Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook Talking technology, computers, and the Internet… for the average computer user

The latest version of WordPress, the much-acclaimed and much-publicized version 2.7, is finally available to the general public. I’ve been a WordPress user for over a year now, and I’ve suffered through six or seven upgrades to the software. I REALLY hope this is the last upgrade for a while. It has become quite a chore to do major upgrades on six blogs every other month.

With that said, WordPress 2.7 is OK. It is a complete redesign of the Admin pages. It’s really how WordPress should have been designed ages ago. So I like it, but it will take some getting used to. You can catch a sneak-peek here, with this video.

Since this release is a major, major upgrade, I have a few recommendations. Hopefully, you can avoid the major bumps and hurdles.

• BACKUP your data files!!!!!! Never, ever, EVER upgrade or do anything serious to your blog without backing up your data first. I backup two separate ways– I use the WordPress admin way (Dashboard>>Manage>>Export) to download an XML file of all my posts, comments, etc. Know that this kind of backup will only backup your written data. It will not backup your theme nor your images nor your plugins. That’s why I have two separate backup systems. The second backup system I use saves all that data– through my web host’s cPanel Backup Wizard. Every host and cPanel is slightly different, so consult your web host for more details on how to do that.
• Before upgrading, ALWAYS manually disable your plugins. Plugins can cause problems. Plugins are almost always the cause of upgrades gone wrong. There are just so many different kinds of plugins each with their own coding– do yourself a favor and manually disable them before you tackle an upgrade. After you’ve upgraded, activate each plugin, one by one, to check and see if a plugin causes compatibility problems.
• Go to the WordPress development blog and read about this new 2.7 version. It will save you a lot of headaches later. This version is a major change, and at first look, the new interface is very complex. Get to know the software a little before you take the leap. It will make your transfer much easier.

I tested upgrading to WP 2.7 on my test blog. I used a plugin called WordPress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.2 plugin. Author’s page here: WordPress Automatic Upgrade 1.2.2, and everything went very smoothly. The new WordPress 2.7 has included its own automatic upgrade system, so according to the WordPress Dudes, we no longer need to use separate plugins to upgrade our blogs. I have not used the new WP upgrade feature.

There was some discussion at the WordPress Forums that upgrading using an upgrading plugin caused problems. It didn’t for me. Be sure to take a peek at the forums for a heads up on problematic issues and how to avoid/solve them.

Enjoy your new software!