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There are a growing list of things that I already hate about WordPress 2.7. Most of them are minor issues that can either be ignored or simply written off as quirks I don’t really need to worry about for my style of blogging. The major issue is still the layout.
Wordpress 2.7 Write Screen. Click to open full size in new frame or window.
This is not some minor petty concern. This is flat out bad design. Any blogger worthy of the name is using some plugins and other tools on the administration side of the blog. This is as it should be, since customization has always been a prime feature of WordPress. I sincerely hope someone soon comes up with an administration plugin to fix the layout flaws.
Here is the major problem with WordPress 2.7. As you will notice in the full screen image all of the internal links for WordPress 2.7 have moved to the left hand side of the screen. in western languages we read from left to right meaning the most important or most often used information should always be put at the top left of our viewing area. Links to the dashboard and everything else on the administration side of things clutters your field of view while posting. There is a good chance I will be using ScribeFire even more than I have previously, because of this layout flaw.
Getting to post through scribefire doesn’t make the problems all better with a soft kiss from the open source faeries. Writing a proper post in requires more than you typing in a few lines of text putting in a picture and calling it good. There are all sorts of things you need your write window for, that scribefire can’t do. Second problem with having the internal linking on the far left of the screen is the scroll bars for most of us are on the far right of the screen. This means mousing clear across the screen to get to the links and then mousing back to scroll down the new screen. This is not only inefficient, it is ergonomically unsound. it wouldn’t surprise me if this layout doesn’t cause some serious problems for people who already have hand and wrist problems.
While the layout of administration links sucks, I am not totally displeased with other things about Wordpress 2.7. The write page is back to making good use of available space. My categories by default are just to the right of the post box. On top of that the components are modular and can be moved around the page. This is great design, and a great feature for those of us who use certain things far more than others.
In the end you will either love this design, or you will hate it. Either way though if you are serious about your blogging then WordPress is still your best option and WordPress 2.7 will be the platform they keep the security fixes up to date on, so you will use it.
I think the only way to handle WP is to have a CPanel account with Fantastico installed. Use Fantasitco to install it, you install an SE0 plugin or theme yourself, then hit the update button on Fantastico as and when necessary.
The constant upgrades are annoying, especially when they’re to fix security risks.