I’ve had the opportunity to set up a blog in WordPress 2.0 today, and although I’m not going to provide a full guide (yet) on how to upgrade (until I get around to doing it :-) ) a blog to WordPress 2.0, there are a couple of things I want to share about the new version you need to keep in mind whether you are upgrading or setting it up for the first time.
1. What Works
Asymptomatic has your prep list, although I’d note that in my early tests blogs based on variations of Kubrick work without needing to be changed.
2. Plugins
Unfortunately WP is like MT when it comes to upgrades, a lot of your plugins aren’t going to work. Thankfully Matt Mullenweg has a full list of what does work here, and I’m noticing that a lot of my favorite plugins are being updated to work with WP 2.0 in the last couple of days.
3. The Interface
It ain’t 2.0 for nothing, and the interface has had a fairly large makeover. Be prepared for touches of AJAX and lots of blue. Aesthetics where never a strong point in WordPress and unfortunately they haven’t gotten any better, but the layout will still be familiar
4. Writing
The biggest difference in the new version is that you are now presented with a WYSIWIG interface for writing your posts as default. Some people will like this, and I respect that fully, personally I hate it. After some hunting I found that this can be turned off by selecting a click box in the user menu. The good thing about this, particularly if you’ve got multiple writers, is that its a preference set per user.
5. Image Management
The worst thing about WP 2.0 is the new attempt at image management. Now to be fair, image management has never a strong point in earlier versions of WordPress either (or most other blogging platforms…) but we always could use plugins to help us along. WP 2.0 uses a combination of WYSIWIG and AJAX to deliver users the ability to upload and drag images into posts. Which is great, only that there is absolutely no way of putting a full picture in a post, only a thumb nail. Personally I’d suggest (along with a whole pile of people on the WordPress forums are suggesting) is that you use the new version of the IImage plugin. Note though that it only works if you’ve got WYSIWIG turned off, but it delivers a solid Web 1.0 functional plugin where as the Web 2.0 image management in WP2.0 is an abject failure.
More soon, particularly when I get around to upgrading the Blog Herald, but all in all it doesn’t seem as big a leap as WP1.2 to 1.5 was.
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