WordPress Wednesday - “Dexter”
Do you know who Dexter Gordon is? He is the namesake of the next version of WordPress and possibly the inspiration of some Metallica tunes. Speaking of, the revs of beta and release candidates for WordPress 2.3 are over and now it’s time for the main event. This release includes native tagging support, plugin update notification, URL handling improvements, and much more. Here’s a quick rundown of some new features:
- Native tagging support allows you to use tags in addition to categories on your posts, if you so choose. We’ve included importers for the Ultimate Tag Warrior, Jerome’s Keywords, Simple Tags, and Bunny’s Technorati Tag plugins so if you’ve already been using a tagging plugin you can bring your data into the new system. The tagging system is also wicked-fast, so your host won’t mind.
- Our new update notification lets you know when there is a new release of WordPress or when any of the plugins you use has an update available. It works by sending your blog URL, plugins, and version information to our new
api.wordpress.orgservice which then compares it to the plugin database and tells you whats the latest and greatest you can use.- We’ve cleaned up URLs a bunch in a feature we call canonical URLs which does things like enforce your no-www preference, redirect posts with changed slugs so a link never goes bad, redirect URLs that get cut off in emails on similar to the correct post, and much more. This helps your users, and it also helps your search engine optimization, as search engines like for each page to be available in one canonical location. More info here.
- Our new pending review feature will be great for multi-author blogs. It allows authors to submit a post for review by an editor or administrator, where before they would just have to save a draft and hope someone noticed it.
- There is new advanced WYSIWYG functionality (we call it the kitchen sink button) that allows you to access some features of TinyMCE that were previously hidden.
Before you upgrade your WordPress blog, check out their “Preparing for 2.3” post. I usually give my upgrades a week or two before I take the plunge and upgrade. I like to hear any stories of upgrade issues or plugin incompatibilities before jumping in. As with any upgrade, BE SURE TO PERFORM A BACKUP before you begin.
Posted on September 26, 2007
By Jason Spence
Filed Under WordPress |
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