A Pilgrim’s Digression

Last night as I waited up for the New Year, I also upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.0. The upgrade itself went off without a hitch, and I am now giving it a test run with this post to see how it performs and what issues it fixes and what new issues it creates.

First, the good news, then the bad.

1. The admin interface has been redesigned and both looks really good and is user friendly. For example, the buttons at the top of the “write” editor window are now graphic representations of their functions similar to what users are used to in Microsoft Word and other apps.
2. The “write” editor now offers a WYSIWYG look–no code unless you want to see it. For example, to create this ordered list I clicked the “Ordered List” button above and it creates it just like it would look in Microsoft Word. I don’t see the code. But I can see it, if I want, by clicking a button above labeled HTML. This is really cool and can only be appreciated if you were once a newbie having to learn basic HTML code on the fly.
3. Also in the “write” editor, you can now upload images as you type your post. This is really going to please a lot of people, and I will test it later today and report back.
4. When inserting a link, you now have the option of having the link open in a new window, or in the same window. Again, there is no need to know code.
5. In the “Presentation” panel, you now can see a thumbnail image of available themes. This is not compatible with all themes, however.
6. WordPress now has a built in “Backup” plugin that allows you to manage your own backups. No need to rely on me or our host to backup your blog. Access the backup feature by going to “Manage>>Backup.”
7. The “Post Preview” is now a graphical representation of what your post will look like on your blog.

Now for the bad news:

1. The “write” editor seems a little sluggish. It takes longer to open, and the cursor does not keep up when backspacing or using the arrow keys to navigate in the body of a post. This sluggishness is probably a result of the WYSIWYG editor rendering code as you type, and maybe it has something to with the full scale Post Preview at the bottom of the page, as well. I think you can toggle off the WYSIWYG editor in the “Options>>Writing” panel, and I may try this later to see if it boosts performance.
2. The built in spam filter, Akismet, is tied to the free blog hosting service, Wordpress.com. WordPress.com is a hosting service like Blogger; it’s free, and you use WordPress software. For us who host our own blogs, however, we will have to continue using the Spam Karma 2 plugin, which fortunately works perfectly with WordPress 2.0.
3. One final very important warning: Don’t use the Google toolbar spellchecker to check the spelling in your blog post. I tried it just now, and first it screwed up my post. then it stopped responding. I lost the entire post. Next time I write, I’m going to try using Safari’s spellchecker and see if it works any better.

That’s about all the negatives I can discover during this brief test. I want to use Safari next time I write to see if it works better or worse than Firefox with WordPress 2.0. I also want to upload some images and see how that works.

Until then, we’ll hold off on upgrading any other blogs at sods brood. I imagine this sluggish text editor is going to annoy people, so I also want to see if there is a way to alleviate that problem before I subject anyone else to the pains of upgrading.
I’d rather toggle off the WYSIWYG editor and go back to the old-style code editor, if it improves responsiveness.