Shanghai Tech WriterTechnical Writing, Technology, Web2.0, Google, Shanghai, China

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.7 along with a new theme called BlackGrey2. The process of upgrading both software and theme took several hours. Actually, the upgrade itself was quite fast and easy! I used WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin to upgrade from WordPress 2.5 to 2.7. The upgrade itself took maybe 2-3 minutes but changing the theme took much longer.  I like to customize the theme/template with various CSS tweaks and special plugins.  I had a few minor issues from all the changes, but other than that, I’m quite happy with the new upgrade!

A few issues/bugs:

• I lost all my comments from the last month. I don’t know what happened but the comments just disappeared and I couldn’t recover them.
• WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin is not compatible with WordPress 2.7. I had to deactivate WPAU in order to install new plugins on WordPress 2.7.

WordPress 2.7 New Features: 

• New dashboard. The dashboard has a new look and AJAX feel to it. You can rearrange your boxes any way you like.
• Automatic software upgrade. You can upgrade to the newest version of WordPress directly from the dashboard without any plugins.
• One-click plugin installation. You can install plugins directly from the dashboard. No more uploading zip files via FTP!
• Keyboard shortcuts. You can use keyboard shortcuts to browse and moderate comments.
• Threaded comments. You can thread comments to improve user discussion experience.
• Batch editing. You can make changes to multiple posts simultaneously!
• Revision history. WordPress keeps track of all the revisions so you can easily revert back to a previous revision.
• Quick Press. From the dashboard, you can write a quick post.

I don’t use the WordPress dashboard as much now that I use Windows Live Writer to write my posts offline. It’s much faster to add/modify images and other media files offline. In any case, I’m quite happy using WordPress as my blogging software. Of all the blogging software that I’ve used or explored in the past, WordPress is by far the best and most popular one!