Ninedays Blog

WordPress 2.5 Upgrade but not Always Improved

So I made the upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 and I have a few choice words.

WTF comes to mind with some of the changes and at the same time...ooooooohhhhhh also comes to mind.

The Good

• love the new color schemes
• love the layout organization of seperating the users/settings/plugins visually in the navigation. As well as the dashboard and easy links to WordPress reference and forums
• love love love love the auto upgrade for the plugins. That's the neatest thing EVER! Thoguth since I often modify plugins this could backfire on me. We'll see.
• Thank goodness that now when I save a new post it gives me the link back to edit it. That's one of those things that's driven me nuts...always
• In posts: The ajax in the tags and page slug are great additions!
• In posts: The most used tab for categories is nice to have, especially if you have an excessive amount of categories.

The Bad

I still long for the day where the nav menu has a drop down like this, cause I'm tired of having to click twice to get to manage the most recent page I created.

Fantasy WordPress Drop Down Navigation

Yes, I know this could be a plugin but I haven't seen it and I don't particularly feel like creating it

• Write
• New Post
• New Page
• Links
• Manage
  • Recent Posts
    • Name of Most Recent Post
    • Title of Second Most Recent Post
    • ... up to 5 (or set in settings)
  • Recent Pages
    • Name of Most Recent Page
    • Title of Second Most Recent Page
    • ... up to 5 (or set in settings)
  • Links
  • Categories
    • Link Categories
  • Tags
  • Media Library (AKA Uploads)
  • Import
  • Export
• Design
  • Themes
  • Widgets
  • Theme Editor
• Comments
  • Need Approval
  • Comments
  • Trackback/pingback

Note I only included the default WordPress items int he fantasy drop down navigation...I'd also like to see plugins added but let's not go there yet.

When creating a new post the "related links" are great and all but I'd rather see the following modules back on the right sidebar:

• Author
• Password Protect
• Comments and Pings

Heck, tags might be better suited to live in that sidebar too. Who knows.

Why is the overall back-end template 100% in the header and footer but not in the content?
- Yea I don't get that either.

The Ugly

• Can someone please explain to me why the buttons for the WYSIWYG editor don't open up in "lighboxed" windows and now just load at the bottom of the page? Clients love that, really they do.
• You have a link for (un)approve | spam | delete but not edit? I have to "intuitively" click the gravatar icon? Come on, that doesn't make any sense! I've been editing comments through phpMyAdmin and no i find out that the answer to my question:
  I can't edit comments in Wordpress since I upgraded to 2.5? Oh, click the freaking gravatar. WTF??? Ugh.