This site is now running on WordPress 2.9-rare (which is our “pre-alpha” designation, for those of you who don’t know). WP 2.9 is in “feature freeze”, which means no new features will be considered for this version, and the developers will concentrate on finishing up the existing new features and any outstanding bugs. So far, it appears that all of my plugins are working just fine.
The main new features I’ve actually seen so far are the addition of the “Post Thumbnail” box in the writing screen, the new “trash” status for posts, pages, and comments, and the image editor in the Media Library. The image editor lets you do some simple manipulation such as flipping, rotating, scaling, and cropping an image.
If you would like to help out with testing WP 2.9, read the new post on the Dev Blog, Getting involved with the 2.9 beta testing, which will point you to the WordPress Beta Tester plugin. As the post says, don’t do this on a production site that can’t live with possible breakage — here be dragons!
That said, here is a partial list of new features coming in WordPress 2.9:
- Post Thumbnails: add an image to be automatically displayed with the post in various views (main page, archives, etc.). The WordPress logo on this post is added with this feature, plus a filter I added to my theme’s functions.php file.
- “Trash” status: deleted items such as posts, pages, and comments now go to the “trash”, and can be recovered later, much like delete files in most modern operating systems.
- Image editing: basic image manipulation for your media library. You can rotate, flip, resize, and crop images.
Widgets outside of sidebars: there is a new template tag calledOops. As pointed out in the comments, this was actually in 2.8. I had an old message still flagged and didn’t notice the date when I was making this list.the_widget(), which allows you to put a widget anywhere in your theme.- Comment metadata: plugins and themes can now take advantage of arbitrary metadata for comments, just as for posts, pages, and users. This should make it easier to create plugins to highlight “popular” or “hot” comments, among other things.
- Custom post types: general support for post types other than ‘post’, ‘page’, and ‘attachment’. This plus the custom taxonomy support we already have will go far to address those to like to claim that WordPress is not a ‘real’ CMS. We’ll be able to organize content in ways that I can’t even think of right now (I need more time to brainstorm).
- Media Embeds: I haven’t had a chance to look over this all the way yet, but it’s basically Viper’s Video Quicktags folded into core (minus the editor buttons at this time), including support for the oEmbed standard. With oEmbed, you can just paste in the URL for a page containing embeddable media, and it can auto-detect the proper way to embed it in your post. Supported services so far appear to be YouTube, Google Video, PollDaddy, and DailyMotion. Plus, theoretically, any service that supports oEmbed, which currently includes YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, Viddler, Qik, and Hulu, among others (according to the oEmbed site). Whoah, awesome! I’ll post a demo of this soon, but you can read Viper007Bond’s post now for more details.
register_theme_directory(): plugins can now add additional theme directories to be searched. This means that a plugin can basically come bundled with its own themes. I’ve already got a project that’s been on the back-burner that can use this feature. I think we might seem some nifty uses appearing in the future.
There will be other things, of course. For example, there are some optimizations to combine a lot of backend management code for post and pages, to eliminate some code duplication and streamline things a bit. But the features listed above are the ones that really stand out, and caught my eye.
So there you have it: a quick rundown of some of the new features coming in WordPress 2.9. There’s some interesting stuff in there. I’m sure we’ll see people using things like post thumbnails, widgets anywhere, and media embeds right away. And I think we can expect a slew of new plugins to take advantage of new features like comment metadata, custom post types, and the new theme directory support.
Which new feature are you most excited about? Is there something you know about that I didn’t mention here? Mingle, discuss!
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51 Comments
The basic image editing will get rid of a plugin I’ve been using.
The widgets anywhere feature will help with a task I have for a friend’s website.
I’m very curious about post thumbnails, I’m currently using functions to show thumbnails on a few of my sites, but I wonder how that will work. I like having it automatically use images that are either in the post or linked. Your description of that feature was a little vague. Add an image, but how?
Post thumbnail is a new upload box in the Write Post/Page screen. Support in themes is via the new template functions,
has_post_image()andthe_post_image()(and an underlyingget_the_post_image() function).Clicking on “set thumbnail” will bring up the usual uploader, which will allow you to upload a new image, or choose an existing one from your media gallery. That image will be fetched by the
the_post_image()template tag.Thank you for explaining. I was hoping for something that would automatically use a linked or attached image, but I guess it is a step in the right direction.
For the automatic approach you could go with Justin Tadlocks Get the Image plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-the-image
I had the same question, thanks for the answer.
nice! looking forward to it!
These are some great features. I’ve been looking forward to the post thumbnails option. Also the upgraded media editing option is great as well as the trash can. All in all this is looking to be a much needed update. Glad to see Wordpress is steadily adding features.
Post thumbnails, finally. The image editing and media embeds sounds ace.
