Last weekend I spent a few days away from WordPress and work in general to spend some quality time with the girlfriend. When I got back and updated my local copy of WordPress (via svn) I was surprised to see that they had started to incorporate all of the user testing information feedback they had received at the test camps earlier this year.
I am really pleased to see the changes as they are moving WordPress in a very positive direction. I was never particularly bothered by the WordPress 2.5 admin update. It looked a lot nicer that the old version but there were a number of changes I disagreed with. However, I am very pleased to say, the new version is working much better.
Below are screenshots of the new Dashboard (only added today) and the new Write Post page, click for a bigger image.

A few of the things I found interesting that you can’t necessarily tell from the screenshots.
- There is now an Inbox on the dashboard (and also in the utilities menu). This seems to be a combination of WordPress announcements, comments, trackbacks, and whatever else the clever folks at Automattic can think of.
- The Quick Press box on the Dashboard, for fast posting, is a nice touch
- The “widgets” on the write post page can be dragged around again – however you can’t see that they can be dragged from the wide column to the small one, so you can lay things out exactly as you want.
- The “widgets” on the write post page can also be shown and hidden on a per widget basis – so things will be exactly as you want
- A help link in the main menu. Currently it does nothing but in the future… who knows?
- Categories (and Link Categories) have been shifted into the “Utilities” menu..?
I realise we’re a long way from a 2.7 release and that lots of things will change but I have a few comments on how I would alter things (hopefully for the better)
- I would make the “Write New Post” button a different colour (green?) to make it stand out more, and I would add a “Write New Page” button/ link, which would make things easier for people who use WordPress as a CMS – which seems to be a growing audience.
- I would knock the sub menu text size down a notch and increase the width of the sub menu column ever so slightly to help out the links that have long names.
- Display post & page id and category ids somewhere on the manage post/ page/ category pages. They’re used a lot in plugins and themes so it would be useful to be able to see them
It’s a massive improvement on what went before it, and will make my admin tweaks plugin redundant, which is great!
Ben is a lifelong Nintendo fan who likes to build websites, and make video games. He buys way too much Lego.
Definitely like the direction of the new Admin interface. It does look a little confusing at first glance but it’s starting to look like all the other admin modding plugins I’ve used over the years. If it works out, I probably wouldn’t have to even skin the new admin at all, which is a bonus. Less plugins to use.
Edrei – agreed π It looks like integrating often requested functionality, and popular plugins are what they are doing with this version of WordPress.
Great comments, thanks for your feedback. π
Looks like the old facebook / current buddypress screenshots; a bad thing, I want something designed by WP gurus not a copy of something else that people are familiar with which is good but can be better.
Matt – no problem, WordPress is fantastic and I’m really glad it’s moving the way it is.
Mike – I guess that’s down to personal preference. Using the beta version on my dev machine makes the versions on my live site feel clunky and old. Sure, the aesthetics could be tweaked, but plugins can do that quite easily. Personally I feel the new structure is considerably more usable than the old.
Great article thanks for sharing I really enjoyed reading this article thank you for sharing… π
Also I have a draft post about “CrazyHorse” that I would like to include your Photo above since it’s a side by side photo and was wondering if I could have permission to use it in my post with a credit link back
to this post.
Thanks
Teck
btw, you can just try wp 2.7 on my blog: wp.blogywalkie.com. Use “test” as your password and username
this is very new, wp2.7 on my blog is prototype version. only few blogger has copy of it, include me. check it out guys!!!!
check it out about wp. 27, online live wordpress, just at my blog!!!