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Reasons Not To Upgrade WordPress

Reasons Not To Upgrade WordPress

By Jeffro on September 27, 2011

I love the concept behind this list. WordCamp Orange County organizer and WordPress developer Brandon Dover has compiled a list featuring some of the craziest excuses he’s heard for not upgrading WordPress. However, the list also includes reasons that have been submitted by readers. As of this writing, there are 23 reasons listed. My favorites so far are 5, 6, 15, and 20. Keep in mind when reading the list that the page is a joke and while some of the reasons are certainly legitimate, others such as My mom told me not to are clearly not. The list certainly got me to laugh out loud a few times.

I hacked core and didn’t submit a patch. *GASP*

I like feeling vulnerable.

I’ve been living under a rock.

I don’t want to be a cool kid.

Maybe at some point, Brandon can find a catchy domain related to this joke and make a simple page that randomly shows a reason not to upgrade WordPress complete with a form that takes user submissions.

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Should Automatic Upgrades Be Opt-In?

Should Automatic Upgrades Be Opt-In?

By Jeffro on September 8, 2011

The writing is on the wall. It’s only a matter of time before automatic upgrades for WordPress core, plugins, and themes make it into WordPress. This is a step beyond the one click upgrades that are currently in WordPress. As dumb as it might seem, Otto is right in that users simply don’t upgrade. However, I want automatic upgrades to be opt-in instead of opt-out. I don’t need my hand held by WordPress in order to perform updates and uphold my responsibility of maintaining this website. There are too many horror stories of automatic upgrades gone bad for me to ever cross that line to allow those to happen either on my machine or on a website. I’m the type of person that wants to review the change log and any necessary information before the upgrade occurs. I’d feel the same way even if there was a simple revert system put in place to easily go back to a working version prior to the upgrade. This leaves me wondering if you want automatic upgrades to happen without you as a user/administrator ever being involved, or if you’ll take the more active approach and handle the upgrade process manually? Look forward to reading your comments on this one.

Should Automatic Upgrades Be Opt-In?

  • Yes (67%, 141 Votes)
  • No (33%, 69 Votes)

Total Voters: 210

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WordPress Upgrades Gone Bad

WordPress Upgrades Gone Bad

By Jeffro on March 8, 2011

Here is the tale of two individuals that upgraded to WordPress 3.1 only to realize that their sites became broken after the upgrade. Two things that should immediately be learned by anybody using WordPress. The first is that even though it’s as easy as clicking a button to perform an upgrade, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a backup of the site before the button is pressed. The second point is illustrated by Keith in his story:

The recent 3.1 update changed my thoughts about that and taught me that even a hobby WordPress blog isn’t entirely automated and it is a good idea to know how it works, if you care about it. If you are passionate about your blog, there is even more reason to anticipate disasters and know how you react to them accordingly.

If you’re going to pour your heart and soul in to your site and it’s running WordPress, you would do yourself a lot of good to learn the basic ins and outs of the platform to not only help yourself, but to understand some of the underpinnings that allow WordPress to do what it does.

The one other piece of advice I can provide is to wait a few days after a major version of WordPress has been released. Keep an eye on the WordPress hashtag on twitter and the How-To and Troubleshooting section of the WordPress.org support forums to locate the issues people are having once they make that upgrade so that if you run into the same issue, you’ll know how to deal with it.

As an aside, my streak of problem free upgrades continues as I had zero issues with 3.1.

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No More Unlimited Support Or Upgrades For GravityForms After May 1st

No More Unlimited Support Or Upgrades For GravityForms After May 1st

By Jeffro on April 14, 2010

GravityForms recently made a big announcement that will affect new customers who make a purchase after May 1st. Currently, all customers who purchase a single or developer support license receive unlimited upgrades for life.

On May 1st we will be changing the Gravity Forms Terms of Service. Support and automatic updates will change to a 1 year term for all NEW purchases beginning on that date.

Customers who purchase before May 1st will NOT be impacted and will continue to receive lifetime support and updates for the license they currently own.

Not only will the 1 year of support and upgrades be tied to the single site license, but the developer license as well. Customers who make a purchase before May 1st will get lifetime support and upgrades as well as those who upgrade to a developer license. If you haven’t purchased your copy of GravityForms, now may be the best time to do it so that you’re set for life when it comes to support and upgrades.

