Yesterday, version 2.9 was released with little or no fanfare and I wanted to take a few moments to share my experience so far. First, head on over to the Announcement and check out the video, but come back here for more details.
Upgrade Experience
As many of you know, I manage a lot of Wordpress sites, the number is fast approaching 100. I have a half dozen that are not considered any where near mission critical so the become the test bed for upgrades. So far, so good, in fact, with 8 sites already updated to Version 2.9 I have found absolutely no issues with sites breaking or data loss. Just before starting this article I updated this site to Version 2.9 and used some of the new features to complete this post. I still recommend making a backup of your site if you don’t already have one before upgrading. Then, check out all the new features and enjoy!
My Favorite Upgrades
This new version finally takes care of a couple of issues for me, the most annoying has been the work needed to update plugins. I run many web sites, and each of those sites runs from 8 to 35 plugins depending on the needs of the site. Previously, I would need to upgrade each plugin individually. Version 2.9 adds a one stop plugin update script that will save a lot of time. I have already tried this feature on a half dozen blogs and it works great. Wordpress was even able to determine if the plugin would work in 2.9 and not update those plugins. And yes, there is still the option to update plugins individually.
The other upgrade is the photo cropping capabilities added to the Media Manager. Now when I take a screen shot I don’t have to open the file in GIMP or some other graphics program first. I just upload it to the site and use the built in editor to crop and resize the photo. You can see some screen shots below, which were all edited using this new feature.
Screen Shots of New Features
There is a lot more to the new version, but rather than list them all here, I’ll just refer you to the Official Announcement on the Wordpress.org blog. In my opinion, the upgrade is well worth the two clicks it takes to complete, and so far has not caused me any issues. Thank you Wordpress for some wonderful new additions – keep them coming!
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