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So what is so great about the new version? For starters, they restructured the admin console so it is cleaner, works better, and even looks better. A nice subtle use of fade effects around status messages so you are sure to notice the information confirming any updates you made.

There is also now a WYSIWYG editor included, so there is no need to know any HTML code or tag structure. While not a big deal to webmasters it will be to end-users who may not be so technically savvy. The editor
also now integrates with the upload manager, so its much easier to add pictures to articles.

WordPress retains the same general ease of use and flexibility as the prior versions. The URL and content structure are yours to arrange and configure as you see fit. And it is all pretty easy to manage.

The handling of comments is well done too. The system does a pretty good job at flagging likely spam and queueing it for moderation. There also mechanisms and plug-ins to hook into external spam-fighting services. So as your blog grows in popularity you can beef up security. 

WordPress 2.0 is solid enough that you can build all kinds of sites on top of it, including commercial ones. This is a boon to web developers as it means you can produce nice looking, full-featured sites in less time and then allow clients to manage their own content. Development time will mainly focus on configuring and installing themes and plug-ins.

Speaking of plug-ins, here are a few that are worth checking out:

Counterize - a nice statistics package which tracks hits and visitors, and plenty of options for displaying these within your template.

Kimili Flash Embed - if you intend to have Flash in your content, this is a must have. Note that there are Flash-based video and music players, so using these gets around the messy issues of those “other” media plug-ins.

Google Site Maps - generate site map .XML files for better Google searching.

PXS Mail Form - put up a contact form in 10 seconds.

Random Quotes - a nice thing to add to a blog is bits of wit and whimsey, this plug-in is database driven.

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All that being said, WordPress 1.5 is probably the best combination of features, ease of use, and good looks out there. The installation is one screen. Just upload the files, rig a database, hit the install.php URL and you’re basically done. There are dozens of great looking skins and just as many plugins. Everything from shopping carts to hit counting is available.

Installing themes and plug-ins isn’t as easy as on a system like Mambo, where there’s a built-in installer system. You need to upload files, edit scripts here and there, and generally know something about how to move around the directory structure. So it’s not for the inexperienced. Once you get something installed, though, it ties into the admin panel nicely and you never need to bother with the nitty gritty again.

The bottom line on extensibility is that WordPress and its developer community give you a lot to work with. As long as you have some rudamentary Linux/PHP skills you can make your blog stand up and do amazing tricks.The authoring system is nice and streamlined. You can even author by email. One nice thing is that any entry can belong to multiple categories. Some systems limit you to one. A lot of CMS’s could learn from this as very often it is desirable to have an article belong to two parts of a content structure.

You also have flexibility in how you encode your URL’s. You can chose to have mod_rewrite just put up category/article_name for the path. Or you can embed year, date, or a list of other parameters. It all depends on how frequently you expect to post and how you want your structure to look. Again: WordPress’s flexibility really shines here.

There are a lot of bloggers available now. Some have more powerful features than Word Press, some are more advanced technically. But WordPress really seems to have hit the “sweet spot” in terms of allowing a webmaster to quicky put up a nice looking, full-featured blog, that any client can run with a minimum of instruction.

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The basic content metaphor is one of publish/unpublish. This means that any element of the site, from a calendar component to a news bulletin, can be shown or hidden. Publishing of content items can also be pre-programmed to happen at a later date, as well as pre-programmed to expire at a later date. This is very handy for many business and eCommerce applications. Content editing can be done via straight HTML editing, or using one of several available WYSIWYG editors which are integrated into the system via the “Mambot” interface. While obviously not as robust as using Front Page or DreamWeaver, given that almost all of the style aspects of a page are taken care of by the template system, these are more than adequite for the job.

Note that some of these editor Mambots do not function well on the Macintosh. And bear in mind that they are JavaScript, so there will be quirks to be seen depending on which platform and browser authoring is being done on. All the editors have an “html mode” so it is always possible to drop down to raw code when needed.

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