A Not A Pro Blog exclusive! In late breaking news that was somehow missed by millions of bloggers and tech news sites worldwide – WordPress 2.9 has been released!
This new version is packed with loads of features that have been previewed for months previous to this release. Many reports though have concentrated on the major additions to the platform, but have failed to give users all the information they need to know about WordPress 2.9. Fortunately for you, Not A Pro Blog has looked at the fine print, trawled through all the help files, scrutinized every line of code and has camped out in the air vent above Matt Mullenweg’s office for three months to bring you the least known additional features you can expect to find in WordPress 2.9:
Ultimate Global “Trash” Feature
We all have already heard how we can now take out the trash and restore deleted posts and comments… but many are not talking about how global this feature can really get. With one simple click in WordPress 2.9, unsuccessful bloggers can actually “undo” their entire blog in one fell swoop. There’s no confirmation message either, but you’ve only written one post anyways since starting the blog, so what’s the big deal?
Currently, this feature is only available to blog administrators, but is looking to be expanded as a displayed widget for ordinary visitors. Combining the interactivity of comments, polls and ratings – If you think a blog deserves to be thrown in the trash, then you have the ultimate power to do so! With 300+ million blogs out there and growing like a virus… we finally can undertake in some population control, or at least eliminate competition for high valued keywords!
Batch Plugin Auto-Update of Compatibility Questions
WordPress administrators are applauding the ability to update multiple plugins as a batch, but many are not talking about the new compatibility checking integrated into this feature.
Instead of asking “does this work with 2.9?” to 84 different plugin developers (because of course, you have every known plugin installed for “super awesome” sidebar widgets), WordPress will now post this question automatically upon upgrade. Plugin developers, though, are not providing much backlash towards this functionality whatsoever – but most have not provided much past the 1.0 release of their work anyways, so it doesn’t come as a total shock.
Post Thumbfails
Bloggers have shifted more towards “magazine” style displays and WordPress 2.9 has delivered users with a new post thumbnail feature for easy integration into these themes. Fortunately for everyday blog visitors, they have also included a pop-up for administrators who don’t take in account file sizes of images when using this new feature. “OMG, I can totally resize this 2400×1800 pixel 6.7 megabyte 300 dpi photo of my cat’s ass into 16×16 favicon! This roXorZ!”
Oh, Embed!
WordPress 2.9 now supports the Oembed format, which makes it easier to embed content from multimedia sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr. Of course, these embed codes are readily available with a simple cut & paste – but pre-2.9, that didn’t stop 95% of WordPress admins installing 37 different plugins to handle each specific format with a shortcode. Little do many people know, this functionality also extends to the visual editor as well. Little do many people know, there is actually a visual editor in WordPress. Ironically though, those who use the visual editor are people who know little.