{"id":1008,"date":"2005-12-29T13:24:14","date_gmt":"2005-12-29T11:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2007-10-19T14:02:48","modified_gmt":"2007-10-19T12:02:48","slug":"wordpress-20-review-for-non-professional-bloggers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/12\/29\/wordpress-20-review-for-non-professional-bloggers\/","title":{"rendered":"wordpress 2.0 review for non-professional bloggers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s that time again!<\/p>\n

Yes, a new version of WordPress<\/a> is out, and so nathaniel has to put his 2 cents in.<\/p>\n

First question: should i upgrade<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Well, that depends.<\/p>\n

Truth is that most of the changes have happened on the back end – stuff “under the hood” so to speak, so that the blog itself, for the most part, won’t look very different. There’s a new interface that works pretty much the same way (tho a lot prettier), but a few nice add-ins. For example, you can now have WYSIWYG \/ rich editing, like blogger. You can preview in the actual page, as a frame, and you can add new categories on the fly, while posting. The database backup plug-in is pre-installed (tho I don’t see how to re-import it afterwards!), and most useful for group blogs, there are different “roles” for different users with varying privileges – pre-made, or make your own.<\/p>\n

More on asymptomatic’s full new feature list<\/a>, including thumbnails of themes, amongst a few others. There are a couple of minor bugs still, so take a look at this list<\/a> if you are bit scared. Generally, if you find one or two that piss you off while working, you can find a workaround at that link. I only found one that did as such, and it took 5 mins to fix.<\/p>\n

The big thing, and Owen Winkler (aka ringmaster) from the above-linked blog mentions this, is that a lot of the functions bases have changed – been simplified, modularized or moved to places where they make more sense. On the one hand, this makes things much more interesting for potential new plug-ins bound to come out in the next few months. On the other hand, if you have a few plug-ins you’ve come to rely on a bit (such as wp-email and spell-check, in my case), make sure they will work by cross-referencing it against this list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Themes should still work just fine, tho check back to where you got them from soon, to see if they now come with thumbnails (all my themes, including the new artsemerging<\/a> theme – update 30 august 2007, now widget compatible!<\/strong>, are 2.0 ready, with images).<\/p>\n

All in all, my advice is that unless you are starting a brand new site, or are sure your plugins work or are ok without them for a bit, wait on the upgrade. The bugs are easy enough to deal with, and we should have a minor fix in the next few weeks, but I think you’ll want some catch-up, non-Christmas time to let plug-in makers and editors get their code functioning properly with the new base. One of two things will definitely happen by mid-February: either you will see a new plugin that makes it worth the upgrade, or all the plug-ins you already use will be ready to go…. I’m giving spell-check and wp-email till mid-jan, then I can’t wait anymore :)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s that time again! Yes, a new version of WordPress is out, and so nathaniel has to put his 2 cents in. First question: should i upgrade? Well, that depends. Truth is that most of the changes have happened on the back end – stuff “under the hood” so to speak, so that the blog […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,7,9,8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-and-tech","category-me","category-pop-culture","category-re-blog-tidbits","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-gg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":612,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/27\/blogging-the-commons\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":0},"title":"blogging the commons","author":"nathaniel","date":"27 May 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"me & the double L (that's the larry to the lessig) remix Howdy y'all. Am at the commons sense conference, and was just on a panel discussion with Megan Knight (PhD Wits), Vincent Maher (New Media Lab, Rhodes\/Grahamstown) and Matthew Buckland (Mail & Guardian online). It was a pretty cool\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":686,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/27\/all-most-there\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":1},"title":"all…. most…. there….(!)","author":"nathaniel","date":"27 July 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Howdy y'all. If you haven't noticed, this blog has been taking a major re-shape over the last few months. Between my illness and inability to get out much (y'all know I like to blog about local art stuff, rather than how I used to post links to cool things online\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "me"","block_context":{"text":"me","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/me\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1101,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/03\/whitney-biennial-2006-day-for-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":2},"title":"Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night","author":"nathaniel","date":"03 March 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Granted, this is mostly a re-blog of some links I got from Art Fag City and MTAA-RR (two of my favorite blogs - and don't miss the MTAA Upgrade! at Wits this afternoon!), but there are some great posts \/ reviews already up on the Whitney Biennial. The basic gist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":353,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/05\/04\/various-webcam-art-tech-stuff\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":3},"title":"various webcam + art tech stuff","author":"nathaniel","date":"04 May 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Like me, you may have been thrilled to find the fantabulous Unibrain Fire-I firewire webcam, which works stunningly well with various video applications, including Jitter and the TrackThemColors Xtra for Director - the most commonly used apps for interactive video, namely motion and body tracking. Also, like me, you may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art and tech"","block_context":{"text":"art and tech","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art-and-tech\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":496,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/11\/13\/throbbing\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":4},"title":"throbbing","author":"nathaniel","date":"13 November 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"This month's artthrob is Mos Def one you will not want to give a miss. Aside from the usual array of tidbits, there's not a bad overview of new media work at the Kebbles, by Charles Maggs; he does more describing and explaining than critical discussion, but that's still way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "carine zaayman"","block_context":{"text":"carine zaayman","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/old-categories\/carine-zaayman\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1573,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/17\/artreviewcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":5},"title":"artreview.com","author":"nathaniel","date":"17 January 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A little overwhelming at first, the new artreview.com web site (currently in beta) has some really great features, the potential to pair up emerging artists with known entities (a plus), and to sustain a growing interest in the contemporary, fine and visual arts despite the upcoming American recession (whose effects\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}