but I can’t remember.
So happy birthday WordPress Garage, and may we enjoy another fun year of WordPress blogging together!
Posted in News & Views | 16 Comments »