If you need a reminder of what GravityForms is capable of doing, check out this recent review from BloggingPro.com.

Also for existing GravityForms customers, check out Joost De Valks GravityForms widget.

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Supported Legacy Branches For WordPress.org?

Supported Legacy Branches For WordPress.org?

By Jeffro on September 23, 2009

Randy HoytThis is a guest blog post written by Randy Hoyt, author of the blog, RandyHoyt.com. He’s also the founder of Web development firm Amesbury Web.

The recent attacks on older versions of WordPress have made security a hot topic in the community. There has been finger-pointing and mud-slinging from many different directions, but there has also been some good discussion about how to move the project forward. I agree with Jeff, David, and others that responsibility ultimately lies with web site owners. While the official WordPress development blog states that the WordPress team is doing everything they can, others have been wondering if more could be done. I would like to get a discussion going here at the tavern about something that I think would help: a supported legacy branch.

What’s A Legacy Branch?

Newer versions of WordPress currently come with security fixes, but also with added functionality, database changes, and redesigned interfaces. Many users are quite happy with the functionality of their existing version of WordPress, but there is currently no way for them to get only the security fixes without also getting all the other changes. According to the existing WordPress release strategy, only the current branch is supported. When a security issue was found in WordPress 2.8.2 this summer, the new version 2.8.3 was released to fix it. Older versions like WordPress 2.6.5 were also vulnerable to this issue, but no fix was released for them because they were no longer supported. Many software companies and projects do choose to support older versions, and I would like to suggest that the WordPress team supported one legacy branch for around 18 months.

How Might It Work?

Looking back through WordPress’s release history, WordPress 2.2.x and 2.6.x could have been supported legacy branches. Imagine a site built on WordPress 2.2 in June 2007. Under my suggested system, the site owner would have applied only security fixes (2.2.x) for the next eighteen months — not needing to upgrade to 2.3 in September 2007, to 2.5 in March 2008, or to 2.6 in July 2008. When WordPress 2.7 was released in December 2008, the 2.2.x legacy branch could have been deprecated and 2.6.x could have then become the supported legacy branch: the site owner would only then need to upgrade to 2.6.5.

Under my suggested system, someone building a new WordPress site would have the choice between installing the most recent branch (e.g., 2.8.4) or the legacy branch (e.g., 2.6.x). The most recent branch would have all the latest features, but it would also need to be upgraded every three or four months. The legacy branch would not have all these new features, but it would need only security fixes applied until it was deprecated: it would not need to be upgraded to the next supported legacy branch (e.g., 3.0.x) until the version after it (e.g., 3.1) was released.

Objections

Many patrons here at the tavern no doubt remember that WordPress used to support the legacy branch 2.0.x. The branch was supported for almost four years, but the WordPress team abandoned it in back in July. I have talked with WordPress team members about this in the past, at WordCamps and over email, and I have received the following objections to such a system:

1. It’s too much work to maintain.

There is no way for me to deny it: it’s definitely more work to support a legacy branch than not to support one. But it is a known quantity of work. How much work does it take to recover from the negative press generated from large attacks? If a supported legacy branch increases the number of users who keep their WordPress installations secure, the project team could spend less time responding to the latest round of “WordPress is Insecure!” blog posts and more time working on the software.

2. There’s no demand for one.

I certainly believe that there was no demand for the 2.0.x legacy branch. WordPress then had a fairly limited set of features compared to WordPress today. Since the web is constantly evolving, I wouldn’t expect there to be a demand for software three or four years old. But WordPress today is a very mature product, and the current version will be more than adequate for many web site owners for another eighteen months. In fact, WordPress 2.6 was a very good product: many users would have preferred to stay on a secure WordPress 2.6.x instead of upgrading so quickly to a completely new interface.

As the WordPress community grows, many users are not as technically savvy or as anxious to get upgraded features every few months as in the earlier days of the project. They simply want their sites to work, and they rightly fear that an upgrade may break custom themes or plugins. A supported legacy branch would not let them completely off the hook — they would still eventually need to upgrade — but it would greatly ease the burden of maintaining a WordPress web site.

