WordPress 2.7 Preview
WordPress 2.7 upgrade is all about usability and moving from a web site to a web application. With version 2.5 there was a LOT of scrolling in the admin panel. 25% of the top of the screen was taking up room with the menu.
Customize your Admin Panel
Quickpress will allow you to pick and choose which options will be next to the post box. You will also be able to set which columns you want to see in your post grid like category, author, etc. The moderation link is directly under the post title. You can click and drag all of those collapsible boxes under your posts to the right side. Tired of scrolling to add your tags? Drag your tags to the right column and they will be handy.
Instead of drilling down and waiting for a page to load, then select another page wait for it load, admin menus will expand with a single click. There will also be a favorites in the top right corner of the admin panel that you can list your most used panels. No need to even use the new expanding menu to get to the places you most.
The new admin panel is pretty dependent on AJAX. If your javascript is disabled, all menus will always be expanded. With JavaScript enabled the admin panel is incredibly dynamic and flexible.
Sticky Posts
Have a post that really represents your blog’s intent, purpose or authority? A post that you are so proud of that you want to make sure ALL of your readers see it? What about a post for an upcoming event that you want to be front and forefront until it happens? In WordPress 2.7, you will be able to set a “sticky post” that will stay permenantly at the top of your blog posts. Or you can schedule a sticky post for a certain prescibed time.
Comment Management
Comments will be managed in their own area as in recent versions but you will also be able to manage your comments at the post level. No more hunting through your comments and trying to match them to a post. The other big new feature in comments, is that they will now be threaded. That means that you can reply to a specific comment in a post instead of just replying to the post as a whole. That is probably going to mean some theme upgrades to use this feature but I am really excited about it.
Plug-in Management
Big changes in 2.7 in terms of plug-ins. You will be able to browse, upload and install plug-ins from the wordpress site, all from within your admin panel! This was such a cool demo!
Miscellaneous Changes
Did you just realize that those three blog posts that you did on the new community center, all had a typo in the name? Now you will be able to batch edit your posts and comments.
There will probably be a RSS feed reader integrated into the dashboard. It will be probably be related to Blog surfer and Tag Surfer.
More revisions to the media uploader. Hopefully we are getting closer to getting this working more reliably and faster.
When will 2.7 be released?
Inbox is moving to a future release out of 2.7. It will have reminders about drafts, updates, your pings and comments, messages between users etc. The feature freeze date is 10/10/08 so not all of these features might actually make it into 2.7. The scheduled release date is 11/10/08.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Can you tell me who did your layout? I’ve been looking for one kind of like yours. Thank you.
September 27th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I am happy to. You can get this free, high quality theme at http://wordpress.bytesforall.com/?page_id=40. I really enjoy the flexibility and robustness of the Atahualpa theme
October 13th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
[...] be ready for release in early to mid November. The last official release date I heard was during Jane Wall’s presentation at WordCamp Portland and it was 11/10/08. She stated that release would be 30 days after feature [...]