Why I’m Not a Fan of Wordpress 2.5
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A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and that I wasn’t sure about the new interface. Raj Dash at Performancing shortly thereafter put up a post “Why I hate WordPress 2.5“. While hate is a strong word, I definitely agree with a lot of his points.
One of the big problems that I’ve had is future posting doesn’t seem to work. Before, there were big numbers on the right hand side that you changed and the system saved the post with that timestamp. If it was before that timestamp the post didn’t appear. Now, there is a little link that says “Publish immediately” and you have to manually edit that way, that is if it works. There are a lot of reports that future posts get published immediately, even if you want it in the future.
The admin panel is not good. They have changed several of the most important links and put less focus on important links like “Settings” and “Plugins” which are in a much smaller font away from the rest of the links. I could maybe understand that those are “meta” items that only administrators will deal with, but then why put “Design” (the old “Theme” category) next to Manage? Writers won’t deal with the design aspect either.
I understand that the folks at Automattic want new people to use the software and that it’s mainly focused on the WordPress.com folks that actually make money for them, but as someone that has used the software for a couple of years, I shouldn’t have to relearn how to use the admin panel. This is one of the reasons I bought a Macbook rather than a Vista laptop, if I have to relearn a software, I might as well go with the best solution rather than what I am familiar with. When I installed WordPress for the first time, I was absolutely wowed (coming from Movable Type when they began charging for everything). I don’t think that I would get the same impression today. I’m half tempted to throw up a MT installation to see how they’ve changed and evaluate the two next to each other.
I probably won’t go that far, but I’m not impressed with the new version. If you’re still at 2.3.3, I’d stay there. I’d definitely check your plugins as I had one (Semiologic’s Related Posts) that is no longer supported and caused a fatal error when I tried to upgrade my sandbox version to 2.5. I had to delete the install and reinstall the new version (I guess that’s why I have a sandbox).
Does anybody else have blogging software they really, really like? I would have been in the WordPress camp until two weeks ago.
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April 28th, 2008 13:53
Sorry you’re not crazy about 2.5, but I would say that the majority of the development, for example the plugin updater and the new dashboard, was focused on power-users on the .org side, not for newbies on .com.
I’m not aware of any outstanding future-post issues in 2.5.1, have you tried asking on the support forums?
The reason we put Design next to Manage was we ran some stats and found that editing widgets, changing themes, and modifying theme files were some of the very top activities in the dashboard, almost as popular as writing a post!
I wouldn’t recommend people stay with 2.3 because that branch is no longer receiving security updates, and their blog may get hacked. Although things have changed, and the interface will continue to evolve in the future, most people have found that they get their muscle memory back after a few days with the 2.5 interface.
April 28th, 2008 18:37
Matt,
Thank you for noticing and for your comments.
I have not played with the plugin updater because I get a fatal error, which I’ve only found is related to a plugin that I don’t have. It will likely be a great addition to the software. I haven’t tried future posts with 2.5.1, I will definitely check out support if I see that it is an issue.
But my main criticisms are on the design of the admin panel. Yes, I will likely relearn the new admin panel, but my point is that I shouldn’t have to. Going from one dot release to the next should not include a time consuming process of hunting for features that were readily apparent in the old version. I might no go as far to say that the write pane is “broken” but it’s definitely not as easy to use as the old version. Having to scroll down for categories is probably a small thing, but it was much easier to have them right next to the input in the old version. That’s an example of fixing something that wasn’t broken, IMO. Is the average user going to pick a category or go to “edit all posts” from the write panel more often? I ask because that’s what next to the input box now rather than categories. It seems to not make as much sense as having the categories right there.
Like I said, I’ll get used to the new interface, but I think that there was a lot of messing around with things that weren’t broken in the first place. It seems to be less intuitive than the first time I installed WordPress and said “Wow, they got it”.
April 29th, 2008 12:07
Kirk, I too had some trepidations regarding the AI changes in 2.5.x, but many of them have faded as I’ve used it - the changes to “muscle memory” that Matt talked about are kicking in. The new arrangement of the Write page still leaves something to be desired - would rather see some of those down-page elements moved back to the right-hand column, and those “Related” links do seem to merely repeat functions that are readily available via the main menu up top. Still, I’m finding myself spending more time actually blogging than worrying about the software, which wasn’t the case as late as January when I was still using Movable Type.
If it’s any help, I’d assume that we’ll see some people come up with alternative AI themes. 2.5 is supposed to provide more hooks for developers to make such skins easier to produce. So hang in there.
As for future posting: I just tried it using 2.5.1 and it works just fine. Changed the timestamp, hit “Publish,” waited, and then it appeared. The only difference in the AI is that the timestamp isn’t displayed until you click “edit” beside the “Publish immediately” text; granted that this could be a little more clear, but once you figure that out, the functionality is the same as before. You mentioned having heard that future posts appear immediately - is this a problem you yourself have had? I haven’t experienced that.
May 1st, 2008 07:01
Phil,
I did have a future post appear immediately in 2.5. I haven’t tried it in 2.5.1 yet. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but other sites have reported the same thing and they rely heavily on future dating posts.
I was wondering if MT had improved any in the new version (I dumped it in version 2 when they instituted the pay-for-play only scheme in MT3). It doesn’t sound like they have.