Nice stuff, that’s why I love WP
Woohoooo! Can’t wait till it’s officially released.
Does anyone have any information on the new Custom Post Type functionality?
Is there an interface for it or just the underlying capabilities. I ask because the custom taxonomies is a great feature, but the lack of an interface to manage it isn’t user friendly for the average user. You have to install a plugin to take advantage of custom taxonomies because there is no way to add or manage them without a plugin.
I’m guessing the custom post type enhancements are being handled the same way.
As far as I know, support for custom post types will be under-the-hood, requiring plugins and themes to expose the functionality, as for the custom taxonomies. I think the reasoning is that it’s a pretty advanced concept for most users. So it will be supported by plugins/themes for users who really know what to do with it, but out of the way for users who don’t need it.
It’s already been there for a while from what I understand. I’ve been working on a project with it for a few weeks now and it’s working great. When I initially started there were a few things that needed to get done.
You can query posts with a custom post type (I think it’s something like post_type=blah) or something similar, but it does the job quite nicely.
I’m going to write a post up on it sometime in the next week. It’s absolutely amazing working with it so far.
Hi, I’ve posted a tutorial on the basics of using custom post types here – http://anthony.geek.nz/post/custom-post-types-in-wordpress/
Very excited! The added feature for widgetized areas beyond the sidebar will really open up more design features for me!! I’m like a kid before Christmas! Sounds like I will be able to save a lot of time now too with 2.9. The whole transferring your photos from the camera to Gimp (or your image software), and then to WordPress. Hopefully I can cut the whole second step out completely! Truly, great work!
I am really looking forward to the image editing feature: will make thing so much easier for the ‘average user’ (as in: client).
The template tag for widgets is cool too!
My plugins are all running just fine as well. However, in the admin area, I can’t seem to access my theme under Appearance < Edit anymore. Have you heard anyone else mention that?
Widgets anywhere will be super handy. Instead of pulling janky functions from the widget files or using the do shortcode php now we can just throw the widget in there. Awesome.
Custom post types should make for some pretty nifty options for those creating themes, especially the premium ones.
The image editing functions are a sweet bonus.
Awesome work guys and gals.
the_widget()is not new. It was added in v2.8.Thanks for the overview!
Oops! I’ve corrected the post. I still had an old message flagged in my mail client and didn’t notice the date on that code change.
Check out this post http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/25531.htm/ I want to be able to have multiple galleries using the built-in image manager, and not have to rely on a plugin.
The Media Library shows you which attachments are not connected to any posts/pages, but there is still no way to attach them to something… or to change which post/page a file is attached to. (That would be very handy when attempting to merge two draft posts, for example!)
Assuming there aren’t any disasters that befall the 2.9 release of MU, the image editing and multimedia embedding features will make the blog management portion of my job much easier! I’m definitely looking forward to better multimedia management and know I’ll have lots of happy users once that functionality is working as intended.
Is wish there was a “Exclude from gallery” function for the images you want in the post but not in the gallery.
I seem to get that ‘feature’ quite often, just following the normal upload process :/
Dougal, thanks for this roundup. Have you heard anything more on the role/capability changes discussed back in July?
Is thumbnail sharpening coming in the Image Editing package? Or is there (going to be) a plugin for that? The original big image can be sharpened externally, but the WP-generated thumbnail is a problem. Any hope?
Thanks for the heads up. I’m looking forward to the easy/intelligent media embedding and widgets anywhere. Re. the image manipulation, I’m interested, but wonder if the processes involved will result in loss of fine detail quality or perhaps bloated filesizes? Basically is there any sort of option for setting JPG quality level?
FYI, is
“This means that a theme can basically come bundled with its own themes.”
supposed to be
“This means that a plugin can basically come bundled with its own themes.”
or have I just misunderstood the feature?
Yes, thanks for pointing out that typo. plugins can bundle themes. Corrected in the post text.
Thank you for the overview. I must admit I stopped reading your post when I got to Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin being integrated to core of 2.9 and went right away to his plugin’s page. ‘Twas relief to see that Viper will be making a replacement plugin “to make the existing shortcodes in older posts use the new API in 2.9.” Kudos Viper.
What’s sometimes overlooked to make WP a “real CMS” is to facilitate and fully support user management of the “static” Pages content in the backend … hundreds and hundreds of Pages. A non-profit almost went with another well-known opensource application because of their managment of static pages. I was able to persuade them to go WP way when I showed PageMash in backend of WPMU used as “CMS” so manager can view at a glance whether placement of Pages are correct 4 levels deep. The dropdown in Pages panel to choose Parent Page becomes wild when one adds long Page titles and soooo many Pages, it really needs to be revised . Oh man, if I were a WP guru …
Re Jane Well’s post re 2.9 features – re top voted standalone editable photo albums – were you able to test how well it’s working or is it even included in 2.9?
