Filed under: Features, News, Blogging, Open Source, DLS Interviews, web 2.0, Web

I'll give Brad a pass on being a tad premature with the WordPress 2.7's announcement, because I know that he -- like many of us who use WordPress to power our self-hosted blogs -- was just super-excited about the new release. Well, the wait is over and the official release for WordPress 2.7 is now available from WordPress.org.

WordPress 2.7, named "Coltrane" in honor of the Jazz legend, is a pretty significant step forward in WordPress's history. As Brad noted in his first look at the 2.7 beta, most of these changes are on the backend, but they are designed to greatly enhance your productivity and speed in maintaining your blog. On the front-end side, threaded comment support and support for "sticky" posts make it easier for readers to communicate with one another and access important information.

You can check out the WordPress Codex for 2.7 to see some of the technical details behind the new changes. I had a chance to talk to Mark Jaquith, one of the lead developers for WordPress .org, about the new release and some of his favorite features.

Continue reading WordPress 2.7 is released

WordPress 2.7 is released originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Blogging, Web

WordPress 2.7 was officially released last night after several months in development. The new version of the popular blogging client features a ton of behind the scenes changes, allowing bloggers to more easily install plugins and customize the look and feel of the blogging interface.

One of the most useful improvements was the decision to move most of the site navigation features to a sidebar where you can expand or collapse the sections you need rather than clicking a link and waiting for the page to reload as you did with earlier version of WordPress. But the problem with the sidebar navigation is that it takes up more screen real estate, giving you less room for writing or managing your blog posts.

Enter Ozh' Admin Drop Down Menu. Long before the WordPress team realized the value of drop down menus, this plugin offered bloggers the ability to convert the site navigation links into drop down menus which cut back on the number of page loads you need to wait through to get from the main page to the plugin page, post page, or other pages.

I had been a bit concerned that the developer would stop updating the plugin now that WordPress includes a collapsible menu. But just a few hours after WordPress 2.7 was released, Ozh" Admin Drop Down Menu 3.0 was released with support for the latest version of WordPress. It removes all the navigation links that show up on the left side of the WordPress 2.7 dashboard and replaces them with drop down menus near the top of your screen. The net effect is that you regain a ton of screen real estate.

We'll have a more in-depth look at WordPress 2.7 later today.

Ozh Admin Drop Down plugin now works with WordPress 2.7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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