The new dashboard and admin interface is a huge improvement. So much information, yet easy on the eyes. It all feels much more organized and structured. Haven’t checked out any other upgraded functionality, but the visual redesign in /wp-admin/ is well-done.

[Clever "trailer" previewing the new admin features.]

Ironically, i used the WordPress Automatic upgrade plugin to make the jump from 2.6.1 to 2.7b2 as i have for previous upgrades, because i hate having to download, unpack, and upload zip files. The irony being that WordPress 2.7 now includes automatic core updating, so from here on out it should be a one-click affair; this will likely be the last time i will have used WAU. In order to hack WAU to install the Beta 2 pre-release version i used WordPress’ built-in Plugin Editor to change the coded download link from http://wordpress.org/latest.zip to http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.7-beta2.zip. Just replace that URL on the line with $downloadURL, save, then proceed as usual.

I also changed my permalink structure to the cleaner /year/month/slug/ format (i originally used /log/year/month/day/slug/). So this post’s link is: http://miahz.com/2008/11/upgraded-to-wordpress-27/. Old links automatically redirect to the new addresses. No plugins necessary.