rh3toric

Well another Jenkintown ritual has come and passed.

By the way the Reds won. Go Red!

I am going to refrain from saying that this update outright sucks, but I am not entirely happy. There are some great things added in and I have no issue with 2.5’s technical improvements (this list has a bunch).

This gripe is about the new UI. It seems evident that the designers involved have very little experience with WordPress and using WP as a CMS with their clients. Many of the elements in the admin area that make WP easier for my clients to use have been removed or fiddled with to the point where it is useless.

Now it is very possible that most people who use WP to blog and possibly have just a couple “pages” and do not usually build unique/custom template pages for special sections/content will probably see no issue with this update. If you use categories you probably will.

1. Header menu and content area (div.wrap) have different widths While the header menu retains the old style of flexing to the browser width the content area is defaulted to a max width style (984px). While this is minimal and the truth is most of my clients are on crappy Windows boxes with less the 1024px width, I actually have a bunch of clients where they are all on Macs or laptops with 1200px or better width screens.
2. What the hell is that dashboard link about? This placement is a major waste of space, there goes 30px of my screen I will never get back. OK, I may be nit picking on this one, but I think the new dashboard is more relevant than a landing page after you log in. Why isn’t it in another menu (I suggest the one on the left next to Settings is the best fit).
3. Removal of elements in sidebar to below entry area. This is a general gripe about the write post/page layout shuffle. With the old design I rarely had to scroll down to change many of the things that are now well below the post entry area (categories, comments, trackbacks, etc).
4. During the update I had two sites using WordPress in development. The clients had started entering content after a brief WP tutorial. Several days after the update, I started to hear grumbling. Even though the new Media Library and the image uploading options are awesome improvements, the new way to upload images is virtually invisible to all but the savvy. Hey I saw it and knew it was there, but my clients, they do not live and breath web stuff and they had no idea what the tiny icons and “Add media” were meant for.
5. Removal of “Save and Continue Editing”, yes I am well aware that WP will save things for you on the fly this is a lets make sure it was done thing. Many of the saving behaviors are odd as well. Clicking “Publish” should return you to a new post/page or Manage Posts/Pages. Clicking “Save” should be like the old “Save and Continue…”.
6. I am annoyed by the removal of the “Create a New Page” link in Manage Pages and always thought there should be one in Manage Posts as well. I am not sure how you work, but this creates a lot of extra clicking.
7. Post Timestamp - This change in nomenclature to “Publish Immediately” is confusing. The term “Publish Immediately” is a command not a question. Is this an option (the edit link suggests so) or a command (do I click on this).
8. Below many text fields there are helpful hints. This is great, but can we toggle their view, once you know what each field is for this is just annoying
9. Manage Pages - Call me old fashioned, but view, edit, and delete those words they mean something and that helps when you want to view edit or delete. The ability to click on the “Date” in the header above the list of pages and then hit Delete is just a bad idea. I do not know anyone who would want to delete all their pages in one move. Currently this page does not respect the Page Order values like the old one did (did I mention that is bad). One addition I have always wanted here was the ability to toggle the visibility of child pages.

Note: I started this post after I upgraded one site (so far, I have updated 5 more sites). I refrained from posting immediately to make sure I was not just writing a gut reaction. Asking my clients their thoughts on the changes, I received a lot of negative comments. Today 2.5.1 was released and I do hope there are some fixes in it for the UI. All said the new UI is not a colossal blunder, but it contains many shortsighted designer/developer centric elements that make it a move backwards in terms of WP’s usability. The one reason I use WordPress, is because of how easy it is to use and that I can hand off site management, for the most part, to a non-web person.

I gave in this year and let the kids have their own camera. I almost feel guilty. It may be digital, but the dc260 is a clunker. By the time they want to take the second shot it is finally taking the first. Need to find them a camera like my first one, an Olympus RC35.

Yesterday Apple started shipping Time Capsules. At six something this morning my shipment notification came through. FedEx picked up in Shanghai.

Having lost the ability to do wireless on my old router, I am eagerly awaiting its arrival.

All the press and hubbub since January’s MacWorld Conference has been about the MacBook Air. All the love and hate banter about it. I will admit the Air is slick and there is come techno-lust, but the real gem of that show in my opinion was the Time Capsule.

This little device is what many folks have been waiting for and it is very possible that it may be the first in a line of similar products (I hope). Before the announcement I constantly debated the purchase of a Network Area Storage (NAS). This solution has two big problems, cost and compatibility. With the Time Capsule you may lose some scalability, but add in the wireless router and that Apple reliability/simplicity.

Well, it will arrive this coming Tuesday. We shall see then if I made the right decision.

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