Shane Strong

New WordPress Features

New Release 2.8

With the new release of WordPress 2.8 the developers really took in what people had to say and made some vast changes to the content management system. One of the biggest changes that the team made that the end user and really the admin won’t really see is the database changes. The WordPress team made the database much more efficient and much faster that allows for faster page load in the admin and load for the site. WordPress added some much needed functionality that helps the developer perform much faster. Some of those changes include.

Functionality Changes

• Theme and Plugin Editor
• Theme Installer
• Plugin Management

WordPress Changes

These are just some of the changes that WordPress implemented in the 2.8 release. All three of these changes speed up the development process on creating a theme for a site. I will be the first one to say that I use previously developed themes and recreate off of them because it is much faster just to use already created code. With using a already created theme it used to be a pain to have to ftp into your site and add the theme into the theme directory for your site. With the implementation of the Theme Installer you can upload a theme in its zip file or you can search the WordPress database for a theme. Much faster than having to go out and download the theme and then upload it to the theme folder. Now I have always been against using the theme/plugin editor that was built into the content management system but now that it is changed I have been using it for little changes but I still use a outside code editor. They made some great changes with it like the ability for line numbers and the function dropdown at the bottom of it. The new creation of how you manage plugins is great with the ability to deactivate each plugin individually and delete each one without having to go to the top of the page and click the dropdown and select delete. Probably the best thing with the plugin managment upgrade is the update feature that allows you to update each plugin right there.

Stuff Not Really Noticed

WordPress has implemented quite a few thing that the end user will not really notice but will be really affective like the ability to automatically update time when it is daylight savings time. Also the ability to control the columns on the dashboard page is also a plus for the admin so they can stay updated with whatever it is they have on the dashboard. Another little change that helps the admin users is the recreation of the widget panel. Now with more intuitive activity, it makes it easier to add widgets to the sidebars. One of my favorite things that WordPress implemented is a popup banner to inform the admin that they have not changed the auto generated password.

Your Questions

The only question about this new installation of WordPress is what could they possibly do to the platform next to make it even better? If you have any ideas and don’t want to submit them please leave a comment on the post and I will submit them for you.

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