WordPress 2.5 again
For anyone who’s been wanting to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 but have been a little apprehensive about the upgrade process, good news! 2.5 is now available through Fantastico - so upgrading is just a click away. Of course, you should make sure you’ve backed up all your work before going ahead with any upgrade, just in case. Although, if I remember correctly, Fantastico does a back up before loading the new version (please check this for yourself, though; don’t just take my word for it).
If you’re feeling a little more adventurous and feel that you want to tackle the upgrade process manually, check out the WordPress Upgrade instructions. Again, make sure you’ve got a working back up before you start, and read the instructions twice. But it’s not really that difficult.
While we’re talking about 2.5, it seems that the multi-user installation over at WordPress.com has been upgraded to the new version - but not without some teething problems on behalf of the users it would seem. Since moving over to self-hosted, I haven’t spent any time at WordPress.com but from what I understand the upgrade was done over a weekend and without warning; possibly not the best way to do it. It seems that the new look dashboard is not winning a great deal of friends either.
I’ve yet to move The New Wolfs Howl over to 2.5 (still waiting on a couple of plug-ins to be updated) but from the playing about I’ve done on the local installation I’m still not sure about it. And with version 2.5.1 due to be released in the first week of May (with fixes for the bugs that were known about but not fixed when 2.5 was released), I’m thinking I’ll wait a while.
A bit more on WordPress 2.5
Well, it seems that WP 2.5 is a little delayed - the current Trac shows it as “awaiting RC feedback” - despite being announced for a 17 March roll-out. Since writing about it a few days ago, I’ve really not touched it much but I’ve noticed that the updated (1.5.2) Defensio seems to work with it (even though Carl at Defensio told me that it doesn’t officially support it yet - which is more down to WP than it is to Defensio) - so that’s a step in the right direction. Ozh’s Absolute Comments, which is my other must-have that doesn’t currently support 2.5, is still waiting to be updated.
On the whole, I still can’t really see any compelling reason to upgrade to 2.5; anyone out there want to offer one?
Updated: well, it’s finally been officially released. I haven’t taken the plunge just yet and put it on this blog, but I have been doing some further testing on my local MAMP installation. Everything seems to be working OK but I’m still not sure about that new admin interface. Only time will tell on that I guess. Matt has written a lengthy post about the various changes that have gone on; how important those changes are to you as a blogger will depend very much on what type of blogger you are. I still haven’t found anything that really blows my skirt up, although I do like the improved support for tags.
WordPress 2.5
The latest incarnation of WordPress got a step closer to general availability today, with the unveiling of Release Candidate 1. Being the “must have the latest”-type, I downloaded it as soon as I heard about it.
With a little bit of forward planning, though, I have not loaded it on to this site but have installed it locally using MAMP; this means I can run it (pretty much) as it if was on a remote web server but have it on my machine here. That way, when it all goes wrong, the real Wolfs Howl doesn’t suffer.
I had a previous installation of WordPress on my local machine, but I deleted that and started from scratch, just to see what happened. Once the files were copied across, the install process was the usual simple process. Once logged in, you’re immediately hit by the visual differences (which some people are going to love, others will hate, and I’m undecided about) but what are the differences from a usability point of view?
Well, the first thing to notice is that tags now seem to be fully integrated into the system. For a long time, categories and tags were synonymous as far as WordPress were concerned. When they wised up and realised that isn’t the case, they introduced limited support (you could create them, but you couldn’t catalogue them) and now tag support comes of age. You can now interact with your tags the same way you do your categories.
The next thing which is fairly major if you’re a Safari user is that the Visual Editor seems to work - no more stripping out line breaks! This won’t be any benefit to all you IE and Firefox users, but for Safari users it’s a compelling reason to upgrade. (At least, it works with Safari 3.1 which has just been released).
There seems to have been a general “tidying up” of the admin area, with more separation between various parts but I’m not sure how successful this has been. It’s not illogical (or at least no more illogical than before), but it could still be better. One of those things, I guess, that you get used to. Most pages, too, are now laid out slightly differently, but with the same functionality in evidence and nothing really ground-breakingly new. The Dashboard screen is better organised and puts more of your content at the top - rather than marginalising it and taking up all the space with news about WordPress as the previous version did.
