Mar 26 2008
What is coming up in WordPress 2.5
WordPress 2.5 is going to be released pretty soon. It could happen any time now.
They have made a “Release Candidate” available and you are currently reading a blog running on that version. You can take a look at the screencast of the new version, at the development blog.
What is in it for us?
There are many changes, bug fixes, improvements and features that are part of this release, but I believe these are the core changes you would see.
New Admin Interface
A new “User Experience” as soon as you login to your WordPress. Things are rearranged so that you can get things done faster and easier. It might take a little time to get used to this, but it is well worth it.
Better Media Management
1. We used to upload files one by one, in the previous versions. Now you can upload multiple files in one shot.
2. You media is also grouped according to its type [like, images, audio, or video]
3. You can easily put a gallery [of your photos] into a page, with just a few clicks.
Support for Gravatar
Gravatar is a service that lets you associate your photo [a.k.a "avatar"] to your email address, so that if you post a comment on another website, your avatar can be shown next to it automatically.
WordPress 2.5 comes with a built in get_gravatar() method.
but remember individual WordPress Themes have to be updated to make use of this new feature, otherwise you would still not get it when you upgrade to 2.5.
Should I upgrade my theme, before upgrading to WP 2.5?
This upgrade will not break your theme and all my themes would still work without any problem when you upgrade to WP 2.5
but if you need to get the “support for Gravatar“, you need to get the updated version of the theme.
I will be updating my themes to support gravatar, but it would take some time for me to do this for all the themes.
This is a website by Sadish Bala, created to share the news, tips and tricks on using WordPress.
# Matthiason 30 Mar 2008 at 4:11 pmHey Sadish, that’s great news. Until now I was using the gravatar plugin and edited your themes by myself. Will be there be other updates from your side? For example, I realized that the gallery feature of WordPress 2.5 behaves “a little strange” with your themes, because navigation and stuff is missing. Can you fix that as well?
Thanks a lot! Your themes are great!
# Sadishon 30 Mar 2008 at 5:24 pmThanks Matthias.
Yes I would first release the new versions with gravatar support. that will be my first priority. once people start using that version, I will make sure the gallery works fine too.
# Matthiason 01 Apr 2008 at 7:54 pmOne suggestion or question: Why don’t you use the “subscribe to comments”-plugin? It notifies people if there are new comments, so they can come back to your blog
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
# Sadishon 02 Apr 2008 at 8:08 amI did install the “subscribe to comments” plugin.
Enjoy !
# Telmo Carloson 12 Apr 2008 at 4:38 amHi,
Definitely upgrade. It is an improvement for the best.
I hesitate to install new “dot” version of applications, particular open source as I state in:
Wordpress 2.5 - new version released. Should I upgrade?
On the other hand, the more people install and feed that back to Wordpress, the quicker 2.5.1 comes out with more improvements.
And I love that about Wordpress. How flexible and dynamic it is.