I must say that I am. Granted, WordPress does have the best admin layout of any blog/CMS platform that I’ve ever used, but I have had my share of picky points to complain about here and there. But yesterday, the folks at Automattic released WordPress 2.5, which they have deemed to be the biggest UI change since 1.5 came out three years ago. The main attraction of 2.5 is a brand new administration layout that is much more user-oriented. It has a much nicer, better-flowing layout that also permits a nice amount of customization. (And the Dashboard is actually useful now, woo hoo!)

So, the good news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. However, the bad news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. That means that if you’ve heavily customized your WordPress installation with plugins or theme tweaks, you may need to think a couple of times before you begin the 2.5 honeymoon. A wide number of incompatible plugins have been listed by the community, and if you use some of the more popular plugins listed at the bottom of the page, you may need to hold your horses for a week or two until the authors start rolling out some updates. I know that I’m going to be holding off for awhile until I have a significant amount of time to dedicate to updating. Also, due to the size of this upgrade, doing a very comprehensive backup will be HIGHLY recommended.

However, congratulations to Automattic on this release, and I look forward to examining it in more detail.

Tags: 2.5, administration, Automattic, backup, blog, Dashboard, layout, release, upgrading, user interface, WordPress

One of the TOP SECRET features that Apple refused to disclose during Leopard’s first preview in August 2006 was the new User Interface of Mac OS X Leopard, which Apple has referred to in its marketing as the New Desktop. This includes a new translucent menubar (originally transparent, but grumbles from users got Apple to make it a little more substantive), a new reflective/3-D Dock with Stacks, and a new unified Aqua user interface which completely eliminates the pinstripe/white gradient design and the brushed metal windows. While some of these changes help to refine the Mac OS X interface as cleaner and more pulled together, many of these changes are superfluous and unnecessary, and in some cases, downright distracting.
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Tags: Desktop, Dock, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, menu bar, review, user interface, window