Send to KindleSo, I tweeted the other day that I updated to WordPress 2.6 successfully, but didn’t blog about it. I am very pleased with the changes, though I had two minor frustrations, one was WP’s fault, the other not.
First, the goodness. When 2.5 came out, they completely changed the media/image management, changing the upload and selection process to be AJAX based. I really liked the look, but hated the feel. It took so many clicks and so much scrolling to edit the various image fields, and to select and insert an image in a post.
2.6 fixes this completely (for me). This is done by making two (theoretically) trivial changes:
- Make the pop-up window larger, so that all of the fields for an image fit without scrolling
- auto-scroll to the selected image when the user clicks on show
That’s it! Now I don’t have to scroll after I click show.
Another goodness is that the number of plugins that have newer versions available is now highlighted on every admin screen, with a cute little bubble above the plugins link. Very nice. I was very good about checking regularly anyway, but this will save me a few clicks every day.
There are other new features, most of which I haven’t played with yet, but they certainly sound useful. The video that shows off the new features is crisp and gets to the point quickly.
I’m happy with 2.6.
Now for my two frustrations. The first is a WP problem. I noted in a recent post that WordPress Ate My Posting Date. I patched it successfully (a one-liner). The patch documentation led me to believe that it was already in the trunk, and therefore would be part of WP 2.6. It wasn’t. 🙁
When I posted about Chuck Mangione the other day, the RSS feed delivered that post with a date of 1999 again. I reapplied the patch, and I believe all is well again. It was disappointing that this simple one-liner missed the 2.6 release…
The second frustration had nothing to do with 2.6. After I saw the new plugin update notification, I updated the two plugins that had newer versions available. When I went back to the admin screen and reloaded, it still claimed that both plugins needed updating, and the new bubble still showed a two in it.
After some playing around, I decided to clear the XCache cache completely. That solved the problem. So, somehow, there was PHP code cached that didn’t update when I installed the new WP 2.6. I will try to remember not to make that mistake again, and just clear the cache whenever I update WP. Now the question is whether I need to clear the cache when a plugin gets updated, etc. Frustrating that somehow date stamps on the files don’t over-ride the cacheing…
In any event, all is well again (at least for the moment). 😉
Leave a Reply