A few weeks back, I blogged about basic image editing as a new feature that will be included in the upcoming version of WordPress. Aside from the basic image editing feature, there are a number of new features that have been added. Dougal Campbell, who recently installed a pre-alpha version of WordPress 2.9 on his blog, gives a quick rundown of some of the new features of WordPress 2.9.
WordPress 2.9 Features:
- Post Thumbnails – you can add an image that will be automatically displayed with the post.
- “Trash” status – deleted posts, pages and comments will be to the trash and can be recovered at any time.
- Image editing – you can do basic image editing/manipulation (rotate, flip, crop) to your uploaded images.
- Comment metadata – lets plugins and themes use the arbitrary metadata for comments same as that of posts. it also makes it easier for plugins to display “popular” comments.
- Custom post types – gives WordPress more CMS capabilities and gives more flexibility and options on how content is organized.
- Media embeds – basically Viper’s Video Quicktags being implemented in the WordPress core. lets users easily embed videos from YouTube, Google Video, DailyMotion and any service that supports oEmbed (YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, Viddler, Qik and Hulu).
- register_theme_directory() – plugins can add additional theme directories which enables plugins to have its own themes.
The Post Thumbnails feature is an awesome addition. I’m not sure how it works and if its the same as the TimThumb script that my theme uses but this means that you don’t need a third party script to use post thumbnails. I know a lot of WordPress were happy to find out that the basic image editing capabilities were being added to WordPress 2.9. This means that you can now edit images even if you don’t have an image editing program installed on your computer. For those of you who post a lot of videos on your blogs, the Media embeds is definitely a welcome addition, right? This new feature will make it easier and faster for users to embed videos on their posts, something that gave users a lot of headaches in the past.
The “Trash” status is something that I’ve been wanting to have on WordPress for a long time now. I’m very happy to know that we’re gonna have it soon. With this feature, you would be able to recover posts, pages or comments that you’ve accidentally deleted. Like me, I’m sure you guys have experienced this once or twice in the time that you’ve been using WordPress.
How about you guys, what do you think of these new features in WordPress 2.9? What are the features that you like most or the feature/s that you think would be the most useful? Please share your thoughts.
@sylv3rblade – Oh okay. It’s all good then. Thanks anyways! ;)
@Jaypee Habaradas –
I wish I could but I’m restricted by an NDA with my client :(
@Film-Book – You’re excited about it huh? I’m also looking forward to it, but I’m not in a rush to try it out. I just want it to be ready – stable and bug-free by the time it gets released. :D
@dimaks – Yeah, my theme also comes from WooThemes and it uses the same script, the TimThumb script to display thumbnails. :)
Can’t wait for 2.9 to be released. Thank god about the photo editing and video embedding.
@Michael – Nope, not yet. It could be released next month.
hey Is this out already? I never heard about this.
hmn, the post thumbnails is now being used particularly by the meta-morphosis theme i am using from the woo themes and i think it will make wp more handy. that image editing feature is just superb!
@Sher – You’ve got a point. Let’s hope that you’re wrong and that these new features won’t make WordPress bloated and won’t cause issues with the overall usability and functionality.
@jan – Yep, I’m sure you’re not the only WP user who’s loving that new feature. It will definitely make life easier for most of us. 3 plugins just for image editing? LOL
I’ve read and heard about Apture, if I’m not mistaken it was presented during WordCamp Las Vegas. Anyways, maybe you should write a post about Apture. ;)
So many built in features would not necessarily make it better, its better left to be added via plugins i think, the simplicity of wordpress has been the main charm for the majority, lets see I could be wrong :)
@sylv3rblade – You are blessed with programming skills and you are part of that group who will be happy with these new set of features, especially the custom post types. Maybe you can share with us on how to use these custom post types? :D
I love that image editing new features. Makes life easier for me. I’ve let a dear friend access in my dashboard once and she’s surprised at my plugins. I’ve three plugins just for image editing. LOL. With this, it’s less plugins, freeing up precious bandwidth.
I’ve Apture plugin. Great with inline text links, pics and all kinds of media embeds – PDFs, video, mp3, etc. It bears watching which one is more powerful. Abangan!
Post thumbnails. Now that’s just great for bloggers. Love that new functionality.
Ah! Custom post types. I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while now. I’ve been hacking my wordpress themes (with plugin help of course) extensively for this and I’m quite glad that this’ll take some of the load off my shoulders :D
@Jhay – Although I don’t really use or insert videos that much, I’m also looking forward to trying out that feature.
Good point you raised there. I hope that these new features doesn’t increase the amount of diskspace and resources that WordPress uses or needs. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
@aldrin – I’m not really sure but I think its gonna be somewhere next month.
Post thumbnails is just having the ability to insert images on your post and displaying it as thumbnails on your homepage, archives, etc without the help of a third party script.
Trash status is like the recycyle bin on any OS. You can recover stuff that you’ve deleted and I’m guessing that you can also clear the trash if you’re sure that you don’t need those items anymore.
Image editing is the basic image editing capabilities built into WordPress. I’ve discussed that here.
Regarding the last bullet, if I’m not mistaken its the ability for plugins to have its own theme so authors can create skins/templates for plugins that will be different from the theme that the blog is using.
What I’m most excited about is the Media Embed feature because it makes the whole exercise of embedding video and other content much easier.
My concern with these new features is how it will all add up to the diskspace (database + uploaded files) WP will consume. Hopefully, it will all work fine with external media storage services like Flickr, Vimeo etc.
Hopefully, it will turn WP into a bloatware or something.
what's the planned release date of 2.9? i'd like to learn more about the last bullet and the custom post styles… but more interested on the first 3 bullets.
blog updates added on my tasks list… i'm not sure about the last bullet but I'm gonna learn that after. i'd also want to try the custom post types.
@DiTesco – WordPress 2.9 hasn’t been released it. From what I know it will be released around next month if everything goes well.
If a theme is compatible with WordPress 2.8 it should work with version 2.9 because there are no signficant changes to the core. WordPress releases a list of compatible plugins and changes that can affect themes or plugins so make sure you read it before upgrading or installing a new theme.
Oh well. I was just starting to get along pretty well with 2.8, and now comes 2.9, lol. Anyway, I still have to update my WP version to this one. As soon as I am done “playing” with it, I’ll let you know. BTW, I have downloaded the “pure magazine” theme as you have suggested here on your blog. Will that be compatible with this new version?