I bet you didn’t know that WordPress already includes several common JavaScript libraries, ready to be called upon with a simple template tag. Libraries such as
Want to use jQuery in your theme, for a tabbed box, an AJAX something, or some sort of DHTML effect? You can add it in with a single template tag in your header.
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WordPress 2.7 will be shipping within the next couple weeks, bringing with it a variety of improvements and new features.
Now that it’s feature set is pretty much set in stone, let’s start talking about version 2.8. What kind of features do you want to see added to the core?
Some of the more popular major feature requests are
I wouldn’t mind seeing the OpenID, it might make it easier to leave comments on blogs, but I don’t want it to replace the URL field, a problem with current plugins, I’ve noticed. I’d also like to see WordPress’s hooks and template tags documented better.
What bothers you about WordPress? What’s should be added?
The first beta of WordPress 2.7 is out, and I have to say it’s starting to look good. A couple things that bug me, but overall it’s coming along great.
Before downloading the latest trunk off the WordPress SVN repository, I listened to the newest episode of the WordPress Weekly podcast, which focuses on the WordPress 2.7 admin, specifically from a usability standpoint and the general direction the WordPress team is going with it. Definitely worth a listen.
I really like the customizability of 2.7. You can re-order and hide parts of the Write panel, like in WordPress 2.4 and prior, and the Dashboard is completely customizable now.
The new vertical navigation seems to work fairly well, better than I’d first thought. It’s not perfect, mainly because you have to do some scrolling to navigate it occasionally, but it’s probbly better from a usabilty standpoint than WordPress 2.5’s “click…load page…click” system, and the vertical space allows for more top-level menus, if you like that sort of thing. I’d also like it if you could re-order the navigation items, but alas, you can’t.
Overall it’s nice and clean. The “new design,” doesn’t feel so much like a redesign, but an improvement on the last one. The color scheme’s the same, most of the elements are similar, but they re-structured it a little and made a bunch of visual and usability tweaks.
One thing that I really don’t like is that the post slug is no longer “2.5-style,” but is back to the form it was in WordPress 2.3, a meta box with a form field in it. I much prefered having the small line of dynamic text under the post title field. I edit the post slug fairly often, and I don’t like this change. I hope that the change is either a temporary thing while they work, which is definitely a possibility, and will hopefully go away by the time the final release is out. If not, then the change was likely made in order to bring further customization to the Write panel, allowing you to move or hide the slug field. While that’s all well and good, I don’t like it. My two cents, developers.
Oh, and did I mention that core files can be updated automatically now? I bet it will be worth the upgrade just to not have to manually upgrade next time. 
Anyway, I’m excited about 2.7, are you?
Remember the Revolution WordPress themes? (I certainly do, I used to make some good money off their affiliate links…) Well, there have been some changes happening. The old Revolution premium themes are no longer available, and they have been replaced by a set of themes that aren’t just free but open source as well.
Revolution Two, as the theme collection is called, is an interesting idea. The themes are all free and open source. You can use them however you want, even use them as a basis for contracted client design work, and the cost is $0.00.
To make money off their work, the Revolution Two people offer paid plans for support and the like. My only complain is that they push the paid subscription links in your face, while the “Download unsupported version” link is tiny and easy to overlook. I’m not against them making money, but they don’t have to hide the download link.
The Revolution Two team also offers custom design services, for those with a bit of cash and a need for a unique design.
Overall I think the launch of Revolution Two has gone fairly well. Hopefully we’ll see some additional themes coming out soon from them.
Thumbnails can really liven up an otherwise plain list of posts, and add a bit of visual interest. By associating thumbnails with posts you gain a lot of flexibility that you would not have if you just relied on images in post excerpts. This allows you to have more compact listings in archives, yet be a little more visual. (The only disadvantage is you can’t show the thumbnails in WordPress RSS feeds.)
First, a few examples of good use of post thumbnails:
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Just a reminder, the Revolution premium WordPress themes will no longer be available for purchase as of midnight on October 31st.
With the launch of the free Revolution Two themes (post coming soon!), the designer has decided to discontinue the old themes (which are pretty good). I understand his not wanting to make the old themes free, which wouldn’t be very fair to those who paid for them, but why drop them entirely?
So if you’re in the market for a premium WordPress theme, you’d better hurry.
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The WP125 Ad Management Plugin has gained quite a sizeable following over the past few months, with nearly 4,000 downloads logged in WordPress/Extend as I write this. (Note that there were likely a lot of downloads before it was accepted into the repository.)
Overall, I think it’s been successful.
The point of the plugin has been to provide an easy way to manage 125×125 ads, rather than relying on hand-coding or more complex ad-serving applications like OpenX. The goal has been to make it the right choice for as many bloggers as possible who want to sell 125×125 ads.
So, how is it? What do you like about WP125? What do you want to see in it? Is there something about it that just bugs you? What killer feature is missing that you just have to have?
The next release of WP125 is in the works currently, and I’m working on it off and on, whenever I have some spare time. Now is a good time to suggest new additions or changes.
This is you chance to voice your opinions about the plugin. Any constructive criticism or suggestions are welcome.
WordPress 2.7 will be here soon, the release only weeks away. In addition to long-awaited major features such as automatic core file updates, we’ll be seeing another major redesign on the Admin pages. The goal of the redesign is to improve usability, require less pageloads to get where you want to go, and to offer much more in the way of customization options.
We’ll finally be seeing the beginings of the customizable Dashboard that’s been in the works for some time. Modules will be reorderable by dragging and dropping, and collapsed/expanded at will.
It looks pretty good to me. Hopefully the new WordPress release won’t break too many plugins…especially WP125 and GoCodes. 
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Moderate Comments With Adobe AIR
Oct 28, 2008 by Matt | Posted in WordPress 2 CommentsIf your WordPress-based blog gets a lot of comments, it can be a pain to keep up on them.
Approving/spamming comments is sadly something that has to be done frequently, otherwise the unmoderated comments tend to pile up. Let’s face it, if you run a fairly high-traffic blog, you don’t want to trek over to the WordPress Admin to moderate comments.
That’s where Daniel Dura’s “Moderator” comes in. Moderator is an Adobe AIR app that brings the unmoderated comments to you. It sits in your Dock or System Tray and notifies you as the comments stack up in the queue. From there, you can approve, spam, or delete the comments after reading them.
The app requires WordPress 2.6+, and you must install a WordPress plugin before using the app. Once WP 2.7 is out, the developer will release a new version of Moderator to take advantage of 2.7’s comment API, which will make the plugin unneccesary.