Deborah Woehr

First Impression of WordPress 2.5

I’ve been debating whether or not to upgrade my blogs to WordPress 2.5 for a couple of weeks now, but held off mainly because I was busy and I wanted to read about any bugs that needed fixing first. Ever since 2.0 came out, I’ve been cautious about jumping for the upgrades. Tonight, I decided to upgrade the blog on DeborahWoehr.com.

Upgrading was a snap, thanks to Fantastico. But once I saw the interface, I thought, “Ick.”

I liked having the navigation bar at the top, where I can gain easy access to any aspect of my blog. I’m reminded of the time my mother-in-law decided to organize my bedroom years and years ago. She organized everything so well that I couldn’t find anything. That’s what this layout feels like.

The first thing I did was try to upload an image with the new media interface. It gave me an error message, although it uploaded the image just fine. I had to copy and paste the URL into my post. Trying to make a private post proved fruitless as well; the post showed up anyway.

I hate the way they shave down the Settings so all you get is the general page. You can still access your user profile and your plugins, though. After five minutes, I still haven’t been able to find my blogroll or theme editor.

So far, my first impression of WordPress 2.5 is not good. While the media widgets are a cool feature, the interface is not user friendly. It will take some time and tweaking in order to get used to this upgrade. Not recommended.

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6 Responses to “First Impression of WordPress 2.5”

John (Syntagma) on 23 Apr 2008 at 1:19 am #

Deb, the filosofo upload plugin works fine on 2.5. You’ll find the blogroll under Links under Manage, and the theme editor under Design.

I agree it’s a bit confusing at first — moderation is a small nightmare — but you’ll find everything is there, usually renamed and hidden away somewhere.

Jim on 23 Apr 2008 at 6:31 am #

I had the opposite reaction to WP 2.5 - I really, really like it. The only complaint I have is the AJAX Media Uploader has some major issues, but I use the Flexible Upload plugin, which bypasses most of the problematic AJAX, so that’s a reasonable solution.

Here are a few plugins that for 2.5 that I consider to be essentials that will probably take care of most of your navigation frustrations:

Remove Max Width - forces the dashboard to use the whole screen, instead of boxing down to the set width
Ozh’ Absolute Comments - makes moderating comments and replying to comments from the dashboard a breeze
Ozh’ Admin Dropdown Menu - rearranges the dashboard navigation into a really slick dropdown menu system that puts all your dashboard links within easy reach
Ozh’ Better Plugin Page - cleans up the plugins page and makes it more space-efficient

I’ve a handful of others that I consider essentials, but these should address most of the complaints you mentioned here. Hope they help.

Shamus Writes on 23 Apr 2008 at 11:22 am #

Essential Plugins for WordPress 2.5…

With every new version of WordPress, I update my list of plugins that I consider to be essentials. That is, these are the group of plugins that I install in almost every instance of WordPress that I run on my site. In the last couple of wee…

deborah.woehr on 23 Apr 2008 at 4:58 pm #

John: I found my blogroll when I went to the Plugins screen. Very odd setup.

Jim: Thanks a bunch. I uploaded the Admin Dropdown Menu Plugin as well as the Flexible Upload. I haven’t tried out the latter yet, but dropdown plugin works beautifully. I feel like I have my old WordPress back.

Scot on 09 May 2008 at 9:03 pm #

Ever since I had my nightmare when Blogger made the switchover to their new platform, I have been considering the possibility of making the switch to WordPress. But I’m finding the process a little more complicated than Blogger and I’m not sure if I’ll ever get to work the way I want. I like how you have your sidebar set up. Like your blog by the way. Always have good insights pertaining to blogging and writing.

deborah.woehr on 10 May 2008 at 5:43 am #

Thank you, Scot. There is a bit of a learning curve with WordPress, if you want to customize it. For the sidebar, I installed a widget plugin that allowed me to collapse my archives, which helped me free up more space. If you decide to make the switch and need help, let me know.