Categories
Webmaster Wordpress

WordPress 3.2 features and test drive

Automattic seems to be in a spree to bring new and exciting features to it’s most widely used bogging platform WordPress. In the last few months we have seen WordPress is going constant overhaul. And we saw the platform has evolved tremendously. Just recently we heard about WordPress 3.0 and then it WordPress 3.1 was released soon after. Now the talk of the bogging arean is the release of WordPress 3.2. The beta version of WordPress 3.2 is already available for download and the final stable version is expected quite soon.

WordPress 3.2 is expected with a lot of new and exciting features, so we downloaded the beta version to give it a try. And guess what, this version of WordPress is just amazing. Some of the notable features in WordPress 3.2 are a new User Interface for Admin, Distraction free writing, New default theme, change in system requirement and a much anticipated Faster WordPress.

New User Interface for Dashboard:

The Admin Interface in WordPress 3.2 s not a complete makeover but a slight change as compared to it’s predecessor 3.x. This new look good cool and elegant and occupy less space. There is also a new option at the bottom to collapse the menu which will then show the icons for different section of the menu and hovering on the icons will reveal the menu options. The footer area in the Admin dashboard has also got a facelift. Also the Favorite menu at the top right is removed. This new Admin Interface looks quite professional and neat. Overall I like it pretty much.

New Default theme Twenty Eleven:

As we are already in 2011, so the default theme Twenty Ten that comes with current versions of WordPress also need a change. Matt finally realized that and the default theme from WordPress 3.2 will be Twenty Eleven. It does not mean they are scrapping out the Twenty Ten theme. hence WordPress 3.2 will come with 2 themes like the 2.x versions but Twenty Eleven will be installed by default.

Clutter Free Write Panel:

Don’t you feel like putting your complete concentration on the content while writing a post? I surely do. To help us concentrate in creating a better post, the WordPress 3.2 will feature a less cluttered and clean write panel. By default all the options like Excerpts, trackbacks, custom fields etc will be hidden. So if you do not see those excerpts or custom filed, do not panic, you just need to Click oN Screen Options at the top right and check the options which you really need.

If that is not enough, you click on full screen mode and you will see a completely new write panel which you will fall in love with for sure. This full screen write panel is definitely a boon. I am going to utilize this feature to the fullest.

Performance Improvement:

While everything being the same, WordPress 3.2 provides a better performance and a faster site load as compared to it’s predecessors. This is very much essential considering Google is now taking into account the page load time while ranking websites.

Change in System requirement:

If you are quite excited with all these new features and are in a hurry to upgrade to WordPress 3.2 when the stable release comes in, you need to first check with your hosting provider to verify if your server meets the system requirement for WordPress 3.2. As going forward WordPress will require PHP 5.2.4 and MySql 5.0. Once you are sure your host meets the requirement, then you decide to upgrade.

Also WordPress 3.2 will not support Internet Explorer 6. Though the front end of your website/blog will not receive any warning, when you try to log into the Admin Dashboard you will be warn that you are using an unsecured version of Internet Explorer and it will ask you to upgrade the browser.

The current release of WordPress 3.2 is a beta version, so do not use it on your live site. As lot of bug is expected and site might become unstable.

If you have not yet tried the WordPress 3.2 beta, we have setup a WordPress 3.2 test drive site so that you can try it on our server and familiarize yourself with the features. use the username and Password both as qlogix to login.

Categories
Product release Wordpress

JetPack lets you get wordpress.com features in your self hosted wordpress

Without an iota of doubt, I would like to say that WordPress is the best and most popular blogging platform. This comes in 2 flavors, One is the self hosted version of WordPress, which is released by Automattic under GNU-GPL license. The other one is WordPress.com, which provides a free as well as paid (premium) platform hosted iin cloud to publish your blog. So even if you do not have a domain name or web server you can still create your blog as a subdomain of WordPress.com and publish it.

There are certain extremely good features and benefits that a WordPress.com users enjoys, those until now were officially not available in self hosted version of WordPress. Though some of the features like WordPress.com stats were made available in self-hosted version with the help of specialized plugins. According to the founder of Automattic & man behind WordPress Matt, it was his dream to provide feature parity between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress. And finally his dream has turned into reality in the form of a plugin called JetPack , which gives you all the features in WordPress.com that we always wanted in our self hosted version of WordPress.

With the launch of the first version of JetPack, following 8 features (cloud goodies) of WordPress.com will be activated in your self-hosted version of WordPress when you activate JetPack plugin. JetPack connects to WordPress.com and enables the awesome features in your self hosted version of WordPress.

1. WordPress.com Stats : It provides a simple and concise statistics for yur website without any additional load on your server.

2. Twitter Widget: If your theme supports widget, it will show latest tweets from a twitter user.

3. Gravatar Hovercards: It is a cool feature & I always wanted to have in my website. This will show a pop-up business card of user’s gravatar profile when you hover the mouse over their name.

4. Wp.me shortlinks: The default URL shortening service from Automattic. All your posts & pages will be able to sue this for better sharing in micro blogging platform like twitter.

5. Sharedaddy: It will make the Sharing of your posts easier over the social networks & social bookmarking sites

6. Latex: is the famous markup language to insert mathematical equations inside your post and pages.

7. After the deadline: This a spelling, grammar and style checker with built-in AI.

8. Shortcode Embeds: Add movies, images, flash etc into your posts & pages with single line of code.

The list does not end here. In the coming version of the plugin, expect to see some more uberly cool features of WordPress.com.

If you are hosted with partner hosts of Automattic like Bluehost, DreamHost, Go Daddy, HostGator, Media Temple, and Network Solutions then the one click installation of WordPress available with them is JetPack enabled.  That means when you install WordPress through one click install, you do not need to install the JetPack plugin separately.

Download, Install & Pre-requisite:

1. Please note that Jetpack will work only with WordPress 3.0.5 and later version, you also need a WordPress.com account (if you do not have one you can create so during the setup process. If you meet these 2 requirements,

2. Visit the JetPack website to download the plugin.

3. Unpack and upload it to the plugins directory.

4. Log in to WordPress admin area and Activate the JetPack plugin. Upon Activation, it will show you a message to connect to WordPress.com. Click on the (see the image below)

Jetpack actvation alert5. It will take you to an authorization page as shown in image below. Put your WordPress.com user name and Password and click on Authorize. If you do not have a WordPress.com account, you can create one here by clicking on need an account.

6. Upon successful authorization, you will be redirected back to your WordPress admin area and jetpack setting page will be shown. This looks like the one in the below image:

JetPack Dashboard

From here, you can customize the required features. JetPack not only connects you to WordPress.com  to provide awesome features, but also provides you the convenience of not installing several plugins.