WordPress 2.7 A new look, a new feel , a better command center?

That is still up for grabs but it definitely has possibilities.

WordPress 2.7 is code name “Coltrane” after the jazz musician John Coltrane because you are supposed to be able to improvise and modify your way to a better admin area. Again whether this is true or not has yet to be seen but here are some of the new features in WordPress 2.7:

Fewer Clicks – I used to use a great plugin called WordPress Admin Bar to navigate the admin area just to save a few clicks. With WordPress 2.7 Coltrane they have re-organized and relabeled the admin navigation links. Almost everything is only one click away now. The one handy thing that the plugin offered that WordPress 2.7 doesn’t offer is to be able to go to anywhere in the admin area while you are viewing the site. This can be solved by still using the WP Admin Bar (yes, it still works with WP 2.7) or opening the site in a new tab.

Flexible layout – now you can decide where everything goes and if you don’t want to see any particular section of the control panel you can shrink it to an icon and move it where you want.

Built in Sticky posts – you can now make one post a sticky post that will always display on your home page. This means that you no longer have to create a special page for your homepage you can just choose your favorite post and when you get a new favorite put that on front and center instead with a simple click.

Create posts and reply to comments right from the dashboard – Yes, you can create your posts and reply to comments right from the dashboard front page. I will probably use this for the comment replies but I will still go to the write post page for my posts so that I can add my SEO features and categories.

Post without logging in using the “Press This” feature – This is another new feature that I can’t seem to get to work yet but I will figure it out sooner or later. Basically, it is suppose to enable you to post while you are browsing and grab text, video, images, etc. from the page you are on, let you edit and then post without logging into the admin area.

Add images without opening a post – I have wanted to do this for a while. You can now build your library of images that you might use in the future directly in the media library. Before you had to actually go to the write or edit post page to be able to upload an image.

Built in plugin browser with automatic install – you can now search through the WordPress.org plugins and install them with one click from your admin area. Or so they say, it hasn’t worked for me yet, it keeps getting stuck on the unzipping part and I haven’t found a cure, yet but when I do this will be a sweet feature.

One click WordPress upgrade integrated – I haven’t had the chance to use this yet, I have to wait until they have an upgrade and since WP 2.7 just came out about 24 hours ago there is no upgrade yet. I already use the WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin and that works great.

I will have a video of the changes in the Blogging Beginners member’s area shortly.

Remember this is new there are bound to be a few bugs, problems with plugins is the most likely so if you are comfortable with what you have wait until 2.7.1 comes out to avoid most of the “New Release Bugs”. I haven’t read anything about a security upgrade with 2.7 so you should be fine.