5 little things I like about WordPress 2.0

December 27, 2005

No doubt you’ve read 10 Things You Should Know About WordPress 2.0 but here’s some little things I’ve discovered that I’ll be finding incredibly useful:

The ability to resize your post area.

I’ve hacked the default size in WordPress 1.5.x installs so many times, because the box was never big enough and it was frustrating having to scroll around each time you clicked on a quicktag and it jumped back to the top of the box.
Reduce your scrolling with this handy resize capability.
Adding categories on the fly

Sitting to the right of your post area are your categories as before but now with a useful “Add” button.
Easy uploading

Finally WordPress ships with a simple system for uploading images without plugins! I’m loving the fact that I can upload an image while I’m writing a post, in the same window, without losing my unsaved post. For those of us who care about valid code (hopefully everyone) the images finally have width and height attributes filled in automatically. It’s easy to select whether or not to use a thumbnail too.
Backing up
Wordpress now comes with a plugin for backing up your blog. Great for people who aren’t into hunting down plugins, don’t know how to use a tool like phpMyAdmin. In fact, great for everyone who needs reminding about backing up their databases. It won’t back up your theme or any plugins you’ve installed – so make sure you grab a copy of at least your theme files every so often.
Quick importing

No more digging around on the server to import in entries from other blogging systems (ooh, it imports from RSS files too!).

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Pete…

Hey! Nice to see you up and blogging again, must update my RSS feeds!
http://www.scribbledesigns.co.uk Gerard McGarry

I’ve seen a couple of these features on WordPress.com, but I’m looking forward to the backup feature and the new Admin interface. Shame the Import features weren’t so sharp a year ago when I was moving from Blogger!
Aaron

The new site looks nice and simple, which is from what I’ve seen over the years, been a consistency with your designing – WordPress 2.0, I may have to consult with you pricing for developing a blog when I’ve saved enough – quality meets price. Anyway, hope yourself and Regan had a great Xmas and hope you two have a happy New Year! Cheers, Aaron
Rachel

Thanks Aaron I like simple, clean sites. I’m going to be tweaking a few things on the site over the week but it’ll basically stay the same.
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http://www.ericisrad.com Eric Lee

Ah, AJAX makes things so nice, doesn’t it? (it makes your #2 item above possible)

Peace,

Eric
Rachel

Definitely – for functional things like that I’m still not so sure about some of the other uses (the flashes of color get a bit tiring after a while).
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http://loudestnoise.com David

where is the database backup? I dont see that anywhere.
Rachel

Enable the plugin (it’s there with the default install), then go to Manage > Backup.
http://pseudoweb.net/wordpress Nat

I full heartidly agree with the above. nice job.
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http://www.greasyelbow.com/blog/ Rob L.

Regarding your #1 item, the resizable textarea: that is a real nice feature for WP to have, but did you know there’s a Firefox extension that will let you resize any textarea on any site?

It lives here, on the Dutch extensionsmirror site.

At my job, I spend half my time in our CMS and job tracking system, both of which are web-based apps with lots of textareas. This one little extension has improved my quality of life ;^)
Rachel

Thanks Rob, I didn’t know about that extension – hopefully it’ll be upgraded to work with Firefox 1.5?
http://www.mantulis.lt Mantulis

Nice, we will check it
http://www.greasyelbow.com/blog/ Rob L.

Oh, sorry Rachel, I forgot that the dutch version isn’t 1.5 compatible. The good news is that Yahoo’s Jeremy Zawodny liked the extension so much that he updated it to 1.5 compatibility himself:

http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/005752.html
Rachel

Rob you’re awesome Thanks for checking back, I’ll install that version now!
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http://www.thewhitehawk.net/ Griffith

Wow, if it wasn’t for you I don’t think I’d ever notice the re-sizable post area.

I was actually looking for changes in 2.0 and thanks to you I found some great ones.

For everyone reading this and wandering whether to upgrade to 2.0 or not and are worried about: your design breaking up / database problems / any other problems, I can safely say that I found no problems whatsoever, as long as your follow the steps the whole thing should be a breeze.
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Douglas Knudsen

I just setup WP 2.0. I’m moving my custom coded blog to WP. The import RSS feature didn’t work, no clue why as there were no errors or anything. I had to write my own importer…in the end this was a good thing as I know understand the WP DB scheme. Just an FYI…
http://www.pixeleden.net pixeleden

I have read so much go things about WP 2.0. Perfect timiing, just got my site redesigned and launch this week. I will seriously considered it when I launch my journal. It has been 3 months now that I am struggling to what CMS shall I use to run my site not just the blog.
hcura

tá bem bom.
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http://www.donnavitan.com Donna

Hello Rachel,

I’m currently trying to migrate from Blogger to WordPress but I’m having some issues. Installing WordPress was a success, however when I go to Import > Blogger, I get this error:

“Howdy! This importer allows you to import posts and comments from your Blogger account into your WordPress blog.
This feature requires iframe support.

Reset this importer”

To my understanding, I should have some sort of username/password form but I get nothing. I am using FF 1.5.0.2 and IE 6. And yes, I can visit other sites with iframes so I’m not sure what the error is.

I’ve also visited WP’s help page on importing: codex.wordpress.org/Importing_from_other_blogging_software#Blogger

But I think most of these are now a little dated since they are asking for import-blogger.php file. The new files I’ve installed WP 2.0 with, only has import/blogger.php.

I am at a loss as to how I should import my Blogger now. I guess if all else fails, I can just start fresh.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

PS. I love reading your articles.
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http://www.massage-therapy-information.com/ massage therapy career

Great information here. This help me a ton on my research project. Do you guys have a rss feed I can tap into? The last post was very good. Thanks!!
http://myspace-site.atspace.com Bob Myspace

Yes, the last post was very good. Thanks!!!
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5 little things I like about WordPress 2.0

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