I build business web sites for clients in WordPress. If the WordPress team adopted a system like the one I am suggesting, I would build new web sites on the most recent branch. I would then upgrade my clients every few months until they reached what would become a supported legacy branch. After that, I would be able to upgrade them every eighteen months. I think many WordPress users would be thrilled to have something like this upgrade plan available to them: it would be great if it could be available starting with WordPress 3.0.x.

3. It’s too confusing for users.

This is a legitimate concern, but I have no doubt that a system like this could be adequately explained — and I’m more than willing to help the project team in designing this user experience. Here are my initials thoughts about what could be done:

  1. Two buttons would be needed on the “Download” page, with descriptive text beneath them something like the following:

    [Download WordPress 3.2]
    Contains the newest features but requires more frequent upgrades:
    security patches only available until 3.3 release

    [Download WordPress 3.0.x]
    Legacy branch: security patches available until 3.5 release

  2. The upgrade notifications in the administrative interface could be modified for users on a supported legacy branch. They might see something like this:

    [Red] WordPress 3.0.3 fixes a security issue found in this version of WordPress. Update Now

    … or this:

    [Yellow] WordPress 3.1 adds new features to this version of WordPress. Learn More | Update Now

    … or this:

    [Red] This version of WordPress is no longer supported. You must update to WordPress 3.4.2 to remain secure. Update Now

Discuss

This is a tavern, and I have already monopolized the conversation for far too long. I want to hear from the other patrons: What do you think? Would you be interested in a legacy branch for your own sites? For your clients’ sites? How many users do you think would use such legacy branches? Would existing users feel less upgrade fatigue? Would more people be comfortable staying on or switching to WordPress? Could this help WordPress overcome the recent negative press about security?

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Who’s Responsible For Keeping Your WordPress Site Up To Date?

Who’s Responsible For Keeping Your WordPress Site Up To Date?

By Jeffro on September 15, 2009

So who do you think is responsible for keeping WordPress updated? The New World Order? Matt Mullenweg? You tell me by voting in the poll. I am hoping that 100% of the votes will be for a particular answer but judging by the usual voting crowd, I have a feeling some of the voters will opt for one of the other choices.

Who’s Responsible For Keeping Your WordPress Site Up To Date?

  • The End User (68%, 50 Votes)
  • The New World Order (12%, 9 Votes)
  • Matt Mullenweg (9%, 7 Votes)
  • WordPress (8%, 6 Votes)
  • Automattic (3%, 2 Votes)

Total Voters: 74

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Upgrade Notifications By Email

Upgrade Notifications By Email

By Jeffro on September 14, 2009

Amidst all the fuss about what it takes to find out when there is an upgrade available for WordPress, Konrad Karpieszuk took advantage of the situation and created a plugin that provides email notifications on when an upgrade is available. The plugin sends a check to WordPress.org every day to see if the version installed is different from the version available although Donncha has informed the plugin author that he could use the wp_version_check() function instead. This would cut down on the one request a day to WordPress.org. Amazingly, there is nothing to configure. Just install the plugin and once a new version of WordPress is released, it will send you an email.

Now you might be wondering, didn’t WordPress itself have some sort of mailing list that would be used for announcements such as this? The answer is yes, but they have done a terrible job utilizing the list for that function. The last time that list was used was around the release of WordPress 2.7. I know a few people chimed in on Twitter that because of the mailing list, there was no need for this plugin but since we know the mailing list isn’t being used, this plugin ‘plugs‘ the gap.

Even though I don’t need to use a plugin like this, I’ve decided to install it just to see if it works. As someone mentioned on Twitter, if you maintain a large number of sites, this could be used as a reminder tool that a particular site needs upgrading. Personally, I’m waiting for the plugin that calls me on my cell phone using a robotic voice to tell me that a new version is available and that if I don’t upgrade the site, I will be terminated.

Let me know in the comments if you have installed this plugin on all of the sites you operate.

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WordPress 2.8.3 Released

WordPress 2.8.3 Released

By Jeffro on August 4, 2009

wordpresslogoWere you surprised to see WordPress 2.8.3 released? I was, but I didn’t think it would be because of the same security related issue that 2.8.1 was supposed to address. I thought 2.8.3 was released as a bug fix version as a few annoying bugs have popped up that were giving people issues. It was inevitable that a 2.8.3 would be released before 2.9. I’m glad however to report that 2.8.3 does contain some bug fixes as well as completely fixing the security exploit. The bug I had in mind deals with editing comments and the URL field being blank even though there was a value represented in it, which has been fixed. The upgrade was easy peasy for me and I suggest you upgrade as well. But please, backup your data first before you even think about touching that upgrade button.