Merci
I know that 2.9 is in feature freeze now but I hope you have included a simple way to set the font size in the visual editor. I’m talking about the size of the text in the editor itself, not the way it will be displayed on the web page. If there is a way to do this without changing the code I haven’t found it.
Very exciting stuff, thank you for the report!
I am hoping to see some easy automated “fetch the image from the post” for the thumbnail.
And am also wondering when there will be a top navigation bar relying on the_widget()
Thanks again for the preview!
Tal
Although I am already way beyond the moon with wordpress i’d love more image manipulation so i’m looking forward to this ! Go fwd wp !
im use wp2.9 now
Um, will they by a way to disable the embedding feature? I’d like to embed my own damned code. thank you.
Progressives, always wanting to TELL YOU how to do things.
Whatever happened to personal freedom?
While I am here, did they ever fix that new spellchecker/MS WORD grammar checker knock off? It was eating embedding code last I checked.
How long do we need to wait for new Wordpress? Will it be available in few months?
Last word I saw was that it would reach Beta status around October 31. After that, it will depend on how many bugs people run into that need to be dealt with, but we can probably expect the final release sometime in December.
Oh, so, you’ll answer his, but not mine.
No matter, I found out it can be disabled. Which is a good thing. Choice is good, and besides, there’s always that Odball embed code from like newspaper or something.
Oops! Oddball, not odball… I need more coffee.
HELP!!!! where do I get some help here!
Suddenly my wordpress site: http://photoshop4artistsworkshop.com/Wordpress_PS4ART/BLOG/ will not allow comments and puts out a 400 bad request ngix notice when you click on the comments button…
Where can I get help with this?
Thank you profoundly! LI
Hopefully they will have less reliance on code. I have found it difficult on WP with many themes and plugins as they assume we all know code. Some of the revisions you talk about are nice additions, I just hope that they will not require code manipulation to achieve and that there will be more WYSIWYG type plugins, widgets, and features for WP2.9.
When I go to a website verification service my website has over 300 errors in code and other things and I have no idea how to correct them as I did not write the code for the plugins and theme anyway. The verification services are stating that it is preventing most search engines from picking up my webpages and content. Most bloggers or small businesses using WP from independent hosts, do not know code and we have difficulty on here.
Guess I went off on a rant, my bad — just hope WP hears more from the clueless on the code crowd.
Even where you state we “can use the following HTML tags and attibutes” at the bottom of the comment section on this page is alien to me and I see that all the time in WP.
I’m looking forward to the custom post types, as i’m discovering WordPress as a great CMS, despite what others might say.
Trash Status, Comments Meta-data, and new Post Types – this is a good sign. I sincerely hope 2.10 switches focus to looking at content management – visual query building and the like. (I’m getting bored with all the media and cosmetic stuff in the last couple of releases – sounds like I’m not alone – give us a shout when you need that brainstorm.)
It seems possible to tag just about anything with anything, including tagging links themselves – then what we need is some non-programming UI to exploit this power.
I’m most interested in both the image editing capabilities in the media library and the custom content types.
The media library will be a big help for clients that I set up with WordPress websites. These clients aren’t necessarily savvy with image editing tools and to have everything built into WordPress will be a big help.
The custom content types will help me in creating different types of WordPress-based sites, such as a local business directory.
Good point. It sounds very logical when you put it that way.
I like the post thumbnails feature. My blog is really an exhibit of my paintings – a thumbnail will basically be able to give the reader an idea of the artwork before it is actually viewed.
Thanky you for the preview! It is very useful. The new features are looking good.
Answering my own question above, there is a plugin — Change Attachment Parent — that lets you change the parent page or post for an attachment.
Hi Dougal,
thank you for this post. As a complete novice to the special language that dominates the world of wordpress, I’m at a loss even in the support forums as to how to get a simple answer to a troubleshooting question! It’s incredibly frustrating for beginners like me. I applaud the new 2.9 version, though to be frank, the only visible thing I’ve seen is the editor in media. However, this is where my frustration begins…..
I’m unable to upload pictures into my library and all the pictures that I uploaded up to last May no longer show in the actual library, so it’s rather frustrating as all the forums talk in such complex language, that I wonder if there is anyone out there that can just let me know what the problem is in nice ’simple’ language please.
Thank you again for an informative post.:-)x
Liz.x
Good to hear this development. For me, the Image Editor is the coolest feature.
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New in WordPress 2.9 (Dougal Campbell): http://dougal.gunters.org/?p=1806
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[...] feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxOKay hey guys, so I jsut finished reading the WordPress 2.9 Features post over at Dougal Campbell’s geek ramblings Blog. I am quite surprised at how quickly WordPress is upgrading. It seems as if just yesterday [...]
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