So as i’ve posted before, here and here i less and less like where WordPress is heading.
WordPress 2.7. The dashboard while redesigned, is a complete mess. The navigation is inefficient and annoying, the menu’s make sense but lack flexibility for plugins. The lack of colors is amazing. 3 shades of gray and blue isn’t very cutting edge. Even though it’s not all bad… It looks ok. But the old color scheme is so much nicer. The old navigation worked so much easier. The amount of flexibility WordPress praises is so huge it makes creating plugins a pain because of the endless lists of possibilities. Utter crap. Too much! What happened to simplicity. Oh yea, clear documentation sorts that out. Sure, but incomplete, vague or not present because it’s not updated yet… And probably never will. yay!
Bloat. That’s what it is. Two good things in WP2.7? The option to turn things off. I disabled 90% of all dashboard options and things because it’s just not needed. Why not leave it out entirely and create some nice plugins for that. And the other thing? Dashboard widgets. Nice touch. Luckily Habari has that too :)
And here starts the issue i’m trying to cope with. I can choose to switch to another system. Habari looks really promising and works nicely. Or i can stick with WP, be unhappy with it. Dumping WordPress would also mean dumping my plugins. At least the WP support for it. The popular ones i would port to the other system…
But… Habari, which of the many systems i have looked at seems the most capable and modern, lacks some things. Most notably subpages for pages. This is kind of a dealbreaker. Yes it’s planned. But will take a while. At least a few months to even implement the basics. I looked at the core and it didn’t make much sense to me since i know fuck all about jQuery and i don’t think it’s my task to implement such a thing. I want to be just a user.
So what to do… *sigh*. Why can’t a good and cool system not stay on track and remain cool and good. Blah! I’m tempted strongly to just leave WP for what it is, burn my site and start one with Habari. But on the other side. I’ve used WP for almost 4 years. I invested a huge amount of time in it and my plugins. I can’t just pack up and leave? Or can i … In the past few days i’ve made a huge stride towards Habari. Ported my, this, theme to it. Looked at the plugin structure. Learned a lot… Still i’m not sure.
I want pie!
by Jason Burns
24 Dec 2008 at 07:07
Oh FFS Arnan, 2.7 is nice, you remind me of all the people who hated the Ribbon in Office 2007. People who didn’t really use it hated it, but people who really use it all the time love it because it’s much more efficient. I think the 2.7 UI is great, but I have been using it since the early Betas. It took me a bit to find some things, but now I love it. Take some time and get used to it. Dumping WP would be retarded, there is too much community support and love. Your plugins are mature (even tho you seem to be afraid to leave v1 :) ) but give it a shot man, the sky isn’t falling Chicken Little.
by -JC-
24 Dec 2008 at 09:04
I do not like WP 2.7 !! So I stick to an older version with all complications that might give.
(The numerious urges to update f.e.)
by Tes
24 Dec 2008 at 10:04
Hm, so I better wait to switch to 2.7? Why are you doubting about switching to Habari? Can’t you discover both? They won’t be jealous, girls will, but programs won’t.
Hm pie, I want pie too ;-)
by Andy C
24 Dec 2008 at 10:21
Stop dithering and migrate to Habari now :-)
by Arnan
24 Dec 2008 at 14:45
@Jason – I too have used wp2.7 since the early beta’s beta2 to be exact. I figured that it was the change that ticked me off, but i keep being annoyed in the dashboard whenever i need to do more than just write a post. And community and love? ha! Just loads of websites with plugins and tips, which is nice… But i don’t see the love.
@-JC- – Get my ‘secrets’ plugin so you can turn off the update notices if you don’t want to upgrade.
@Tes – Liking or not Liking wp2.7 is a personal thing, you might love it. Because in the end it’s not all bad. If in doubt you can always install a local webserver (Ie. Xampp) and try it out without chaning the actual ‘real’ website.
@Andy – If Habari would have subpages i would have switched earlier this week i think. Now i’m still pondering what’s best.