Upgrade to 2.0(.2)
ByWhat can I say? WordPress (the blogging platform I use for this site) has just blown me away. As you can see I’ve made a lot of changes over the past 24 hours, starting with an upgrade to the latest version of WordPress(2.0.2). And followed by a switch to this excellent theme by Andreas Viklund and Ainslie Johnson.
If you’re using an older version of WordPress: Upgrade now. If you don’t use WordPress: Consider switching. Why? Because of the phenomenal choice it gives you with themes, plugins, and now widgets.
Widgets allow you to edit blog sidebars without having to tinker with the code—a wonderful solution for amateurs like me. I organized the layout of both of these sidebars in a matter of minutes using widgets. (This is what the Sidebar Widgets screen looks like.) And thanks to developers like Trevor Creech I’m able to add features like the translate function on the left in a matter of minutes.
Better yet, this image was uploaded directly from the editing screen (in the past I had to upload all of my images using an FTP client). Plus there’s a host of extra little functions that make working with links, images, posts and pages a good deal easier.
Now, I’m not going to pretend any of this is straightforward. In fact, if it wasn’t for the super skills of a certain macboy over the past two years this blog would not even exist. But that’s where WordPress gets even better, because with WordPress.com you get all the functionality of WordPress without the web and coding skills needed for a privately-hosted weblog.
Considering switching? Here’s an interesting Movable Type vs. WordPress post via Blogging Pro.
7 Comments
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:08 am
Looks good, Berger!
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:59 am
I kind of liked the old color scheme and photo at the top. But happy redesigning, the blog looks good.
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:51 pm
Yeah, I do miss the header background photo of Berger on the subway platform. Let’s get that back!
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:57 pm
Previous layout was much better. However after trying WP a few times, I kept going back to Nucleus CMS. Probably because I enjoy messing around with the code and find their code easier to understand
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:43 pm
So that’s a thumbs down for the new design?
I know the older one was prettier but this one is so much more roomy
May 24th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
What works well for you is certainly important, and I will by no means stop reading, but, yes . . . the older one WAS prettier. Wonder if there’s a way to keep the new desing but incorporate the platform . . .
May 24th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I can switch back in two seconds but it would present a couple of problems:
1. I would go back to having only one sidebar.
2. I’d have to revert to changing the code in the sidebar myself (rather than using widgets) to add features like recent comments.
3. I felt that the old design was too narrow.
But yes, I agree, it was a lot prettier. I’m going to keep an eye out for something a little more attractive than this. I notice that Sadish, the author of the last template I used, has a three-column template in the works.