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WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Final Features, WTC Plugin Contest Winners, WordCamps, Surveys, and More

WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress 2.7 Final Features, WTC Plugin Contest Winners, WordCamps, Surveys, and More

WordPress 2.7 features are now announced and set. Weblog Tools Collection announced their WordPress Plugin Contest winners. WordPress wants your input on the the new WordPress 2.7 interface. Smashing Magazine toasts WordPress development resources. And there are so many WordCamps, you can plan vacations around them. Why not?

WordPress News

What’s Really Going to be in WordPress 2.7? No more beating around the bush. Ryan Boren has pulled the curtain off WordPress 2.7 features to prepare us all for the upcoming release. They include the new “crazyhorse” WordPress Administration Panels interface, a new Write Post Panel that allows dragging and dropping of meta boxes so you can rearrange your writing surface, the ability to hide columns on the content index pages, inline editing of posts and Pages on the new content index pages, comments XMLRPC API, sticky posts, automatic WordPress Plugin installation and integrated Plugin browser, HTTPOnly auth cookies, and much more.

The MOST exciting features are the ability to automatically upgrade WordPress and the total revamping of the Comments Panel to include replying to comments, keyboard shortcuts (hot keys) for managing comments, and threaded comments to help you keep track of the conversation.

Expect an announcement any day on the Development Updates and other WordPress development sources that major testing of these core features will commence as WordPress developers move closer to the release candidates (alpha versions).

Want a Say in the WordPress 2.7 Administration Panels Interface? In announcements on the WordPress Development Blog and on WordPress.com, WordPress users are invited to participate in a survey to have your say on how the navigation options on the WordPress 2.7 Administration Panels interface (UI) should look and work.

Weblog Tools Collection Plugin Winners Announced: The Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition Winners have been announced. WP Comment Remix is the winner of $2,000 and a ton of goodies. Second prize goes to the author of the Manageable WordPress Plugin, followed by third prize, WP Easy Uploader. Consolation prize goes to Prelovac for his amazing work on WordPress Plugins recently. Check out these powerful WordPress Plugin on your own blog and congrats to all the entrants who each win USD $10 just for entering!

WordPress 2.6.2 Upgrade Now: Many people are not taking the latest announcement about the WordPress 2.6.2 upgrade seriously. The security flaw this update repairs applies to all PHP applications, not just WordPress, and specifically targets those with open registration, which includes multiple blogger blogs and registration for comments. All are seriously recommended to has been released and WordPress users are required to download WordPress 2.6.2 and upgrade immediately. WordPress 2.6.2 was released with the fix five hours after the critical security flaw had been filed.

Smashing Magazine Does WordPress Toolbox for Developers: Smashing Magazine offers the WordPress Developers’ Toolbox, a huge collection of tips, tricks, resources, WordPress Themes, WordPress Theme design help, documentation, and tutorials for WordPress users. It’s overwhelming but there is a ton of great information in there. Please make sure that the article you are reading covers the version of WordPress you are using as some of the information is version-specific.

WordCast Podcast: The latest WordCast Podcast featured and should be out soon. Last week’s podcast was WordCast 27: The National Floor League.

Last Week’s WordPress Wednesday News: Can’t get enough WordPress news and tips? There is so much news coming out about the latest version, so you can catch up with the past news in last week’s WordPress Wednesday News: 4 WordCamps, WordPress 2.6.2, Bad Themes, Count Twitterers, Threaded Comments, and Sticky Posts.

WordPress on Your Calendar

WordPress Events CalendarExploring WordCamps on The WordCamp Report: The WordCamp Report is dedicated to WordCamp events and is looking for volunteers to live blog or report on WordCamp events around the world. The site is covering WordCamp news, events, and WordPress events, and includes tips for those who want to bring a WordCamp to their area. Recent articles include:

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).

Upcoming WordCamps not scheduled or confirmed:

WordCamps and WordPress Meetups Everywhere: A WordPress Meetup is a frequent meeting of WordPress fans. A WordCamp is a day or two long event with sponsors and dozens if not hundreds of WordPress fans gathering annually. If you would like to sponsor or host a WordCamp, check out the new official site for tracking WordCamps is WordCamp Central, which includes instructions and guidelines for running a WordCamp. If you would like to start a WordPress Meetup group, find a meeting place and announce it among your friends, and add a listing to the Yahoo Upcoming events for WordPress, as many track WordPress event announcements there. Also, check out the latest WordCamp news from The WordCamp Report.

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

WordPress Plugins DatabaseWordPress 2.6.2 Brings New WordPress Plugin: Peter of Peter’s Useful Crap released his Redirect WordPress Users Plugin with a new filter found in WordPress 2.6.2 which allows redirection of users to different locations after they log into a WordPress blog.

For example, you can have a custom login “landing page” in the WordPress Administration Panels for editors with feeds and information they need to know. Authors and/or Contributors could be redirected to a page of assignments, reminders, or straight to the Write Post Panel, rather than the traditional WordPress dashboard panel. Expect to see more Plugins and uses of this new login redirection filter.

Woopra WordPress Plugin Updated: The Woopra WordPress Plugin for the popular web analytics program, which incorporates Woopra statistics into your WordPress blog, has been updated again. Check out the WordPress Plugin Directory for the latest version.

Still Using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin? John Pozadzides of One Man’s Blog recommends you clean up your database after upgrading from WordPress 2.3 to the latest version if you were using the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin. Upgrading is mandatory, but a lot of people so loved the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin, they weren’t willing to make the change. The latest versions of WordPress now include tags built-in and UTW is no longer supported by the author and WordPress. If you are having trouble, follow John’s tips and clean out or delete the old UTW table in your WordPress database. And remember, the upgrades are also for security purposes. Don’t leave your blog vulnerable.

Interesting WordPress Plugins:

See Also
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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.

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Here are some interesting WordPress tips I’ve uncovered:

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 logoSSL Now Available for WordPress.com Bloggers: WordPress.com announced the ability for their bloggers to protect blogs with SSL. If you are blogging on a public access point, “blogjackers” can prey on security vulnerabilities and possibly collect sensitive information. By adding SSL protection, you will automatically be logged onto your blog with an HTTPS connection (secure). You’ve always had the option, but few WordPress.com bloggers understood how it worked.

To activate this new feature, go to My Account > Edit Profile in the WordPress Administration Panels and check of “Always use HTTPS when visiting Administration pages” under Browser Connection.

Another New WordPress Theme: WordPress.com announced the addition of the DePo Masthead WordPress Theme by Derek Powazek. It features a minimalist magazine design with dynamic features such as header font size changes depending upon the length of the blog title, column heights for front page articles will always be equal, interesting navigation options, and hidden, unfolding comments.

WordPress.com FAQ Gets Screencasts: The WordPress.com FAQ now has screencasts on their guide posts helping WordPress.com users learn more about how to use specific WordPress.com features.

WordPress Community News

WordPress Community graphicThings You Need to Know in the WordPress Community:

Past WordPress Wednesday News Reports

WordPress News Sources

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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

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