Is WordPress 2.7 better?

Daniel Pataki
Dec 13, 2008
Updated • Jan 21, 2013
Development
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10

I've only been using WordPress 2.7 for a bit since I'm building sites more than I'm blogging nowadays, but I have to say I love it. It looks much, much better, navigation is a bit unusual but overall easier, the whole structure is more logical than ever. However, as a coder working with WordPress on a day to day basis, I see a lot fo things that could've been improved.

My biggest criticism is that basically WordPress didn't get better underneath, they just changed the packaging. While the change is welcome, there are a lot of areas, especially media management which could use some work. Many time I get asked to build in some sort fo featured image capability, or a different post view in different circumstances. It would be awesome if you could select two different types of post views, one for the main page, and one for the archive page, adding featured images only shown in one place, perhaps as a background to the text. This can be done by editing templates, but not everyone knows how to do this, so flexibility in this area would've been better I thnk.

Media management has been improved a lot in the last bigger release, but is still miles away from something which could be used flexibly. Adding Flickr integration, easy few click gallery creation, gallery views and so on would be wonderful, this can really only be done by plugins at the moment.

Video management has always bugged me. Why can't videos be easily embedded, managed and even put in galleries, just like images? I don't like putting extra elements in my blog because they just seem such a pain to implement properly.

Overall I still love WordPress and it's by far the best publishing platform out there. The changes they implemented in 2.7 really do add to usability, looks and handling, but I think functionality is more in need of an overhaul than looks, especially since 2.5 was such a big design leap as well.

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Comments

  1. mccormicky said on February 9, 2009 at 1:11 pm
    Reply

    Sorry for my late late reply. I should have checked the notify me box but when I do I get so many emails!

    Anyway I realize you were really talking about how video management is not a part of the WP core and that you need to use plugins to do it properly…but the vPIP plugin (I’m unaffiliated!)builds really nice little video galleries and is pretty easy to use once you get it set up.

    The problem probably is is that nobody has contributed a great (more stable than vPIP) plugin that masses of people have downloaded,yet so that it catches the WP developers eyes and is considered for introduction(absorption?) into the core.

    That and the fact that probably not that many people have requested it in the Wishlist because there are plugins…and most people still embed the bad old way,anyway!

  2. Kevin Grames said on December 23, 2008 at 7:21 pm
    Reply

    I have begun using 2.7 now and have to say I like the much easier to use back end. It seems to run much smoother then in previous versions at least for me. This change was a much needed improvement and I hope the keep taking steps in the right direction.

  3. Daniel Pataki said on December 19, 2008 at 1:47 pm
    Reply

    Hi mccormicky!

    Thanks for the plugin tips! My problem isn’t that it can be done, its just that it takes plugins and whatnot to work :)

  4. mccormicky said on December 15, 2008 at 1:52 pm
    Reply

    “Why can’t videos be easily embedded, managed and even put in galleries, just like images?”

    I use both Vpip and videopress-video-archive plugin to build a gallery of videos(supposed to be like youtube!).Not certain if it is 2.7 ready yet.But I have a gallery of videos and they aren’t from youtube -they’re just plain old wmv.

  5. Daniel Pataki said on December 14, 2008 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    Hi g!

    For your information, WordPress is completely free, there is no paid version, you can get it at WordPress.org. You actually pay WordPress.com for hosting your blog, not for the actual hosting. I think it’s crazy that they ask you to pay for stylsheet changing capability and so on, it’s easier to just get your own domain.

  6. gary katsevman said on December 13, 2008 at 10:23 pm
    Reply

    ive upgraded my joint podcast blog to 2.7, and unfortunately, it partly broke the podpress extension, the sidebar widget that comes with the extension no longer shows any files, though, each player in each post still is liked to the correct file. but other than that, i am really happy with 2.7

  7. Kyle Judkins said on December 13, 2008 at 9:02 pm
    Reply

    I love 2.7. I have been using the beta for a while, and I am happy to see the official release.

  8. g said on December 13, 2008 at 5:58 am
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    i like the new 2.7.

    i have the free version and wish there was more freedom to add plugins and themes.

    i guess it is free and i shouldn’t complain but blogger seems to offer more options.

    the new dashboard design in 2.7 is the best improvement. overall, i like wordpress. i use google everything and the reason i chose wordpress over blogger is to have something that isn’t google.

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