Even though 2.4 was skipped, it still feels like these updates keep on coming. While the information regarding the many big changes is scant, most sources indicate that the changes will mostly affect under-the-hood stuff (caching, security, performance) and a facelift for the user interface. I read that you can now test out the WP 2.5 interface on Chris Johnston’s test blog. (version updated hourly) and get a preview of what the admin UI will look like.
So far, I see some things I like and some things I don’t like. Overall, it looks much slicker, and the Dashboard is not as cluttered as the old default Dashboard. I didn’t mind the old color scheme, and the new one doesn’t really excite or disappoint me either. The most interesting decision was moving the Plugins | Users | Settings links up to the top right, above the other navigation tabs. With a lot of plugins, tab overload can occur, and I suppose these menus are not used as often. The sub-navigation menus themselves are pretty much the same, but I wonder where plugin-specific option menus will go.
The Write, Manage, Design (formerly known as Presentation), and Comments menus are mostly the same, though some listing show more information now, and the listings are generally more AJAX-enhanced than before. One change I liked was the page for Widgets, as much more information is displayed now, and the Widgets are not all crammed into tiny rectangles at the bottom.
Overall it seems like a decent facelift, and hopefully there will be provisions made so that plugin writers can develop themes for the whole UI. I noticed that the UI did not always display correctly in older browsers (*cough* IE6), but there is still a month of development time. I’d like to get more information about what under-the-hood changes are being made, and if they will break a lot of plugins/themes.
4 Comments
I think it’s quite a promising upgrade because I frankly hate the default interface (and I’m too lazy to install something like this.
What I wish for most though, is the integration of certain plugins, such as the AJAX comment editor.
I’m glad I chickened out at upgrading to WP 2.4. Now I’m really hoping the upgrade process to 2.5 won’t be much of a hassle, especially with the plugin issues >_<
Meh, UI facelifts. I’m more interested in what they’ve fixed function-wise — something as good as the plugin update system would hit the sweet spot.
Release Candidate 1 is available for testing at this site now, so the official release should be coming out soon.
This may lower the number of plugins I have to use, since some things have been built into the core (such as long feeds, even when the more tag is used).
After playing with this some more, I like the color scheme they used and how they separated out the three lesser used tabs. Some of it took getting used to (like finding out where to edit timestamps), but overall I liked the UI changes. The developers also added a way to customize the UI colors in case you really hate the “Fresh” color scheme.
The dashboard is better than it was before, although I like my skinned one better. Hopefully there will be more hooks for plugin authors to develop more dashboard skins. A lot of the browser issues seem to be fixed now as well, so I am looking forward to this release.