WordPress 2.0 rant

Ok, Bill wanted to be top of the, well, Bill, and his wish is my command so I moved him over to WordPress 2.0, and gave him a new suit. I like men in dark suits. And even more, I like Bill in a dark suit.

Forget about this post – read this instead: WordPress 2.0 Praise

I have been a big fan of WordPress, because I always found it clean and simple. And it’s incredible that you can get this system for free, I am thankful. But WordPress 2.0 has given me too much of a headache already.

But first – useful Things I like:
Upgrading was as easy as 1,2,3
The theme switcher is cool
The Backup your database thingy is nice too.

Not useful Things, but I like them anyway:
I like that the admin section now is blue. (not that it is useful for anything)
I like that WordPress admin now says “Howdy, Ingrid”

Things I don’t like – at all:
The annoying amount of information on the dashboard (it’s still there). I don’t want any feeds there, I only want things there that have to do with my weblog. I read my feeds elsewhere, if I find them interesting that is. (So yes I installed the wp-admin light hack to get rid of it, but it just should not be there, or there should be an option to shut it off !)

I am maybe old fashioned, but I upload my images with FTP. So I don’t want the new upload feature taking up all this space in my post screen, I want an option to shut it off. Just like I can shut off the new WYSIWYG editor (’cause who really wants that, not me).

Well I know that Ajax is the new buzzword, and it is probably smart when used well, but how I hate all those Ajax boxes on the left right of my post screen ! And worse if I minimize them, the next time I enter the post screen they are back !

So what I actually want is an option in WP 2.0 so I can choose the oldstyle WP 1.5 editor in stead of the new one.

The new post preview – I am sorry – I don’t like that either. It doesn’t look nice at all for my template. I want to be able to select the old post preview (as in having an option to shut the new post preview off) and I hate the scrollbars around the post preview.

So if I should sum it up – I should not have upgraded at all, cause it is far more annoying me than actually making me happy.

And why should you at all be interested in knowing all this ? I have no idea, but I feel a bit better now, having it out of my system.

Oh yeah, one last thing that hasn’t anything to do with WordPress – what have I don e wrong Google ? This domain name still can’t be found in Google! I thought Google was my friend.

18 thoughts to “WordPress 2.0 rant”

  1. I have installed wordpress 2.0 as well. I havent done anything else than just fastly browse around and see it, in action.

    I agree on:
    – Too much annoying dashboard information.
    – I will look into the integrated image uploads. But I think I actual will be able to do what I want with it, but I agree on a possibility to “turn it off” would be nice.
    – WYSIWYG is good for some people, and it is for the person I am installing this 2.0 blog for, so that I am happy for is in default. But it is configurable.
    – The new post preview is useless in my eyes as well…

    The ajax discussion i put in a paragraph alone, hehe:

    Ajax is a nice thing when implemented correctly. And for the category part I think it is very well implemented. But my first impression was the only place it was in WP 2.0.

    Rich User Interface is the way to go. Ajax is very well represented there… Im about to write some articles about using Ajax on a simple basis in ASP.NET development – most .NET implementations of Ajax postbacks are so overkill its demanding a simpler approach, I have allready implemented one I use at work. I will release it as free-to-use when I find it stable enough.

    Sorry about all that ajax stuff, but got carried away, hehe.

    On a last note, I have put your blog in my rss reader, so will be a reader of your blog from now on, good luck in London by the way, hehe.

  2. Hi Dan – Thank You !

    You know that I am THE biggest fan of your Rummovie plugin don’t you :-) I simply love that plugin, being a filmaddict extraordinaire.

    I am not really a PHP shark (as they call it in danish) and I don’t have too much time on my hands right now, otherwise I would look into the WP plugin system a bit more, just to see what the possibilities are.

  3. I tried WordPress 2.0 last week, when looking for a replacement for Movable Type. Not that I dislike MT, but I had some time to spend. Well, I have to say: I hate WordPress. Compared to the MT interface that’s nice and clean and crispy and smells like cherryblossoms WordPress smells like mud, dust and cooked carrots, which I really hate too.

  4. Im glad you like my plugin Ingrid :) It was actuall developed to make my Movie collection, but have dropped the idea of that afterwards, hehe… I think I will make a page with my hitchcock collection instead, so my family can see which hitchcock movies NOT to buy for my birthday, hehe…

    It sounds like you guys havent anything possitive to say at all about WP 2.0… thats to bad… Because a “behind the scenes” seemes to be a lot better… For instance is the new user/groups system somehow advanced, and not hard to use at all after my impressions… (I was reading the developer mailing lists when they discussed how it should be at the time).

    All in all I wouldnt go with an older version of wordpress for those small changes… I havent upgraded my own blog yet, but will do when i redesign it :)

    MT being Perl powered its not an issue at all for me… I agree on MT have a more slick UI, but maybe the shuttle project for the WP admin pages will change this ;) The designers on the project is indeed some talented ones.

  5. Well it was not at all my meaning to shoot WordPress down, because I really love it. And there have been a lot of discussions about 2.0, about upgrading or not, and when to, and when not. I upgraded Bill because I was redesigning the website, so Bill was on the operation table anyway (he is recovering nicely thank you :-)

    But the upgrade itself didn’t really gave me a lot of useful things, so I will not upgrade The Girl until maybe a next version, or until the Shuttle project gets launched (that definetely looks interesting – and stylish)

  6. Totally offtopic question, whats with shifting between dutch and english posts? :)

    The company I work for have our greatest customers in Holland, so I do understand a little bit of it…

  7. Well I didn’t shift for you to be honest. :-)
    But I want to improve my english writing a bit before I move to London. And I actually like to write in english.

  8. Good to hear your thoughts about the new WordPress … I upgraded as well. So far everything is okay, no huge problems – since I figured out how to get rid of this unholy WYSIWYG. Sometimes I like those things, but not for my WordPress. And when I changed into the HTML mode (with the little button) and coded the whole stuff, it first took everything right, but when I needed to edit the post, the editor deleted some tags and such. Quite annoying. Also have problems with making some old drafts into posts actually … The upload into a folder I don’t want to have the pictures at is also kind of … annoying.

    But to sum it up: It’s okay.

  9. Tried the plugin. Changed back to the default :-) It looks good (though I guess I would need time to get used to) but it’s nothing for my 800×600 resolution. The space on my screen is already very limited and the sidebar takes a lot of additional space. But the idea of this plugin is quite good …

  10. Dan, which company would that be?

    Anyway, meanwhile I’ve made a new blog to test out the all-new WP 2.0 over at http://salespitch.thusgaard.com. Let me tell you this: I do not hate it. In fact it seems a bit faster and a bit more user friendly than I had expected. Me being a complete non-techie without even a bit of technical knowledge, this is a major plus. I’m sure – with sufficient plugins – the rest of you will like it too !

  11. I still guess you have to wait on plugins made for the new pluginhooks, then you will see of upgrading was worth it.
    I don’t like the AJAX boxes either (hey, its AZ over here :-D), but I0m happy that mine stays minimized.
    I like the preview, I used it already with a plugin.

  12. OK, so I hate the WYSIWYG-editor, and I do believe it stands for What You See Isn’t What You Get ! Skumle, Skumle!!! Besides that I’m pretty impressed with the way that plugins are portable from 1.5.x to 2.0.

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