WordPress 2.7 has a completely new look of its dashboard. It allows its users to arrange new modules by dragging and dropping them around.  It also provides new features such as  QuickPress, comment threading, paging, and the ability to reply to comments inside the dashboard. Moreover, it built in the ability to install any plugin directly from WordPress.org with a single click only.

On the upper side corner there is a new feature named “Screen Options” which allow you to check or uncheck the choices of the modules to be shown in the dashboard. The most excited news about WordPress 2.7 is that it built in the ability to allow you to automatically upgrade your future WordPress version with a single click.

Although some people don’t like the new dashboard of WordPress 2.7, I don’t mind to have that. I can understand why some people are not easy to accept new ideas, new looks, new technologies, and etc. For me I am ready. So this is the last time you ever have to manually upgrade WordPress again. If you are readdy, here we go:

• Check to see your host is compatible with WordPress 2.7.

• Check to find out your plugins are compatible with WordPress 2.7.

• Check to be sure your theme is compatible with WordPress 2.7.

• If everything works fine for you, then you can download WordPress 2.7 here.

• Deactivate all your plugins before you proceed.

• You can use WordPress Automatic Upgrade Plugin to upgrade to WordPress 2.7 in about two minutes (after that say bye-bye to this plugin because you don’t need it any more). If you like to manually upgrade your existing WordPress version to WordPress 2.7, just follow along.

• Back up all your WordPress files to your laptop/PC.  You may use FTP to get the job done.

• Back up your database. If you don’t know how, follow these instructions here.

• You should double check to make sure that your backups are usable.

• Delete the old WordPress files except the following files:
  * wp-config.php file
  * wp-content folder
  * wp-images folder (only older installations from 1.5.x days will have this folder)
  * wp-includes/languages/folder; if you are using a language file, and it is here rather than in wp-content/languages/, do not delete this folder (you might want to move your language files to wp-content/languages/ for easier upgrading in the future)
  * .htaccess file (if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it)
  * Custom Content and/or Plugins (if you have any images or other custom content or Plugins inside the wp-content folder, do not delete them).

• You may use FTP to upload your unzipped WordPress 2.7 files to your WordPress directory.

• In your web browser, type http://www.yoursitename.com/wp-admin/ and hit enter. It will guide you whether you need to upgrade your database or not. It turns out that I needed to upgrade my database this time. (Make sure you replace yoursitename wiith your own domain name.)

• The final step is to reactivate all your plugins in the dashboard of your WordPress 2.7.

Now go ahead. Get familiar with the new features in WordPress 2.7 and enjoy!

• Post Revisions: Wiki-like tracking of edits
  This feature allow you to view your changes of your posts and pages with a specific date.  If you make mistakes on your blog, this feature is handy in a way that it allows you to go back to your older version of the post. Thus saving your headache. It is even handier for multi-author blogs because it allows you to track changes being make by who or when.

• Press This!: Post from wherever you are on the web
  This is a feature that allows you to add a bookmark to your toolbar by simply clicking on Press This. It will provide you a fast and smart popup to do posts to your WordPress blog. It is quite convenient if you want to post video on your blog from YouTube or Flickr.

• Shift Gears: Turbo-speed your blogging
  Gears is one of the open source projects developed by Google. With this feature one can add more new features to your web browser. Gears can be installed with the following system requirements:
  • Windows XP/Vista
  • Firefox 1.5+ and Internet Explorer 6.0+

  It is optional that you want to install it or not. According to WordPress Blog in WordPress.org, your WordPress blog works fine without it.

• Theme Previews: See it before your audience does
  This feature allows you to view your selected theme in a pop-up window with your live contents in it. Therefore you don’t have to activate your theme in order to see it alive in public.

• Other small features and improvements included in WordPress 2.6 are:
  • Word count
  • Image captions
  • Bulk management of Plugins
  • A completed revamped image control
  • Reordering galleries
  • Plugin update notification bubble
  • Default avatars customization
  • Upload media in a full screen mode
  • Remote publishing via XML-RPC and APP is now secure by default.
  • Full SSL suport
  • No interface issues of having many thousands pages or categories
  • Allows you to move your wp-config file and wp-content directories to a custom location
  • Allows you to select a range of checkboxes with “shift-click”
  • Allows you to toggle between the Flash uploader and the classic one
  • Provides a number of proactive security enhancements
  • Develops stronger, better, and faster versions of TinyMCE, jQuery, and jQuery UI
  • Fixes approximately 194 bugs.

Next post I’ll show you how to upgrade your existing version to WordPress 2.6. So stay tuned…

Related article
Upgrading to WordPress 2.6.1? How?

To learn more about these features, visit What is New In WordPress 2.5? The article WordPress Upgrade Preparation Checklist also provides you more detail information of what you should look out for before upgrading to WordPress 2.5. It will be worth of your time.

I just upgraded WordPress 2.3.3 to WordPress 2.5 yesterday. Everything went smoothly. If you consider to upgrade your existing version to WordPress 2.5, the first thing is to find out you meet the minimum requirement. Create a file named checkphpNmysql.php or any name you want and put the following code in that file and save it:

 
Second upload that file to your public_html directory, and run it as http://www.yoursitename.com/checkphpNmysql.php in your browser to find out your PHP version and MySQL version right away. Make sure you replace yoursitename with your own domain name. If you do fulfill the minimum requirement, then download WordPress 2.5 here. The following steps for upgrading to WordPress 2.5 are pretty straightforward:

• Back up your database. Here are the instructions showing you how to do that

• Back up ALL of your files in your WordPress directory to your PC (personal computer)

• Check your backups to make sure they are usable.

• Deactivate All your plugins

• Unzipped wordpress-2.5 file you just downloaded

• Delete the old WordPress files except wp-config.php file, wp-content folder, wp-images folder (only older installations from 1.5.x days will have this folder), wp-includes/languages/ folder (if you are using a language file, do not delete this folder), .htaccess file (if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it), and Custom Content and/or Plugins (if you have any images or other Custom Content or Plugins inside the wp-content folder, do NOT delete them)

• Upload your unzipped wordpress-2.5 files to your WordPress directory

• Run http://www.yoursitename.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php in your browser (Replace yoursitename with your own domain name).

• Reactivate those plugins that you deactivated earlier

That is it. Now go ahead and explore your new WordPress 2.5 interface. Get familiar with it.