WordPress 2.8 Released

WordPress 2.8 "Baker" was released today. You can read about it and see a video overview of the new features, here: WordPress › Blog 2.8 Release Jazzes Themes and Widgets

I'm about to upgrade one of my blogs right now.

 

I'm thrilled about this. Why can't vBulletin's back-end look similar in appearance to WP's Dashboard?

 

I know MyBB has a theme that looks like the WP Dashboard. Pretty cool too.

 

I've seen that - it looks quite excellent.

 

I have it for Pisoga~ <3 Just at home.

 

Ugh... Really not liking the Wordpress Dashboard. Have to deal with it but don't like the default navigation. Then you have something like Ozh's Admin Menus and they aren't scalable because you only have so much horizontal space. Add a few custom taxonomies and the entire system breaks down. Can we add some color to the dashboard though? Gray navigation, gray icons. Its simply boring. Give me 256-bit PNG images with full color and alpha transparency. This monochromatic gray is dullsville and depressing. I don't even want to visit the dashboard.

I do like Custom Taxonomies and the new tag handling features. I wish they had post templates assigned by primary category but you still need plugins for this basic functionality. I plan on taking advantage of this for some time.

Its also nice that you can reuse a widget in multiple sidebars (a stupid name as well). This is a feature that should have been available a long time ago. Drag and drop is nice but a little picky its hard to get it into the actual "sidebar". Talking about "sidebars" why not just call them blocks? You put widgets into blocks. I have "sidebars" on my front page under the featured content, in my footer, between categories on the front page, one in the header for advertising, one under post content for advertising, and three in the right hand sidebar. They aren't all sidebars but blocks where I want to put content using widgets. I guess if you're using WordPress as a simple blog, than that is fine but its moved beyond the simple blog if you want to use all of its features.

Finally, unlike the Plugin Browser, the theme browser is worthless. It doesn't find themes that I know are in Extend even if I use their name as the keyword for searching. The results are limited and of little actual use and you have to go to Extend to find what you want anyway. Now, its encouraged people to have these Commercial GPL themes. Oh we say they are GPL but you have to pay $80.00 for them and you can't redistribute them... Excuse me? I guess it satisfies the license Nazis but if I ever buy one, you'll be certain it shows up as a download on the site. Let them sue me, we'll see how the GPL stands up in court. I won't even have to pay for anything because the FSF will back me up.

Finally, the plugin interface is a step backwards. I have to manually filter what is installed and what isn't. There should at least be better visual indicators of what is live and what isn't. The interface in 2.7 was a lot better.

Overall there are some minor changes that are an improvement. Wish they would offer a better assortment of default themes though. The two provided are as dull as the dashboard.

Now don't get me wrong, vBulletin's Admin CP has its problems as well but I don't want it to look like WordPress or some crApple lookalike clone.

 

Sorry, but like Wayne, I think that 2.8 is basically bleh. I HATE the dashboard, theming, I can make a theme myself, but the plugin browser is stupid, I liked how it was before and such. I will NEVER pay 80 dollars for a theme.

 

It is looking very nice, I think. One of my favorite scripts and yet I don't even make real use of it.

 

I updated my main blog last friday, and everything looks good to me. It seems that wordpress gets better and better with every release.

 

No worries, Wayne. I was more or less kidding around about vBulletin's administrative interface - I just happen to be a fan of WP's, as well.

 

I love wordpress but I am not upgrading to 2.8 as there is no real need.. all they did was add plugin search, theme search and syntax highlighting.. Seems quite useless if your not setting up a blog for the first time.

You can create your own theme, I use a custom one i made for myself but thats cause I use custom themes for admin backends of all my scripts, whmcs, vB and some other things.

 

Really? I've not seen that theme.


I upgraded to WP 2.8 a couple of days ago. I love how it's soooo easy. Click on the upgrade link in the acp, type in your password, and it's all done for you. Can't get any easier than that.

 

I didn't know that's how you upgrade. That is easy.

 

Yeah, I LOVE it. I never need to leave the control panel to upgrade any plugins or even WordPress itself. Easy as cake!

 

There's an idea, Jelsoft!

 

To save Wayne the hassle of writing an essay (), check out:
Admin CP Integrated vBulletin Script Updating - vBulletin Community Forum
... Specifically: Admin CP Integrated vBulletin Script Updating - Page 2 - vBulletin Community Forum

 

I could see it being put into place for plugins eventually but not for the actual program. There are a lot of technical issues involved. The biggest of which is that the vBulletin files you download don't actually exist anywhere until you download them.

The files are built on the fly. To download them you would need a secure connection to the SVN server to build the files from the TRUNK release based on your license.

And what Nick linked to.

 

Spoilsport




if only vB could upgrade this easily. Life would be heaven

 

I actually like the current vB upgrade process - I must be crazy. :o

 

certifiable.