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WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.5 Due March 17, Administration Plugins May Break, Tons of Plugins Updated, Add Buttons to Toolbar, WordPress Dallas and Now Milan!

WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.5 Due March 17, Administration Plugins May Break, Tons of Plugins Updated, Add Buttons to Toolbar, WordPress Dallas and Now Milan!

The early release of WordPress 2.5 has been delayed until March 17. Administration WordPress Plugins may break with WordPress 2.5. Lots of Plugins updated to be ready for WordPress 2.5. Did you know you will be able to change the colors of the Administration Panels? Want Plugins to add more buttons to the Rich Text Editor button toolbar? WordCamp Dallas is two weeks away. WordCamp Milan is announced. Can you spot a WordPress blog when you see one?

WordPress News

WordPress 2.5 Back on Track: The WordPress Trac has been updated for March 17 release of WordPress 2.5 and reports that it is 59% completed with 566 closed tickets and 396 active tickets, though some may be pushed to the next release. Originally the release date for WordPress 2.5 was the end of March. Determined to beat that, Ryan Boren and his team announced an earlier date of March 10. Unfortunately, illness stepped in the way, so WordPress 2.5 has a new release date of March 17, though it could be later since it hasn’t gone into beta testing yet.

The news from the WordPress Development Updates includes mention that Matt T cleaned up the color scheme picker which allows you to change the colors of the new Administration Panels interface, direct editing of media attachments from within the new Media Library, and news that part of the slowdown in development was due to Ryan Boren’s recent illness. Hope you are recovered and back on track, Ryan!

For more information on WordPress 2.5, read:


Administration WordPress Plugins May Break in WordPress 2.5: planetOzh is working overtime to update his Plugins for WordPress 2.5 and warns that most WordPress Administration Panel WordPress Plugins, especially those which change the look and behavior of the Administration Panels (often misnamed the dashboard). He’s working on updating his popular Admin Drop Down Menu WordPress Plugin, but do check in with your favorite Administration Panel Plugin author to ensure they’ve updated their Plugin to work with the new WordPress 2.5 interface.

Is That a WordPress Blog? Many companies and individuals are using WordPress as a CMS, running their entire site on WordPress, even though you may never know it. The WordPress Publisher Blog regularly features sites running on WordPress that you might not recognize if you weren’t told. This week, Jeffro2pt0 asks, “Is It Or Is It Not WordPress” and answers with some interesting examples of non-WordPress looking WordPress-driven sites including: Ford Auto Shows, AlphaDogPR, Trade Secret Consultants, Ghanamusic.com, Kineda, Pregnancyloss, and BangBang.

WordPress Podcast: WordPress Podcast: Episode 37 with Charles Stricklin and Jonathan Bailey covered Jonathan’s upcoming presentation at the International Plagiarism Conference at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-tyne, UK, Charles’ presentation of WordPress for Podcasters at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas in August, more exciting news about the upcoming WordCamp Dallas event March 29-30, WordPress 2.5 news or the lack there of, Webware 100 and the inclusion of WordPress, review of WordPress Plugins, polls, and more.

WordPress Weekly with Jeffro2pt0: This week’s This week’s WordPress Weekly Podcast covered the Buddy Press acquisition, Gravatars with and without a plugin, Ebay decided to use WordPress, and more on WordPress 2.5.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Last week’s WordPress Wednesday News report covered WordPress 2.5 Next Week, WordPress Goes Social, Cleaning Out Splogs, and More WordPress News, for those who just can’t get enough WordPress news.

WordPress Security News

WordPress SecurityUpgrade WordPress Now: WordPress 2.5 is due out soon, but reports continue to come in about WordPress blogs being hacked because they haven’t listened to the shouts of those warning them of security flaws nor have they upgraded to WordPress 2.3.3. Is the wait worth it?

