Well, I finally got around to upgrading wordpress to the latest version. I have not generally kept updated with the ultra latest, ultra up-to-date version, and generally find that I’ve had the wordpress ‘nag’ visible on the dashboard, but there was a very specific reason for upgrading to this version.

Firstly was the new customisability:

Digging in further you might notice that every screen is customizable. Let’s say you never care about author on your post listings — just click “Screen Options” and uncheck it and it’s instantly gone from the page. The same for any module on the dashboard or write screenWordpress Blog: 2.7 “Coltrane”

Secondly was the fact it’s called ‘Coltrane’. It’s named after the American saxophonist John Coltrane, but I’m going to pretend that isn’t the case and the latest Wordpress release is named in honour of the actor Hagrid (also known as ‘Robbie Coltrane’), star of films such as Nuns on the Run. Although as apparently Robbie Coltrane took his stage name to honour John Coltrane, it all comes back to John anyway.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly was the fact that while upgrading Wordpress is a pain in the proverbial*:

this may be the last time you ever have to manually upgrade WordPress again. We heard how tired you were of doing upgrades for yourself and your friends, so now WordPress includes a built-in upgrade that will automatically notify you of new releases, and when you’re ready it will download them, install them, and upgrade your blog with a single click.Wordpress Blog: 2.7 “Coltrane” [2]

Hurrah!

*upgrading Wordpress isn’t actually that difficult.

Basically, you:

• Deactivate existing plugins (except I forgot)
• Take a backup of your files
• Take a backup of your database (forgot)
• Download latest version of wordpress
• Overwrite appropriate parts of existing version, as per the description
• Visit ‘upgrade’ page
• Re-activate plugins

And that’s it, really.

So what actually is different about this version?

For those of you just viewing the front end of the site, probably bugger-all. However, the back end interface looks very different.

The position of the menu has changed, the look of the menu has changed and pretty much everything has been laid out differently. It’s certainly an improvement — the way in which you can customise pretty much any screen to get rid of the bits you don’t want is testament to that, but it’s going to take a little getting used to.