WordPress Version 2.9 Is Ready Or Is It?

Posted by Jeff

on December 25, 2009

Just before Christmas WordPress version 2.9 was released. If you haven’t already upgraded, and since this isn’t really a security release, I might suggest you wait for version 2.9.1 before doing so.

Unfortunately, the recent 2.9 release triggered a bug in certain versions of PHP’s curl extension. With these versions of curl, scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly. To fix this problem as well as a handful of other, lesser issues, expect a quick release of 2.9.1, the first maintenance release of the 2.9 line.

WordPressMax has upgraded to 2.9 and only experienced a minor issue with a related post plugin that no longer worked. A quick change to a similar supported plugin quickly addressed the issue. But if you must upgrade and can’t do so automatically from the WordPress dashboard, get the latest version from WordPress.org here.

Here is a video of the cool new stuff from version 2.9.

According to official WordPress Blog, here is the coolest new stuff from a user point of view :

Global undo/”trash” feature, which means that if you accidentally delete a post or comment you can bring it back from the grave (i.e., the Trash). This also eliminates those annoying “are you sure” messages we used to have on every delete
Built-in image editor allows you to crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them who’s boss. This is the first wave of our many planned media-handling improvements.
Batch plugin update and compatibility checking, which means you can update 10 plugins at once, versus having to do multiple clicks for each one, and we’re using the new compatibility data from the plugins directory to give you a better idea of whether your plugins are compatible with new releases of WordPress. This should take the fear and hassle out of upgrading.
Easier video embeds that allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv (and more in the next release).

2.9 provides the smoothest ride yet because of a number of improvements under the hood and more subtle improvements you’ll begin to appreciate once you’ve been around the block a few times. Here’s just a sampling:

We now have rel=canonical support for better SEO.
There is automatic database optimization support, which you can enable in your wp-config.php file by adding define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);.
Themes can register “post thumbnails” which allow them to attach an image to the post, especially useful for magazine-style themes.
A new commentmeta table that allows arbitrary key/value pairs to be attached to comments, just like posts, so you can now expand greatly what you can do in the comment framework.
Custom post types have been upgraded with better API support so you can juggle more types than just post, page, and attachment. (More of this planned for 3.0.)
You can set custom theme directories, so a plugin can register a theme to be bundled with it or you can have multiple shared theme directories on your server.
We’ve upgraded TinyMCE WYSIWYG editing and Simplepie.
Sidebars can now have descriptions so it’s more obvious what and where they do what they do.
Specify category templates not just by ID, like before, but by slug, which will make it easier for theme developers to do custom things with categories — like post types!
Registration and profiles are now extensible to allow you to collect things more easily, like a user’s Twitter account or any other fields you can imagine.
The XML-RPC API has been extended to allow changing the user registration option. We fixed some Atom API attachment issues.
Create custom galleries with the new include and exclude attributes that allow you to pull attachments from any post, not just the current one.
When you’re editing files in the theme and plugin editors it remembers your location and takes you back to that line after you save. (Thank goodness!!!)
The Press This bookmarklet has been improved and is faster than ever; give it a try for on-the-fly blogging from wherever you are on the internet.
Custom taxonomies are now included in the WXR export file and imported correctly.
Better hooks and filters for excerpts, smilies, HTTP requests, user profiles, author links, taxonomies, SSL support, tag clouds, query_posts and WP_Query.

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WordPress News

Tags: WordPress News, WordPress-Upgrade

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Comments

Comment by Dicas Casamento on December 25, 2009 @ 7:02 pm

After reading your post (and watching the video, of course!) I tried to update to 2.9 through the automatic installer… But i got an error… So I updated manually and now all my forms to registration, etc, seem to do not work… Just trying to warn all of you guys!

That kind’a sucks! Well, I will be trying to update the forms, but I’ll just do the “downgrade” for now…

Congrats for the great blog and greetings from Portugal!

(i read your blog whenever I can, just posted now my first comment hopefully the first of many… Sorry for my bad english)

Comment by Mikey on December 26, 2009 @ 1:22 pm

Thanks for the heads up, but

I am a newbie on-site blogger having just installed a Wordpress blog onto my site. I upgraded to 2.9 without heeding some of the warnings as soon as I got the notice. I wanted to add a Feedburner RSS form but noticed none were 2.9 ready. Yours is obviously working, however. What plug in are you using, may I ask?

Michael

Jeff Replied:
December 26th, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Just read the post before this one, here:
Burn Your WordPress RSS Feed At FeedBurner.

Mikey Replied:
December 26th, 2009 at 5:42 pm

Thanks, I will.

Comment by John Pedersen on December 26, 2009 @ 3:33 pm

I installed the new version 2.9 and im not sure about the new features – so im learning.

John Pedersen

Comment by LM Russian Translators on December 27, 2009 @ 2:28 am

I have just updated the word press new version and some of the features are simply great. But in need some more time to comment perfectly as i don’t want to spoil or provide bad results without knowing about it perfectly.

