WordPress 2.0 Thoughts

I upgraded to WordPress 2.0, and overall, I have to say that I am mightily disappointed. I do not see any particular change in it that I consider an enhancement.

The upload function, which allowed me to put files where I wanted, is gone. Now, it is replaced with an automatic uploader that is neither configurable nor functional. Use it to upload a picture, and a thumbnail is created only someimtes. Sometimes, a corrupt image is created. Sometimes no thumbnail is created. It seems to depend on the picture. No documentation exists that explains why it would do this that I am aware of.

I have no idea why preview is included. Doesn’t everyone else just right click on the “view site” link and spawn a new window and reload it using f5 when throwing up pages and checking them out? I wish I could turn it off. I can’t.

I did manage to turn off the utterly useless and bandwidth-hogging so-called WYSIWYG editor. What do I need that for? It’s a blog, for goodness sakes. All I need to do is type something up in MS Word and then paste it into the box. Are tags like strong and em really that difficult for people to understand?

I see no way to edit the feeds in the dashboard. In fact, I see no reason that there is a dashboard. The menu bar in the admin function seems to be the real dashboard. I am editing my site to go to the moderation page by default when clicking on the site admin link. What do I need a dashboard for anyway?

I am also annoyed that still on the moderation panel there is no place where the name of the post that the comment is in answer to is listed. I can mouseover the view post link, but you think this would have been the name of the post, not “view post.”

And I still cannot mass move articles between categories without a plug in. Isn’t that essential enough to build it in? Does no one else ever second guess their site organization?

Trackbacks don’t seem to work. I tried manually inserting some URLs for trackbacks (why WordPress developers call them URI’s I have no idea – I thought URL was pretty much the standard acronym), and nothing happens.

My favorite and only active plugin other than backup, extended live archives, no longer works when permalinks are active. I have no idea why, but I turn on the permalinks and I turn them off, and when off, the archive reappears. I have worked closely with the developer on this issue, testing caches that need to be cleared, to make sure the issue is not the plugin. It’s not. It’s WP 2.0 and something different it does with permalinks.

The thing that is missing from this release more than anything else is a php file that I can click to roll back everything to 1.5.2, which was stable, fully functional, and did everything this release does without the headaches and bandwidth hogging.

I am very appreciative of the development work that goes into free software like this, and I am grateful to the community of folks who help out and answer questions, but I do want to be open and honest about how disappointed I am in the roadmap that the developers followed in producing this release of WP. I don’t know what they did under the hood, but as user, I don’t care if the engine has a turbocharger in it if I cannot get it to start.

Would someone mind posting a link to a thread where there are directions for rolling back to 1.5.2? The only method I can think of is to back up my posts table separately and blowing away the entire database and the files with a completely new install.