On the “Manage Posts” screen, you no longer see the post ID - which may be important to you or it may not - and there’s no longer an obvious “edit” button. To edit a post, you click its title. Not difficult to figure out, perhaps, but I wonder why the edit button had to disappear? What you do get, though, on this screen is the added information of which tags the post uses.
Of course, being new, not all of the plug-ins I favour are working yet; Defensio is (and I assume that Akismet will be too, if you must insist on using that), but a number of others that I like are not yet 100% functional. This is to be expected, as the plug-in authors will not have had much of a chance to update their work, and from what I’ve read elsewhere while most of the visible changes to WordPress seem to be purely cosmetic, there has been a lot of work under the bonnet which has fundamentally changed the way some things work - and it has broken plug-ins along the way.
Overall, I’m still undecided. I need to find out more about what’s gone on under the bonnet to know if this latest release is really worthwhile. There’s a couple of things I immediately like, but that’s more because they’re bug fixes rather than new features. Once updated versions of all the plug-ins I use are available, I’ll try loading WordPress 2.5 on a live server and really start working with it, but until then I’m sticking with 2.3.
Defensio gets an update
One of the best Wordpress plug-ins out there, Defensio, gets a minor update today to version 1.5.1. If you haven’t yet got it installed, now would be a great time. As I’ve written before, Defensio is way better than Akismet from both a usability and - at least as far as I’ve been able to tell - accuracy point of view and is well worth checking out.
The update deals with a little niggle that I had with the widget (I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, as they said that they’d already been working on it when I asked about it) that meant it did not display in accordance with the settings selected by the user. Now, it will happily sit on the left, right or centre of your sidebar - and you can have it in light or dark too. I know, a little thing really but it’s the little things that are important.
As soon as Wordpress have updated themselves, you’ll be able to find the download at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/defensio-anti-spam/download/
Do yourself a favour and get it as soon as you can.
Update: Wordpress have now updated their site, so you can download the latest version.
Plug-ins for Wordpress.org
Part of “Going self-hosted with Wordpress : A Wolfie Guide” [PDF]
In previous installments of the Guide, I’ve talked about how to transfer your existing Wordpress.com blog to a self-hosted Wordpress.org installation, including uploading a theme, and about the blogroll and widgets. Those two posts, hopefully, got you started and your blog looks pretty much how you want it to.
But looking at your Dashboard you’ll see that there are some things that are missing because they don’t come as standard with the Wordpress.org software. So this post is going to look at plug-ins that you can use to add extra functionality and improve your Wordpress.org experience.
What is a plug-in and where do I find them?
At its simplest explanation, a plug-in is a file or group of files that - when uploaded to your Wordpress installation - give it instructions for carrying out extra tasks. Plug-ins exist for all sorts of functions, some really useful, some less so, and they can be installed with ease.
You can find them everywhere on the Net, but one of the places to start is at the Wordpress plug-ins directory.
How do I install plug-ins?
Sorry, but you’re going to have to FTP again, like you did to upload your theme. But you’re OK with that now arent’t you? As I said before, if you can’t handle a bit of FTP action then you’re probably better off sticking with Wordpress.com.
Most plug-ins are supplied in compressed files, so the first thing to do is uncompress them, using your favourite utility (or the built-in ability of your operating system). Then you’ll either be presented with a folder, or just a couple of files. Whichever you get, there should be a file that gives installation instructions, but in general you just need to upload the folder or the files into the wp-content/plug-ins folder on your server. You should make a note, though, of any special instructions for your plug-in; most are very simple, but some can be complicated; if you don’t think you can manage it, don’t install the plug-in.
Once you’ve uploaded a plug-in, it will need to be activated. This is done from the Dashboard > Plug-ins screen. Just click the “Activate” button next to the plug-in that you’ve just uploaded. If there are no special instructions you need to carry out for the plug-in, then that’s it!
Which plug-ins do I need?
