- Image via CrunchBase
Have you played around in WordPress 2.8 yet? Oh, c’mon I’m not the only one who likes a fresh new toy, am I? Especially one that’s FREE! If not, here’s a list of things to do first:
- Take in the View:
Go the Appearance Panel – look at the *brand new* Add New Themes selection! Go ahead – click it! You can upload themes as you wish, and it will not change the appearance of your blog, until you “Activate” it. Don’t upload more than 15 – 20 though, as this could start to affect the speed of your blog. -
Get Organized!!
Have a peek at the Plugins Panel. I love the new list – all alphabetical, with links to the plugin’s home page, author’s web page, settings page, edit, and the activate/deactivate link. And it’s all so pretty! - Re-arrange the Sidebar
The biggest change is in the Appearance >> Widgets panel. You can now drag and drop widgets between sidebars. And, you can even drag a widget out of the sidebar and save the settings! So if you want to use that widget in the future, it is still right there. You can edit the widgets “on the fly” which means that there is no “update” button at the bottom of the sidebar to click. Once you click on “save” in the widget itself, it is really, truly, saved. Another little tweak – you can use a widget more than once. No more restrictions!
- Move the Furniture!!
Now take a look at the top of your admin screen, to the right: “Screen Options”. Click on that and check out the new options on nearly every page! You have to check out the Dashboard screen options: you can select up to 4 columns and nearly every box in that dashboard has its own set of configurations.
- Play!!
Here are the rules: sign out.
Okay. Ready?
Sign back in.
Did you see how FAST that was? I know. Makes ya want to do it again, doesn’t it? Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Just a test comment!
I’ve been a little nervous about making the switch because I’m concerned it might mess up the custom template you built for me – am I worried unnecessarily?
Hi Mara,
However, all of that appearance stuff is generated through the theme files that I wrote foryou. The upgrade to wordpress itself, is to, well, wordpress files. And the two – appearance files & wordpress files – are kept very separate. I purposely make a point to rarely edit the wordpress files so you can upgrade without fear of breaking anything. The theme I wrote is forward-compatible for a while- as far as I could predict anyhow… If there ever comes a change that will break your theme, I’ll have plenty of warning, and I’ll post that type of thing here on the blog, and get in touch with you as well.
That’s a very understandable worry! That template is quite customized, so we do want to use kid gloves!
Good luck!!
But follow the instructions on the previous post on upgrading, k? https://desperatelyseekingwp.com/2009/06/how-to-upgrade-to-wordpress-28/