I recently upgraded my Wordpress install to the latest version. Sadly it’s one of those things that has taken me a while — Wordpress tends to be one of those things I install and forget about. I suspect that’s how most casual Wordpress users feel. The upgrade itself was painless for someone of my technical acumen and I suspect that is the reason why most people avoid it. Far be it from me to gloat, but this is still a difficult process. Despite that, I am rather happy with the upgrade.
Firstly, as everyone has been talking about for some time, the new administration interface is beautiful. The colour-scheme has been updated, the layout has been re-arranged, and most pages have gotten a touch of the accessibility bug. I’m really impressed with the thoughtfulness that has gone into the alterations to the post page and plugin management pages. The additional features integrate seamlessly into the work-flow. It’s really quite an achievement.
One thing of concern to me is the addition of tags; a feature that has been long addressed with plugins. I use one such plugin to add Technorati tags to to my posts. In the meantime I intend to continue to use said plugin. If I decide to switch over to the built-in Wordpress tag system I will be faced with the problem of extracting the old tags from my posts and re-saving them in the new system. Although I appreciate the new feature, I’m curious how other people have felt about it. The tag-void has been filled so long now, adding the feature is more of a pain in the ass than a benefit I imagine.
Overall, I think I will be pleased with the latest version. The only drawback is still the upgrade process; but at this point it should be incredibly easy to include a script that can do it automatically. Hopefully someone on the Wordpress team will take a crack at it and include the script in a future release. Until then, if you are capable, I do recommend upgrading your Wordpress right away. It’s really worth it.