Since I heard there was a shiny new back-end for WordPress in the new 2.5 version, I decided I would test it out before putting it up.
The good:
– It loads a bit faster than 2.3.3.
– The modified Journalized 2 beta 2 theme (yes, it does need to be modified some to work with 2.3, and I added widgetizing while I was at it) works as well in 2.5 as it does in 2.3.3. Before you ask, no, I won’t be releasing that; it still is Mike Little’s project, and he does have my mods someplace.
– MOST of the plugins I use work without any updates.
– Plugin updates no longer require FTP access; assuming a standard Apache install, you can now install updates directly from the plugin admin page. It should be the same thing for updating WordPress itself.
The bad:
– Those of you using Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam will need to upgrade to 3.0.2.
– The release version of WP-Polls (2.21) is broken. There is a beta version out there that does work with 2.5.
– The new media management feature does not work in IE.
The ugly:
– I hate the new post page; I miss having the options to the right of the post box.
In short, I won’t be migrating to 2.5 just yet.
Thanks for the heads up. Wp-admin has been grousing at me to upgrade ever since it came out last week. Since I *just* upgraded to 2.3, I wasn’t looking forward to it. Though I don’t use any of the plug-ins you mentioned, I’m completely not interested in the photo management feature (I watched the podcast of Matt demonstrating it). In fact, what I’d really like is for WordPress not to try to manage my photos at all, thanks — the automatic generation and default posting of thumbnails makes me nuts. I’m sure I could turn it off in the php, but once you’ve edited that, you make all sort of upgrade headaches for yourself.