For those that don’t know, I produce a live podcast every Friday evening at 9P.M. Eastern time on Talkshoe.com called WordPress Weekly. On tonight’s episode, I’d like to hear from you regarding your experience thus far with WordPress 3.3. beta 1 if you’ve had a chance to use it. I’m especially interested to know your thoughts on the new fly out menus and the drag and drop media uploader. If you can’t call in to the show tonight, at least show up in the chat room to be part of the conversation as the show is recorded live.
Share Your Experience With WordPress 3.3 Beta 1 With Me Tonight
UK Civil Service Site Switches To WordPress
We (the Digital Engagement team) were tasked with producing a new site at very little cost and within a six week window. To restructure the content to make it easier to find we used Google analytics to analyze typical user journeys. Harnessing user insight will be an iterative process through the ongoing development of this site.
We chose to use WordPress as it offers a simple, quick (with such a short development window) and flexible open source solution to a site primarily designed for publishing content. As such it is easy to use for a wide range of content editors and, of course, provides significant cost savings for maintenance and development. Rather than develop a theme ourselves we chose to use a theme called ‘striking’ developed by Kaptinlin that fitted what we needed with a little customization. – Via Holding the Fort
-UK Civil Service Site Switches To WordPress
WordPress Not The Choice For Multinational Search
Chris Liversidge of Search Engine Land gives an explanation as to why WordPress is not his platform of choice when it comes to multinational search. I was with him up until the point he discussed security where he states that WordPress is plagued by frequent security updates. This is not true. Security within WordPress has gotten better with time, not worse and it’s not like we’re updating WordPress every two weeks. I’m not sure what Chris wants in a CMS platform. One update a year? One update every 3 months that fixes security vulnerabilities instead of getting that fix immediately? ∞
Things To Look For In WordPress 3.3 Beta 1
WordPress 3.3 Beta 1 has finally been released for the curious at heart to get a glimpse as to what’s coming in the final version. There are quite a few visual changes that you should look out for and provide feedback on. Here are a couple things worth noting.
New Feature Pop-ups – After WordPress 3.3 is installed, you’ll see popups that display information pointing users to new features. When testing, see if the popups close upon clicking the close button. Also see if the popups reappear multiple times. There has been an issue with popups and IE7/8 with them not going away but Alex Mills is betting that those have been fixed as of ticket #18693
Admin Bar Revamp – The Admin bar now sports a darker color. The biggest changes to the admin bar reside within the rearrangement of menu items. Instead of the username and gravatar aligned to the left side of the bar, it’s now all the way on the right hand side. The search box has been moved to the right of the Add New menu link. Updates has been added as a top menu item. However, your website name now shows up on the far left side of the admin bar and this is where you’ll find all sorts of administrative tasks when you hover your mouse cursor over the link. The dashboard link as well as Appearance has been added to this menu item along with an assortment of other options. The drop down menus also look a lot like their Administration panel counterparts compared to the 3.2 version. Last but not least, on the left side of the admin bar, there is a small WordPress icon. This icon acts like the HELP button in typical software. From here, you can get information about the specific version of WordPress, Freedoms, Credits, links to WordPress.org, the support forums, documentation and giving feedback.
Flyout Menus – All of the top level links within the left menu now have Flyouts where as previously, Flyouts only occurred when the menu was collapsed.
Drag And Drop Uploading – I think users will be surprised the most by the new upload media screen. Thanks to something called plUpload which has been added to WordPress 3.3, we can now drag multiple files into the editor. This has also allowed the dependence on Flash within the uploader to disappear as support for HTML 5, Flash, and Silverlight are supported with plUpload. I’ve given it a try with 5 images and it worked great. Users who upload photo sets to WordPress are going to love this enhancement.
Uploading Multiple Files Or Images At Once Is Now Easier In WP 3.3
One Media Button – In WordPress 3.2.1, there are 4 icons within the post editor that allow you to add some type of media to a post. Images, Audio, Video, and strangely enough, an icon named Media. In WordPress 3.3, all of those icons have been replaced by one icon labeled Media. From here, you simply drag whatever media files you have into the uploader. No more picking and choosing since the uploader is smart enough to distinguish between different media types. You can add your typical meta data after the media has been uploaded.
One Instead Of Four
WordPress 3.3. will have more to offer than what I have listed here but if you plan on beta testing the new version, you now have a couple things to play around with. If you come across something you think is broken or not working as you think it should, the best thing you can do is report it within the Alpha/Beta section of the WordPress.org Support forums while being as descriptive as possible.
