The big 2.7 release of WordPress is officially available. I haven’t had time to install it and give it a go myself yet so I thought I’d just include the short video they released for now. My next post here will offer up my own personal impressions.
The current version of Wordpress is 2.6 (which is great), so what can we expect from wordpress 2.7? There are some features that they are considering and I just want to share with you which ones look like they could be the most useful.
Keyboard Shortcuts for Comment Moderation
This can be a great a WordPress addition because there are a lot of people out there, like myself, who love to use hot keys. If I can moderate my comments with just a few buttons on my keyboard I could fly threw them and give myself more time to write content for my blog.
Site Maps by Default
This would be awesome! This is not a big deal if we do not have it because there is a great plugin that controls the site map for us. But it would just be better if we can have a site map without installing a plugin. I know that there are some people out there who run a lot of blogs that may like this change.
Remove Old/Unused Code
This would be an update that very few people notice. There is some code in the Wordpress software that is from when WordPress first started out that is no longer in use. Removing this legacy code could speed up your site and make it load faster. Not by much, but it will still help for people that have a slow connection.
So these are just a few of the updates that may be in Wordpress 2.7. There is a bigger list, but out of them I think these 3 would be most useful.
The WordPress team has released an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch this week that lets you update and work on your WordPress powered blogs. The app supports both WordPress.com, self-hosted and MU blogs.
If you run into trouble using the app there’s an FAQ that might help. Since this is an initial release there are some problems:
In light of some of the errors on that list you might want to wait for an update to the app before you start using it.
The 2.6 version of WordPress has been released today. There’s a handful of pretty neat features and the WordPress team released the following video to give you a look at what’s new.
If you like what you see, head over to WordPress.org and download 2.6 today.
Hat tip to Daniel Jalkut and his Red Sweater Software blog post about the decision to disable the Atom Publishing and XML-RPC Protocols by default in the upcoming 2.6 release of WordPress.
This is a pretty interesting decision by the core development team that’s done under the premise of greater security. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would argue that WordPress could do with less security but there’s also an interesting twist to this development. For software creators like Daniel, and customers of his remote blogging client MarsEdit, one more hurdle has been put in their way to using WordPress the way they want to. I’m sure it will be trivial to turn off the setting and use remote clients as normal but this is still a bump in the road for users.
Another take on this is that WordPress, now featuring a fresh new admin design with the 2.5 release, is trying to shut the door on third-party posting interfaces to draw more attention and use to the new look. I don’t wear a tinfoil hat or anything but you have to admit it’s interesting to think about.