WordPress Plugins Reveal Security Vulnerabilities and Flaws: If you are using a WordPress Plugin that is at risk, your blog may be at risk. Recent security announcements about WordPress Plugin security issues include:

WordPressMU Mandatory Upgrade: In accordance with the mandatory security upgrade for WordPress 2.3.3, Donncha O’Caoimh has announce the release of WordPressMU 1.3.3 based upon that security release.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarWordCamp Dallas:Dallas WordCamp is two weeks away! Start the drums beating to help publicize this exciting WordPress event in Frisco, Texas on March 29-30, 2008. If you haven’t registered by now, you might not get a t-shirt! Register now!

WordCamp Milan/WordPress Europe: European WordCamp, aka WordCamp Milan and WordCamp Italy, has been announced for May 10, 2008, though it is still in the planning stages. Matt Mullenweg has promised to attend, and there is a Barcamp Wiki with information in English (Italian). There has been a lot of confusion about this WordCamp. Announced as the “first” European WordCamp, this is not mean to disregard WordCamp Hamburg held recently in Germany. The goals of this WordCamp is to be “European” and embrace WordPress and blogging experts from around Europe, creating a “united” European conference rather than a country specific conference. Technology and people power to handle the many language translations of speakers and attendees could be very interesting, especially on such extremely short notice. Stay tuned for more news!

WordPress Meetup or WordCamp Near You? If you are putting together a WordPress event, please email me so I can publicize it here. If there is a WordCamp near you, go. If you are interested in setting up a WordCamp, stay tuned for news and information on to bring a WordCamp event near you.

Here are some WordPress-related dates and events to put on your calendar as found on the WordPress Roadmap and the WordPress Meetup Group Listings (subject to change):

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseAdd Quicktag buttons to the Rich Text Editor Toolbar: There are a couple Plugins which allow you to add more buttons and/or customize the MCE Editor Toolbar that comes with WordPress as the Rich Text Editor. The Advanced TinyMCE Editor WordPress Plugin adds 60 new functions and features and TinyMCE Advanced WordPress Plugin incorporates 16 different WordPress Plugins into one, including Advanced hr, Advanced Image, Advanced Link, Context Menu, Emotions (Smilies), Full Screen, IESpell, Layer, Media, Nonbreaking, Print, Search and Replace, Style, Table, Visual Characters and XHTML Extras, totally over 40 new buttons on the toolbar.

Other TinyMCE/WordPress related WordPress Plugins include:

Theme Designers Are Asked About the Future of Premium WordPress Themes: Theme Shaper invited top WordPress Theme designers to discuss “The Future of WordPress Themes” and how Premium WordPress Themes (paid Themes) can work together with the open source community of WordPress while still using WordPress as a source of income.

Sociable Updated: Joost de Valk has updated his popular Sociable WordPress Plugin which puts a list of social bookmarking and site submission site links on your blog posts.

When Spam Comments Flood the Subscribe to Comments WordPress Plugin: Perishable Press offers tips for removing spam registration the very popular Subscribe to Comments WordPress Plugin after finding dozens and dozens of spam entries in the subscription list.

YouTube API Improved – Expect More WordPress Plugins: WordPress Plugin authors who have or are working on YouTube specific WordPress Plugins have some new toys to play with according to the recent announcement on the YouTube blog of improves to the YouTube API. These include uploading videos and video responses, meta data adding and editing ability for video details, fetch localized standard feeds including most viewed and top rated for 18 international locales, custom queries for those international locales, and customization of the Player UI and control of video playback through software. Keep an eye out for some interesting WordPress Plugins that could jump upon these new improvements and integrate them within your WordPress blog.

Creating a Private Blog: Simply Basic offers “Making a Private Family Blog? 8 Essential WordPress Plugins You’ll Need”, a look at the Plugins you can use to create private blog for family or otherwise, allowing only members to view the blog. The list includes Members Only WordPress Plugin, Custom Login WordPress Plugin, Force User Field Registration WordPress Plugin, and WP User Moderation WordPress Plugin.

Organize Your WordPress Blog Article Series: Organize Series WordPress Plugin is being updated for WordPress 2.5. It’s an amazingly powerful Plugin that helps organize article series on your blog, helping feature all of the series you’ve written and how to find an article within that series easily. It uses the post categories and tags to group article series together, allows CSS styling and customization. I’m still a fan of the In Series WordPress Plugin, but Unfolding Neurons is pushing Organize Series to new levels of articles series writing and organizing.