Drupal And WordPress Founders Share The Same Stage
Here is something you don’t get to see all the time. WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Drupal founder Dries Buytaert shared the same stage at an event called Schipulcon. While catering to the web marketing crowd, the event also has a short but concise mission statement:
To grow community champions that make the world a better place through extraordinary thinking, smart technology and cross-industry creativity.
Schipulcon took place in Houston, Texas which is the hometown of Matt Mullenweg. While some expected the two founders to duke it out, according to some in the audience, it looked more like a bromance.
Dries Buytaert and Matt Mullenweg at SchipulCon 2011 by Ed Schipul
Video for this session if not currently available but the folks who ran the event have said that the video will be published soon. However, there were a couple of notable quotes that were shared over twitter. Here is just a sampling.
kamichat
Wordpress founder @photomatt says the next gen for Wordpess is more social and mobile. #schipulcon – via
Beccamus
Cool! Some of the best tech & creative opportunities developed in #Houston like wordpress by @photomatt #schipulcon – via
Janerri
Though biased, I’m enjoying the contrast & comparison of @Drupal @WordPress It’s friendly now, how long will that last? #schipulcon – via
AshleyRSmall
Our architecture is our greatest advantage over WordPress – @dries #schipulcon – via
thisisnotapril
“If WordPress wins; Drupal wins. Because it means open source wins.” -@Dries #schipulcon – via
qcait
Wordpress @photomatt’s Drupal developer profile is #5665, created 8 yrs ago. Profile lists “simplicity” as an interest. #schipulcon – via
I for one am seriously looking forward to watching the video of this session once it’s released.
Additional photos of Matt Mullenweg and Dries Buytaert can be found within this photoset.
5 Questions To Consider Before Using WordPress or Drupal
Meg Heckman of Poynter.org shares her experience from a newsroom perspective with The Monitor using Drupal while sharing the experience of William Davis of the Daily News and their move to WordPress.
So which system is better?
Neither.
The question of WordPress versus Drupal isn’t Coke/Pepsi, boxers/briefs, Red Sox/Yankees. It’s about understanding the needs of your organization.
The five questions brought up within the post are definitely ones you should have answers to before making any decision to go with a particular platform. As a bonus, check out the comment left by pmaiorana who claims to work for Automattic with regards to the important factor of software updates.
From Six Figures To Ten Bucks
With such head-starts, the five figure medium-sized website cost quickly becomes four. The four figure small business website cost becomes three. The home-grown sideline business goes from three figures to two (many premium WordPress themes designs are available for only $50). You can even get a WordPress website on their sister site for free. Buy a domain name for it and you’re in business for just $10.
To the short-sighted web developer or designer it’s the end of days. To the business owner it should be the start of getting the website they always thought they were going to get, but never quite did, for a price they can justify, and that everyone can use. via – WordPress The Quiet Revolution
-From Six Figures To Ten Bucks
How eMusic Transitioned From Clunky CMS To WordPress
LinuxInsider.com has a great case study published from the CTO of eMusic.com, Richard Caccappolo on how the website transitioned from using a clunky CMS to WordPress. While reading the case study, the first thing that struck me was the following: “we found that WordPress was an ideal solution to suit all of our CMS needs.” Anyone who STILL thinks that WordPress is just for blogs really ought to change their mindset. While reviewing the different CMS solutions available, Drupal became a strong candidate but thanks to the persuasion of Scott Taylor who is the lead PHP developer for eMusic, they opted to go with WordPress instead. The case study goes on to describe tips on ensuring a smooth transition, why plugins are both a good and bad thing, and how eMusic decided to use bbPress along with BuddyPress to provide a more flexible platform for their community. After reading the case study, stop back and watch Scott give a presentation on the transition process from WordCamp San Francisco 2011. Watch in full screen mode to read the slides.
If you could ask Scott a question or two regarding the huge transition, what would it be?
Technosailor Explains How WordPress Subversion Is Organized
Aaron Brazell who heads up Technosailor.com has published a primer on how WordPress Subversion is organized. The primer explains trunk, branches, and tags with regards to what they mean for developing WordPress. Also worthy of reading is Andrew Nacins comment located under the article as he offers more clarification on the use of branches. ∞
Reasons Not To Upgrade WordPress
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.