WordPress 2.5

When you have major upgrades between two versions of the same software, a lot of users are going to complain, and in most cases you would find that the people who are complaining are lodging small complaints about things that most users or basic users would avoid. That’s one end of the spectrum. The other’s the ones who seem to really have bad luck and they’ll find all the bugs. Or rather the bugs will find them.

WordPress 2.5, if you’ve been following the blog, is the latest version of WordPress. Updating it was a cinch and if you’re a fan of baby blue like I was, you’d love the new interface. It was in blue and very soothing to the eyes. Other changes to WordPress 2.5 involved revamping the Multimedia library (something I didn’t really use often), a password indicator to show how strong the password you’ve selected is (an important feature, IMO), plugin upgrades and something that will prove to be the biggest beef of all: Complete overhaul of the WordPress Admin Dashboard.

And this is where I start to get incoherent. 😛

I don’t usually mess with my blog except to change the themes every now and then (am trying to stick with this skin until perhaps October when I switch it to a Pink theme) and to login to post. When I do post from places like Google Docs, I enter the WordPress Admin to set the category. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?

Thing is, there are two things they’ve changed in the WordPress Admin that makes it really inconvenient for me to post.

1. No more One-Click-Edit post on the Dashboard.
In WordPress 2.3, when you logged into your Dashboard, you’d see a section titled, “Latest Posts” and clicking on the title would immediately bring you to the Edit Post page. I used this function to select the categories of relevant posts. The only other function I used was the Edit Comment section of the same Dashboard. And that was far lesser than my Edit Post clicks.

In WP 2.5, the comments have remained on the Dashboard, but editing posts now requires you to click on Manage Posts, followed by clicking Edit on the post you want to change. This is an additional 2 clicks. While it may not seem like much, it’s a big deal for me.

2. Categories has disappeared from the right sidebar
Only to reappear below the Editing Post box. To get to it, I have to scroll down, and when you have as many categories as I do, you will really miss the old sidebar Category, cause it presented more options than the current one does. I didn’t have to scroll down to choose my categories; they were always up on the right side of my bar, so I’d just have to select the appropriate categories.

It’s funny that of all the three main things I use the WordPress Admin for, I have issues with the two I use the most. It remains to be seen whether these changes will be addressed in the next incarnation of WordPress, 2.5.1 due out in one month.