Well, I suppose you don’t really need any of them, but there are some that you might want. Particularly if you’re coming from Wordpress.com. These are the ones that I’ve tried out so far and found useful (I’ve tried a bunch of others that I haven’t found useful, but I’ll leave those out). It should be noted that there are many, many plug-ins out there and you’ll probably find others that do the same job as the ones listed here; this list is not a recommendation of these plug-ins over any others, it’s just a list of ones that I’ve found useful and use on The New Wolfs Howl. If you find any that do the same job but better, let me know.
Wordpress.com Stats
You’ll have noticed that your Dashboard doesn’t have a link for Blog Stats; this is the plug-in that will restore that functionality for you. This isn’t an ideal plug-in because it requires a Wordpress.com API key (a string of letters and numbers that you’ll find on your Wordpress.com Dashboard at Users > Your Profile). The reason this isn’t ideal is because it creates unnecessary confusion between .com and .org blogs, as well as meaning that you won’t be able to get rid of your .com account.
Once you’ve activated the plug-in, you’ll get a message telling you that you need to enter an API key. Enter it at Dashboard > Plug-ins > Wordpress.com Stats. After that, the Stats function just like they do on Wordpress.com
Defensio Anti-Spam
Your Wordpress.com account comes with Akismet Anti-Spam, and your .org installation also includes it - although it is not activated. If you want to use that, then you’ll need your API Key again. But, Akisment comes in a for a lot of stick, being accused of creating many false positives (blocking comments that are not spam) and also being criticised by people who are not fans of those that run it.
An excellent alternative, which gives you more control over the functionality, is Defensio. This also requires an API Key, but you have to sign up for a (free) account with Defensio. If you don’t want yet another online account, stick with Akismet but if you want good quality spam filtering, this is the one to go with.
Contact Form 7
On Wordpress.com, if you want to add a contact form to a page or post, you just enter one line of code. This plug-in allows you to do just the same thing with a .org installation, but with flexibility over the way the form looks, how many different forms you can have, etc.
Wordpress Admin Bar
One of the biggest things that’s missing from a .org installation is the blue admin bar at the top of the screen, that allows you to get to your Dashboard, your Stats, etc. This plug-in will give you back the blue admin bar, but with greatly increased funcitonality. When viewing your blog (it will only be shown when viewing your own blog, not on every .org blog), it will give you dropdown menus for every item on your Dashboard menu. It is probably the most useful plug-in I have so far found.
Subscribe to Comments
This is great piece of extra functionality that is sorely missing from Wordpress.com. What it does is add a “Subscribe” option to the comments form on each post, which allows your commenters to stay updated by email of when anyone else makes a comment.
Brian’s Threaded Comments
This one isn’t available from Wordpress.org, you’ll need to download it from the developer. You’ll have seen on many blogs that specific comments can be replied to and the reply will be indented, or linked in some way to the comment it is in response to. This is called ‘threading’ and it’s what this plug-in does for you. Some people love threaded comments, some hate them, but at least now you have a choice.
Absolute Comments
One thing that really bugs me about comments on Wordpress.com is that if I want to reply to them I either have to edit the comment and aaadd my reply to it, or go to the post concerned and add my comment there. I don’t like the first option because I prefer not to mess about with comments at all and the second option is a drag. Which is where this plug-in comes in, as it allows you to reply to comments directly from the Dashboard - and also allows you to thread them or not.
Popularity Contest
One of the widgets that you’ll notice is missing is Top Posts. I’m not sure why this isn’t included as it’s one of the most useful, but there you go. This plug-in will takes over the role, but also gives you much more information about what’s popular as well as allowing you to alter the ‘weighting’ for each element (permalink views, archive views, etc).
Be aware, though, that this plug-in doesn’t automatically display any of these results on your blog. You can put them wherever you like, but you will need to enter some code yourself. The easiest way is add a widget to your sidebar; if you want to do that, though, you’ll need the next plug-in as well.
Daiko’s Text Widget
You’re familiar, I’m sure, with sidebar text widgets. They can be useful for displaying all sorts of things like links, pictures, and so on. But they are limited; you can’t, for instance, enter PHP code (the code that your Wordpress.org installation is built on) in them. But with Daiko’s you can. That way, following the instructions from Popularity Contest, you can add a widget to display your Top Posts.
So there you go. Some information about plug-ins and how to use them, as well as ones that I’d recommend. Happy plugging.
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