WordPress Rolls Out 2.9
I have a few other blogs hosted on WordPress.com’s free platform. To be honest I use the free storage of WP.com to host my pictures. But I don’t forget to write new posts pretty often on WordPress.com so that it doesn’t count me as a storage-only user and ban me.
Since I’m a user or WP.com, I have already been using the amazing features that wordpress has built recently. I was dying to have them on my self-hosted blogs, too. And that’s why I, along with millions of other wordpress users, was waiting for WordPress version 2.9 to release.
The much-awaited version of WordPress has finally released lately. And now you can upgrade your self-hosted blogs to the version 2.9 with a one-click upgrade from “Tools” > “Upgrade” (just in case the notification bar isn’t displayed in your dashboard). Before you proceed, you are always advised to keep a backup of your database. In most cases, nothing happens. But who knows what your fortune is!
The smartest version of the smartest blogging engine in the earth has come out.
There have been some great improvements in the newly released version of WordPress. Fetching from the development blog, here I’ve noted a few of the mentionable features now available in 2.9.
Built-in Image Editor
This is what I liked most. In the version 2.9, you can edit your photo as soon as it is uploaded. You will also notice some additional text boxes (such as for “alternate text”) after your photo is uploaded. In case you need to make some editing to your photo, just click the Edit Image button, and you’ll be there.
This is how the editor looks like.
In the editor, you can scale/resize your uploaded photo, flip it, crop any part of it, and lots more. Just move your blog to the version 2.9 and explore what’s more.
Trash
Have you ever cried due to accidentally deleting one or more posts or pages? Well, from now on, you can deal with accidents happily. Because the wordpress version 2.9 brings a brand new feature called “Trash”, which grabs all the deleted posts and pages and secure them in it. Once you need a deleted post or page back, just go to trash and restore it. If you’re sure that you don’t really need one particular post/page or more, you can also delete them permanently. Compare it with your Windows PC’s Recycle Bin. It’s no different than that.
Embed Videos Lazily
I already mentioned that I’m also a semi-active user of WP.com. In WP.com, you don’t really need to mess with a lot of codes, as it takes the hassles off by providing shortcode features. For example, if you need to embed a youtube video, you just write a shortcode and copy the link. The video will be embedded automatically.
I didn’t know that WordPress’ self-hosted versions are different. So, when I put the link in one of my personal blog’s posts, I was wondering that the video wasn’t embedded. To embed the video properly, I needed to go and find out some codes from the YouTube’s relevant page. Then it worked.
However, in WordPress 2.9, you don’t need to mess with any codes. You just paste the video link inside the post, and the rocker (a.k.a. WordPress) will magically change that into an embedding code. The video is embedded!
Batch Plugin Update
Ever felt too lazy to update several plugins? Well, the day is over. WordPress 2.9 lets you update multiple plugins at once. Once you have got more than one plugin to upgrade to their latest version, simply head over to “Tools” > “Upgrade” menu. There you will have option to select how many plugins you want to upgrade at the same time.
WordPress’ URL Shortener
In earlier versions, I didn’t have the “Get Shortlink” button appearing right next to the Parmalink of the post while editing. I have been using it in wordpress.com for quite a long time. In case you didn’t know, WordPress has its own URL shortener wp.me, which it offered earlier to all of the wordpress.com users. And now, with the version 2.9, it comes out of the dot com, too. It makes your sharing process faster than ever before. No more hassling with third-party URL shorteners. With WordPress you are self-dependent!
(The shortlink of this post is http://wp.me/pzC24-ab )
(Note: In order to get the WordPress shortlink feature, you need to have a WordPress.com account and your self-hosted blog needs to be linked with your WordPress.com account. Installing the Plugin “WordPress.com Stats” and linking it with your wordpress.com account might get the job done.)
Conclusion
There is a lot more improvements and new features that have been rolled out with the newest version of the world’s most preferred, most popular, and the smartest blogging and Content Management Software, WordPress.
See other updates from the wordpress development blog.
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