WordPress 1.5: wp went all nerdy on me4 min read

edit: oh gawd i am so glad i have become more careful and have not upgraded my WP from 1.2.2 to 1.5 yet: http://wordpress.org/support/topic.php?id=22823

The guide in Codex to upgrading your blog WILL BREAK YOUR BLOG if you are upgrading to a nightly or cvs build just to see what it is like.

The internal blog structure has changed.
For this upgrade, that means it is a very specific procedure, but future upgrading will be that much easier.

I have written the Upgrade Guide 1.2 > 1.5 and it has been tested by several people.

It will be available when 1.5 is officially released and NOT before.
Why not before ?
1. Because until the code is final, it could change. So the guide would need to change.
2. Because it is an unreleased product. I, and others, support the official release which, like it or not, remains 1.2.2

the question is, do you leave embarassing content online, or do you delete it? WP 1.5 is great!!!1

i have been a very big supporter of WordPress in recent times.
but right now i am completly bummed out. and i mean extremly dissapointed.

WordPress 1.5 has recently been bumped to gamma and so yesterday i had a look around.

first thing!
what? no multi-blog system? why the hell not?
people, who are much more geeky than me, have of course already known this for quite some time. but for me this was the biggest shocker. i was naively still convinced, that multi-blog would be in this release.
[and please don’t refer me to mu.wordpress.org. i already looked at that. wpmu is NOT multi-blog, at least not as i – and all the other blog codes with that feature – understand it. multi-blog offers the very simplified set-up of several blogs, which then can be handeled through one central admin interface. something, that i wish i had years ago, before now running 5 different blogs in various deegrees of upgrading – oh, the nightmare]

i always loved b2/wordpress, because of its clean and easy code, a code that imposed practically nothing on its users as far as layout and site structure. you were up and running in 5 minutes and then, after inserting a few simple php tags, you could fit your blog into practically any layout.
as it should be.

but yesterday, when i went ahead with my test-install of WordPress 1.5, i had to realise that instead of more simple things have gotten much more complex.
[this was an upgrade from wp 1.2.2, so people who have upgraded to 1.3 beta or watever already went through this awhile ago]
the biggest struggle was, of course, with the new template system. i mean, such a template system could be a great feature – for those who want such a thing…
but it should be completly optional. i should be able to decide, if i want this feature switched on or not.
because i, for one, do not.
it should certainly not be imposed on me. and it should not the be the main improvement in a new software version, that even skipped a few numbers – from 1.2.2 to 1.5 – because it presumes to be so great.

the template system imposes quite a few parameters on users. it imposes a site structure. it imposes that certain files have to be at certain places. and that makes things much more complex. yesterday i spent hours trying to port my wp 1.2.2 layout to the new template system. with very little success.

now, i should clarify this: i have never been the adventurous coder, and i usually wait for stable versions before i start experimenting. i am mostly interested in blogs, because they offer an easy CMS. yet i do like to dig around in code some – and while i may not be very skilled at it, i do enjoy it and usually figure things out in the end. so over the years i think i have aquired some skills…
so if i struggle with this, i just wonder how people with even less understanding of code will bite their teeth on these things.

multi-blog instead of modular template orgies!
code should get simpler not more complex!

where is michael v????????

edit: okay. embarassing. i stand corrected. i threw my lil tantrum to find out minutes later that the template system can be ignored.
simply copy the wp 1.2 index.php into the root folder, where it was always sitting pre-template engine, and it will completly ignore the templates. pheew.
but i still have lots of trouble with activating my plug-ins. whenever i click “activate” a blank screen loads. and the plug-in does not get activated.
i had to switch back to running php 4 via cgi on my server. now the plug-ins get activated. but again, blank screen.

10 Replies to “WordPress 1.5: wp went all nerdy on me4 min read

  1. oh…i t’s hard to read the stroked text … but i think i can tell that i know too about what you’re writing…i did the update as well… and a lot went wrong in the beginning… but i just HAD to do it (don’t ask me how many times i had to re-setup my whole os because i just HAD to try some things…but that’s another story…)
    but looks nice your blog! still the same miniminipixel style. i like this! unique!

  2. well, i have gotten careful and i am setting up and configuring wp1.5 somewhere else. as you can see on the to-do-list i still have quie a way to go till i might be ready to switch. the layout seems to work okay… but uhm. oh well. no rush, right?

  3. Okay, lemme explain. With the lack of such features as the ability to turn off auto-formatting wihtout having to reprogram WP entirely, or functional multi-blogging, the fact that a WP download comes with graphic smilies and this ability to turn then on built-in annoys the piss out of me.

    #$*&*&*&*@#&*&^!!!!!!

    translate THIS, you useless coder f**ks. gimme something _useful_.

  4. that makes 2 of us michael, i hate me too!!!
    i actually use self-converting for these: :mario: :flash: :domokun:

    but i will take out the ascii’s out. i promise. or use the code tag, doofus
    ;-)

  5. Plus, your <code> CSS makes it somewhat small to read; looks like a hold-over from that ugly WP-default template?

    At least they’ve finally gotten rid of THAT for 1.5….

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