Comment by Apartments Buenos Aires on December 27, 2009 @ 6:46 am

Cool info thanks. Regarding this new version 2.9 it’s normal to take some time to get used to the new tools.

Comment by SD webmagic on December 27, 2009 @ 9:06 am

will over all WordPress is just so great.
and with those new updates it’s going to be invincible.
and even without the new features i think that blogger has no chance.
i think that google will have to improve to compete with this.

Comment by web design consultant on December 27, 2009 @ 10:37 pm

I did 22 upgrades to WP 2.9 and survived. Most were automatic and a few I had to go to manual. When you mentioned the problem and the probable 2.91 around the corner it kind of took the wind out of my sails for a minute. But I’d rather be informed than not. OK have a great holiday and thanks for the news. Cheers – Mal

Comment by Willa Jamil on December 28, 2009 @ 4:44 am

What I like most of all about WP 2.9 is the batch plugin update feature. I have a lot of them and now that feature saves a lot of time.

And undo/”trash” feature seems to be useful, too.

Comment by Frank C on December 29, 2009 @ 12:06 am

The feature that looks like it will be of the most value to me is the location recall after save on the theme and plug-in editors. For a dedicated theme tinkerer like me this will be a big time saver. No more cutting and pasting between the editor window and NotePad++.

I’m going to 2.9 a try on my test blog over the weekend and see how it does. Since I have a lot of niche blogs I’m slow and cautious about updates since it takes a lot of time and I want all the initial kinks worked out, such as the curl glitch.

Comment by pink mobile phones on December 29, 2009 @ 4:57 am

Thanks for the heads-up about the bugs. I think i’ll wait for another release before upgrading my wordpress sites.
I always seem to run into some sort of problems when doing an update so i try not to unless i really have to, updating for me is the only real downside to using wordpress for my sites.

Comment by Big and Tall T-shirts on December 29, 2009 @ 2:09 pm

great post, i agree, i tend to wait for the first update, it really makes a difference, and you can avoid a lot of the hassles with new versions.

Comment by Mesa Locksmith on December 29, 2009 @ 2:40 pm

Why oh Why do we release things before they are completely ready??

Comment by New Jersey Movers on December 30, 2009 @ 1:36 pm

I’m definitely going to wait for the maintenance update. I usually don’t like to jump on the new upgrades right away because there’s almost always some sort of problem with them, unless it’s a security update. Having said that, I’m glad they finally made a batch update feature for the plugins. It was really annoying having to click each individual plugin whenever there are updates.

Comment by Carol on January 3, 2010 @ 9:12 pm

I wish I saw this post BEFORE I upgraded! I’ve been dealing with a mess since I’ve upgraded.

Well, when I upgraded, it said it was successful and the site looked fine. Then when I wrote my first post after the upgrade, I got a message saying that the simple tags plug-in is not compatible with Wordpress 2.9 and when I previewed my post I got a fatal error message and all my widgets were gone.

I deleted the plug-in altogether, and now my widgets are back but the homepage content shows up as a diagonal down the page. :/ Since I don’t have any coding knowledge, and not sure how to fix the problem, I’m rather frustrated at the moment.

Jeff Replied:
January 4th, 2010 at 10:23 am

Revert back to an older version. Manually though…

Carol Replied:
January 5th, 2010 at 10:11 pm

I’ll give that a try. Thanks, Jeff.

Comment by Laundren Caty on January 3, 2010 @ 11:49 pm

I installed last Wordpress version, and lots of plugin not work fine.. i restored my older version.

Wordpress is a nice CMS but they grow to faster and forget to check all the things and is more sample to launch a new version,, the WP updates eat my life…:)

Comment by strantheman on January 4, 2010 @ 3:13 am

2.9 isn’t worth my time. Thank goodness I tried it on my development site first, because it completely jacked one of the most important tools I use: Scissors image editor.

Not only is WP 2.9’s built in image editor lacking watermarking, it also has no pre-defined image sizes / ratios for cropping images.

Get with the program, Wordpress. The Scissors plugin is vastly superior to your mediocre offering, and on http://www.cartoonaday.com we certainly will not be replacing Scissors 1.3.3 any time soon.

And I’m no shill — just a dev who thinks Scissors is a great plugin that did NOT need to be replaced with a sub-par offering I consider a step backwards.

Comment by Darion on January 6, 2010 @ 2:34 pm

I’ve also run into some problem upgrading through the automatic upgrade tool in WP 2.8.

After reading this though, I am definitely going to try to get the upgrade to work.

I really like the image cropping resizing part too this will really help me with the theme I’m using.

Comment by niki on January 6, 2010 @ 7:35 pm

i’ve just upgraded to 2.9 but now 2.9.1 is available, OMG they update really often

Comment by Bill Stevens on January 7, 2010 @ 3:04 am

Well, I’m a little late here but I’m just getting around to updating it to 2.9.1. Luckily I’m a techie. I can’t imagine what “normal” folks go through trying to decide whether they should upgrade or not. But I guess that would mean more biz for the wordpress freelancers.

