Almost Time For WordPress 2.6
Posted on 11. Jul, 2008 by Benjamin Patton in News
That’s right it has been a few months since the release of 2.5. The upcoming release of 2.6 holds some very wonderful upgrades to the worlds favorite blogging platform. Lets take a look and highlight some of these changes as well as additions that are being made. This update includes many features that have been requested and many more that are sure to stir some controversy.
I am however surprised that their is no note to the media uploader which seemed to become broken after I upgraded from my previous version to 2.5.1 However odd this may be I can hold out and continue to make use of the ftp for now. I honestly think this is going to be the best version of word press to date. Lets dive into this head first and take a look at what they have planned for 2.6, which by the way is scheduled to release pretty dam soon all things considered.
Post Revision
WordPress 2.6 brings the same functionality to posts where you can have different revisions for posts.
In short this essentially means that no matter how many times you make changes to the post, you will never have the “OMG what did I just do” effect since you can always go back to an older revision of the post. And let me add that you also have a cool feature where you can actually differentiate between your revisions to see what changes you made. (think wiki-like post revisions)
Tumble Your Posts
The one thing I have noticed many bloggers love about Tumblr is the simplicity and ease of access. You will simply select a link or a image and tumble it to your micro blog at Tumblr without having to go through a series of steps to actually post your content.
WordPress 2.6 is taking a new approach and adds in bookmarklets that will allow you to quickly post links and image ala Tumblr. (think “Press Thisâ€)
Speed Up Of Admin Interface
There has never been a reason not to use the admin interface but that said with the versatility and flexibility of WordPress many people have taken advantage and built software’s that help you from doing so. To be perfectly honest, I can hardly use the Admin interface except for approving and replying to comments and managing plugins and themes. I am definitely missing so many of the features that WordPress posting interface provides me with. Keep that in Mind. WordPress 2.6 makes use of Google Gears when available to speedup and cache static files that are loaded every time you visit your WordPress admin panel.
XML-RPC acess now requires admin permission
XML-RPC for WordPress can be used by many software applications that allow you to post content to your blog without having to visit the admin panel. The most notable one I can point out to you is Windows Live Writer. With WordPress 2.6, in new installations, the access to XML-RPC will be unavailable by default. This in short means that every user will have to go and manually enable XML-RPC to allow external applications to post to your blog. Though this might appear to be a problem to some, personally I do not think that it is a inconvenience. Since users who want to use external applications will be able to do so with just a minor change in the settings and for the millions others who do not require it would never even bother with it. I definitely see this as a move to allow users the flexibility to do what they want to with their blogs without forcing them. Always a plus!
Activate Multiple Plugins At Once And Delete Plugins In Bulk
The one thing that went over my head with the earlier revisions of WordPress was that they allowed you to deactivate all the plugins but never allowed you to activate them at once. Also deleting plugins was never a piece of cake as users had to manually login to their FTP to delete them.
Move Your Config File To A Different Directory
Your WordPress config file contains information about things that are critical to your blog including acess to your WordPress database. Though there are no known security issues with having your wp-config file in your root directory, WP 2.6 does allow you to move it around.
Other Notable Features Upcoming Within 2.6
There are several other features to grab your attention and the few I talked about does not end the features you will get in the next major revision, here are some of the other things you should know about too;
- You can move your content directory from wp-content to any other place you want it to be. (This definitely will mean there are shorter links to your downloadable content or images)
- Better Theme Previewing.
- External JavaScript upgrades to TinyMCE, jQuery and jQuery UI.
- Customizable default avatars.
Well hopefully this should be the best ever version yet of WordPress, though I still look forward to getting more. Let me know your views and opinions about the latest and probably greatest version of WordPress to date. Let’s hope this one does not crash anyones blog upon initial install 
Seriously though how many of you plan to upgrade the day its released?
Related posts:
- Update Your WordPress Blog To Version 2.6 As Easily As Possbile
- How to Activate the Date Exclusion WordPress Plugin
- 8 Easy Steps to Move A WordPress Blog
- WordPress 2.6.1 Instant Update
- 13 Essential WordPress Plugins
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I don’t find any of it particularly helpful to myself, but it’s always good to see them refining their product.
Erik Kareys last blog post..Is Freelancing the Answer to Job Security?
Just hope that my current theme works perfectly with it!
Rajaie AlKoranis last blog post..5 Points To Consider Before Sending An Email
I’ve been using the beta version on one of my niche blogs for a few weeks and I love the interface. A lot of little things that make it great in the big picture.
I will have no problem upgrading to this version once they release it officially, they keep getting better and better.
I was going to do a review about it after messing around with it for a while, but looks like I don’t need to anymore!
JK Swopess last blog post..PepperjamNETWORK is SEXY!
Let’s hope my theme works fine with the upgrade, been having a lot of issues. The update looks promising though, thanks for the list.
- Carl
Carl – BeABetterBloggers last blog post..RevResponse – Free $50?
It sounds awesome, I can’t wait for that!
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@Erik I am in the same boat while its nice they are making the platform better, this release will be mostly a neutral one for me. That is unless they fix the media uploader
@JK Glad to know someone is poking around in the beta. Any word on the media uploader?
@Carl I can say that if 2.6 changes anything on my theme I will be staying in 2.5.1
@Emmab Updates are always a good thing
I’m now on 2.6, and the flash media uploader won’t work on Ubuntu. I can still use the browser uploader, though.