Trackbacks and Pings in WordPress Themes: Weblog Tools Collection tackles “Managing Trackbacks and Pingbacks in Your WordPress Theme”, covering tips and techniques for separating trackbacks and pingbacks from regular comments, how to remove them, and other interesting tips for managing trackbacks and pingbacks.

Viper’s Video Quicktags Updated: The popular Viper’s Video Quicktags WordPress Plugin has been updated to work with WordPress 2.5.

Tracking WordPress Compatibility: It’s often difficult to track what Plugin and Theme is compatible with which WordPress version. In the are two “master” pages that list all the various compatibilities: WordPress Theme Compatibilities and WordPress Plugin Compatibilities. No matter which version you are using, and in preparation for the next version of WordPress, add these to your WordPress resource list to check before you upgrade.

Plugin and Theme Compatibility Issues for Authors and Designers: If you have a WordPress Plugin or Theme, see Migrating Plugins and Themes for tips on updating your Plugin or Theme for the latest version of WordPress. Once updated, make sure to include it on the WordPress Compatibility lists so users will know which version is updated and ready to work with the latest WordPress.

Interesting WordPress Plugins: I’m constantly amazed at how many creative and useful WordPress Plugins are released each week. Aren’t you?

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, the WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection Plugin and Theme announcements.

See Also
YouTube features for Content Creators

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Import iWeb Blog to WordPress: Maciverse has instructions for “How To: Import your iWeb Blog to WordPress” for those migrating from iWeb to a WordPress blog.

WordPress Help: If you are looking for help on using WordPress, begin by visiting the , the online manual for WordPress Users, then searching the or WordPress.com Forums, depending upon your version.

WordPress Tips and Techniques: Here are some featured articles and videos from around the WordPress Community:

Want to Write a WordPress Tip and See It Here? If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips and Writing and Publishing Code In Your WordPress Blog Posts. When its ready, contact me at lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com.

WordPress.com News

WordPress.com W logoWordPress.com Blogs Fixed Fast: According to Donncha O’Caoimh, master of WordPressMU which runs , the security vulnerability for WordPress.com blogs reported earlier this week was fixed in less than 10 minutes. Well done.

New To WordPress.com: If you are new to blogging on WordPress.com, check out this basic guide on What Do I Do With My New WordPress.com Blog?.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphic
Vote for WordPress Ideas: There is still time to get your vote in for ideas on upcoming versions of WordPress in the The section. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? If you are looking for a WordPress expert, try the WordPress Consultants list the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

Using WordPress in Your Blog’s Name: It’s about respect. Please use WordPress names right because WordPress is a trademark and you are not allowed to use WordPress in your blog’s domain name or URL unless you have permission of and . Also, remember, it’s spelled “WordPress” not “WordPress”. Oh, and Plugin is Plugin, not plug-in (what you put into a wall electrical socket).

Found a Bug in WordPress? If you find a bug in WordPress, report it by following the instructions in Reporting Bugs on the , the online manual for WordPress Users.

Shop WordPress: You can now buy hoodies or mugs with the WordPress logo on them in the WordPress Shop.

WordPress Installed For Free: Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress) is a free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Even More WordPress News?

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

If You Are Reading This: If you are reading this blog post NOT on the or from within your feed reader, it is being used against the copyright policy of the copyright owners. Please report it immediately so action may be taken to break some heads and feed scraping blogs.


Each Wednesday on is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

View Comments (3)
  • Thanks for the link Lorelle. I wrote the post to sort of highlight the fact that WordPress doesn’t have to abide by the look of your typical blog. The post has been rather popular as of late.

    As for 2.5, I guess good things come to those who wait. What is awesome to see is that today, I came across one of the if not the first WordPress 2.5 admin themes. Wow!

  • Thanks for the link lorelle (organize series). Just a minor correction though. Organize Series 2.0 won’t use the category taxonomy anymore. It uses the new WordPress taxonomy schema and creates a new “series” taxonomy. So with Organize Series you’ll now have tags, categories, and the new taxonomy “series” with WordPress using all the core WordPress goodness!

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