Comment by Watch Legion Online on January 7, 2010 @ 5:50 am

Hey thanks a lot for informing about the new version of word press…It has really very good updated features…Thanks once again.

Comment by Jason Wong on January 7, 2010 @ 8:52 am

Happy New Year !
I have upgraded my blog. Its about improvement, new features added, you don’t stop developing an application just because its stable. If all programmers had that kind of thinking, nothing good would ever get done in this country.

Comment by Rami Fawaz on January 8, 2010 @ 7:05 pm

I always wait for the new versions to be completely tested before I upgrade my main blog. But the new version seems to have alot of great patches.

Comment by San Diego Boutique Hotels on January 8, 2010 @ 8:25 pm

I hope this new version has less bugs than previous ones, im looking forward for using it with all the plugins i have. Also, i will be testing some hacks for it.

Comment by Darion on January 10, 2010 @ 5:28 pm

I finally got wordpress 2.9 to work. I am now running a blog on 2.8 and one on 2.9 and I have to say having the image size adjustable via dragging is a very nice feature.

Comment by web design company on January 11, 2010 @ 3:07 am

I have just upgraded to 2.9 but I am not sure about the new features.It is showing some problems too…should I reinstall it?

Jeff Replied:
January 11th, 2010 at 8:23 am

Its probably a plugin causing problems. Upgrade those as well. If still issues deactivate all of them and activate one at a time to find the problem plugin.

Comment by Oribium on January 11, 2010 @ 6:13 am

I am still on 2.8.4, they update to often! Well, I’ll just have to catch up.

Are the bugs you mentioned fixed in 2.9.1?

Comment by Viktor on January 11, 2010 @ 7:33 am

The image editing feature is great! Makes blogging much easier.

Comment by Bodybuilding Advice on January 12, 2010 @ 5:25 am

I think the trash feature is great, I haven’t used it yet but when I do delete a blog post by mistake at least I know I can recover it.

Comment by Jeff on January 13, 2010 @ 9:41 am

I don’t know.

Comment by kanishk on January 13, 2010 @ 9:09 pm

I really like the image cropping resizing part too this will really help me with the theme I’m using.

belek

Comment by watch legion online on January 15, 2010 @ 6:14 am

Hassles of updating plugins separately is now removed.

Comment by Lincolnshire Web Design on January 15, 2010 @ 8:28 am

I dont think it was ready for release when it was released – which has been proved by the fact they virtually instantly released v2.9.1!

Comment by Anne Moss on January 15, 2010 @ 11:31 am

Have to say, I have upgraded some of my blogs and can’t really tell the difference…

Comment by transfer large files on January 15, 2010 @ 5:24 pm

I think it’s ready. I think they’ve been listening to the comments everyone has been making, and has tried hard to address those issues.

Comment by Forum Indonesia on January 16, 2010 @ 8:27 am

I really like the new features of Wordpress. The Image editing and the Trash features. Well 2.9.1 had to be released after 2.9 because there was a lot of bugs but I am glad that 2.9.1 was released as soon as possible. A fast and a commendable job of the wordpress team

Comment by WordPress Toronto on January 16, 2010 @ 10:56 pm

I have updated many blogs and fortunately I haven’t had a single glitch. I really like the new features in WordPress. I also wrote a post about the new features in 2.9

Comment by Registry Cleaner Reviews on January 17, 2010 @ 6:36 am

Nice post – I’m in love with Carmen (LOL!) and I use it on several sites that I own.

Comment by become a police officer on January 21, 2010 @ 1:01 am

I have just updated the word press new version and some of the features are simply great.I haven’t used it yet but when I do delete a blog post by mistake at least I know I can recover it.

Comment by Jorge on January 29, 2010 @ 5:45 pm

I upgraded to wordpress 2.9 and didn’t seem to get any problems and I did this for personal and work purpose.

Comment by troical fish on February 13, 2010 @ 6:02 am

I use WP 2.9.1 since it is out and it works perfect for me. Till now I have found no problem – guess it is the best version of WP till now.

Comment by Low Cost Medical Insurance Coverage on February 21, 2010 @ 11:58 pm

I will probably use the photo editor feature more than anything else. One of the reasons I don’t have a lot of photos (any) is lack of editing feature.

Of course, I am not a tech person so I’ll rely on the SEO person to handle the update. He hasn’t failed me yet!

Comment by RROD on February 23, 2010 @ 9:00 pm

Wordpress 2.9 is just an update for wordpress blog and you must install SEO plugins, which are accessible in plenty to optimize your post / pages. Wordpress is not great by itself for SEO, but once you add several plugins such as All In One SEO and SEO slugs then it becomes the bees knees!

Jeff Replied:
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:33 pm

Thanks for pointing this out. A site like this dedicated to WordPress would have never have known it… Moron

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