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Plugins And The Lack Of Change Logs

Plugins And The Lack Of Change Logs

By Jeffro on June 15, 2009

The other day, I noticed I had about 9 plugins that needed to be upgraded. So I browsed to the plugin management page in WordPress 2.8 and noticed the link to view the details regarding the new plugin version as I figure that will tell me why I should upgrade. Once I click on this link, I get a lightbox popup showing me the same view I would see if I were looking at this plugin on the WordPress.org plugin repository. Tabs to see the description, installation, screenshots, Faq and other notes. No Change Log link.

nochangelog

So, I end up clicking on the plugin homepage link which takes me to where ever this plugin calls home on the net which is typically a post on a blog announcing its release or in some instances, a page dedicated to the plugin. Often times though, the plugin homepage link takes me to the root of the site and I end up having to dig around and search until I find a post about the version in question. What an aggravating experience.

I do have a bit of good news though. Some plugin authors actually provide changelogs within the description tab of the plugin. Others provide a direct link to a page which contains the changelog which is better than nothing.

changeloglink

I’m not a plugin developer so I’m not sure if this is possible but, the best solution would be to include a Change Log link along with the other links such as description, installation, etc. I’ll have a hard time believing this doesn’t make any sense but plugins now a days are coming out with new versions where I can’t easily see what has been changed and before you know it, some option has been added and turned on by default without my knowledge.

I’m interested to know what your thoughts are on this issue.

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BuddyPress Themes Are Future Proof

BuddyPress Themes Are Future Proof

By Jeffro on April 21, 2009

buddypresslogoOver on the BuddPress blog, Andy Peatling has published a post explaining to us why BuddyPress themes are future proof. Andy explains that for folks into blogging, it makes sense to access a backend to configure settings such as your profile, etc. The software should enable you to write with little distractions without the need for flashy graphics.

However, since BuddyPress has more of a social nature to it, logging into the backend to change minute information such as your profile, or to check messages makes for a bad experience as it breaks continuity. I tend to agree. Andy then explains that BuddyPress themes contain template files and functions for displaying and updating content from the front-end. Essentially, you don’t have to drive a mile to move a foot. What this all means is that, since new features are typically handled by the administration area of the software, themes will usually work all the time with only some template functions added on occasion.

Default BuddyPress Theme

Default BuddyPress Theme

BuddyPress is taking an interesting approach to theme development as illustrated by this point:

New functionality in BuddyPress will almost always be enabled through theme upgrades. However, our policy will be that existing themes will not break and backwards compatibility will always be assured. As a theme designer it is up to you to decide which BuddyPress features you want to provide support for, and whether you want to support new features introduced in future BuddyPress versions.

If that wasn’t enough to get excited about, with each release, they plan on offering a ‘cheat-sheet‘ which will list all of the new functions that were added as well as a backlog of all of the previous functions. The default themes for BuddyPress will always remain up to date, including the skeleton theme meaning you’ll always have a clean slate to start from.

My Thoughts

Despite me not using the software, I am very impressed by what I’ve read in this announcement. In fact, I’d like to mention that I would love to see WordPress themes head in more of a direction that BuddyPress themes are in that, I would like to edit certain things from the front-end versus having to always go through the backend. For example, instead of logging into my administration page, clicking Appearance, clicking Widgets, configuring a new text widget or simply correcting a typo I discovered, I’d rather be able to click an edit button from the front page of the blog where the text widget is displayed and be able to edit the title and the content right there, on the spot. Why should EVERYTHING be done in the administration panel?

I remember a WordPress theme called Ajaxified (I think) which provided a bunch of front end editing that worked via Ajax. That project is no longer being updated. However, I know of a plugin called Front-End Editor created by the awesome scribu which appears to do most of what I want. I’ll be sure to give this a plugin a try and follow up with a detailed review. If it works as expected, guess I’ll be happy to see that theme authors won’t need to do a thing to move down this road.

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