WordPress 2.5 is on it’s way. It’s now due March 10, 2008. Are you ready?
As a WordPress blogger, you need to be ready to upgrade your blog. Why not take time now to clean up your Theme, fix all those little nagging things desperately in need of fixing, and make note of all the customizations, WordPress Plugins, and code hacks you’ve done with your blog. A little homework can make the process faster, easier, and less stressful.
WordPress Theme Designers Must Prepare for Changes
As a WordPress Theme designer, have you updated and prepared your Theme for the new additions and features coming to WordPress? Like the improved ability to allow multiple sidebars in a WordPress Theme, addition of is_front_page() query for Themes to display content specific to the front page of the blog, new ability to limit the tree depth of wp_dropdown_categories() and wp_list_categories(), new post query function for ordering posts randomly, and the inclusion of get_avatar() for Themes to automatically include Gravatars and avatars.
Have you checked in on the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, for the latest news and information on Migrating WordPress Plugins and Themes to WordPress 2.5?
WordPress Plugin Authors Update Your Plugins Now
As a WordPress Plugin author, is your WordPress Plugin updated and ready to work with the new improvements and changes in the core of WordPress? With the changes in the documentation and feature updates and deprecations in the pluggable.php file? Have you been monitoring the latest security news and reports on vulnerabilities found in many WordPress Plugins and making sure that yours doesn’t pose a security risk to users?
Have you been keeping track of the changes to the WordPress Administration Panels interface and how they will impact your WordPress Plugin such as the merger of the Merging of Profile and Edit User Panels, addition of “meta boxes” to write post forms, and new interface for Widget management for Widget-style Plugins?
What about the exciting new features like the Media Library for uploading images and multimedia files, and the work being done on the Automatic Upgrade feature? Working on a Plugin to enhance these?
Some of the changes are making some popular WordPress Plugins incompatible by including them or a version of their code into the WordPress core programming, such as the integration of the popular Optimal Title WordPress Plugin technique of putting the post title first followed by the blog title and the new Tag Management Panel to edit tags.
With all of the changes, it pays to track the functions that are added and removed from service. You can track them with Peter Westwood’s Deprecated Functions List.
If you are considering writing a WordPress Plugin, or making improvements to the one you have, check out Adam Brown’s WordPress Hooks Database for a version-specific listing of the hooks you need to know for your Plugin.
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