WordPress 2.5 followed the typical software style and came out almost a month late. WordPress broke the age old tradition of late launchs when they released WordPress 2.6 almost a month early. This release fixes 194 bugs from version 2.5! Sign up for the blogging class to learn about this new version.
So what’s new?
- Track and restore blog post revisions like a wiki or complex word processing program.
- Word count on posts.
- Better image control for WYSIWYG
- Captions for images without plug-ins.
- Press This bookmarklet makes blogging while you surf, fast and easy.
- Theme Preview allows you to preview themes for your blogs without a plug-in.
- Plug-ins are grouped by active and deactivated to greatly improve plug-in organization.
- See at a glance if your plug-ins need updating with a bubble like you have with comments.
- Default and configurable avatars.
- Google Gears will speed up the loading of your blog on your computer. This will make it faster for you to admin your blog. Not much in terms of bells and whistles on this yet. Expect more functions in future WordPress versions, yes WordPress is on 6 month version upgrade roadmap!
Well, you can also check out the video of new features.
Bean,
Thank you for this post! I have been delaying the upgrade, worried about problems with it. I’m guessing the directions in the codex are what I should follow? This may be the push I need to bite the bullet.
Carol
Yes, my bad for not spelling out the process.
First back up your files.
If you used Fantastico initially, use it again to upgrade your installation otherwise…
Download 2.6 from http://wordpress.org/download/.
Extract/Unzip the downloaded file.
Using your FTP program, delete the wp-admin and wp-includes folders from your web server.
DO NOT DELETE your wp-contents or config.php
Upload everything inside of the wordpress folder that you downloaded, EXCEPT wp-content.
In your browser, navigate to your admin page, you will see a notice to upgrade your database. Select upgrade. After it is complete, you are ready to go and log into your newly updated blog!
Hi, Carol
If you’re upgrading using Fantastico in your cPanel, the upgrade is really quite painless.
If you manually installed WP, you’ll need to manually upgrade it. The directions look scary but after going through the process once, you’ll find it’s not at all complicated.
For the latter method, I would suggest using the Extended Upgrade directions on Codex: http://tinyurl.com/2tzntz
Read through these directions very carefully before beginning the process; there are files in the wp-content folder that need to be over-written – “except for” – which is buried in text AFTER the instructions on what to over-write. That could be a whoops. :>
Save all your files and then take the plunge; it’s really a lot of fun!
Thanks
The trick is knowing which files to overwrite. On a major revision change like 2.5, you really needed to delete your previous files and then upload the new ones. Just using ftp to overwrite files caused some headaches in upgrading to 2.5. Overwriting files doesn’t seem to be a problem in upgrading to 2.6. I just have gotten in the habit of deleting the old files on the server, except for wp-contents and config.php. I haven’t customized any of the stand alone files nor the files in wp-admin and wp-includes so I have use nice clean versions of those. Then, use overwrite for wp-contents to update files that are different from my theme and plug-ins.
I too was putting it off after reading a few things. I just did it manually and it all worked just fine
Anita
Hello, nice to see this still going. I took this class and have managed to update without a hitch thanks to you. But – and there’s always a but – I have a dilema if you could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. On one of the sites I work with I have 3 domains (same site content) have installed WP on one of them. I want to promote that domain to the primary and park the others. I recently did that with my class blog and it is still down:( I found the info to change the address in the config file but do not know what to do about the password change so was fearful of really screwing it up. OR is it easier to just start over? I know someone in class did that but can not remember who. Thank you.
Bean – I am still unsure about upgrading (afraid to) and now it is up to 2.62.
If I did not use Fantastico to load originally, can I use it to upgrade? I have a backup but all the warnings about what not to delete and what I should delete are very confusing.
Carol