WordPress 2.7 News

There is a lot of news flying around about the upcoming HOT release of WordPress 2.7, the version featuring the new Administration Panel interface, part of a long project to make WordPress more usable and accessible.

Originally scheduled for November 10, 2008, they’ve pushed back the release by at least two weeks in order to do more testing and development, as well as inclusion of the tremendous feedback they’ve gotten from the most recent beta testing versions.

WordPress 2.7 Beta 2 was just released, fixing a lot of the bugs found in Beta 1.

At the time of writing this, the WordPress Development Twitter had 149 changes and fixes reported over the past week. Improvements have been made to localization, the Write Post Panel, design problems for Internet Explorer, rewrite rules for various servers and hosts, and the WordPress Plugin update and install feature. More improvements, fixes, and design features are in process for the next beta release. Updates are coming so fast, I can barely keep up with all the work they are doing to make this one of the most exciting releases ever.

The new interface is being cheered and readily accepted by testers and many are loving the new Comments and Write Post Panels. The ease of blogging and information on the new Dashboard Panel makes that screen more valuable than ever. The new Dashboard panel includes customizable feeds, quick posting to your blog, checking and responding to comments, and a lot more, making it a one-stop access point to your WordPress blog.

So far, the reaction from most has been exceptionally positive and most are eager for the new version. Feedback and input continues with polls and surveys and feedback. Jane Wells asked “What’s your favorite thing about the 2.7 Beta?” to encourage your feedback on the latest beta version. You are also asked to report to the Alpha/Beta sections on the WordPress Support Forums and the mailing lists with feedback and input.

Articles are coming out with news and information on the new version all around the web and include:

What Will I Have to Worry About With WordPress 2.7?

In general, WordPress Themes will continue to work with few changes. However, if you want to take advantage of the new WordPress Theme Parent/Child system as part of the automatic Theme upgrade and download feature, they may need to be upgraded. Check with your WordPress Theme developer for updates and news.

WordPress Plugins will work, unless their hook into the Administration Panels has changed. WordPress Plugins that rely upon the Administration Panels will need tweaking or redesign work to meld with the new interface.

Many WordPress Plugin authors are reporting upgrades and updates to their Plugins in order to work with the new version of WordPress. Some of these include:

WP-CommentNavi 1.00 Beta is an updated version of Lester Chan’s WP-PageNavi WordPress Plugin which adds pagination for comments which now works with the new WordPress Comments API.
Lester Chan (Gamerz) reports that current versions of his Plugins work fine in WordPress 2.7 except for WP-Email and WP-Print due to the new canonical redirects, which he has offered a fix for download.
Viper checks his WordPress Plugins for WordPress 2.7 and finds that Viper’s Video Quicktags will work fine but it and WordPress Admin Bar WordPress Plugin need to be updated for the new interface. The rest of his Plugins should work.

More news will be coming out, along with a lot of reports and reviews on the new WordPress. Check in with me on the Blog Herald WordPress Wednesday News for more updated information.