Announcement
On December 10th, 2008, WordPress Version 2.7, named for American jazz great John Coltrane, was released to the public. For more information on this extensive enhancement and bug-fix release, read the Development Blog and see the Changelog for 2.7.
For Version 2.7, the database version (db_version in wp_options) changed to 9872, and the Trac revision was 10187
New Features
- XMLRPC Comments API (Ticket 7446)
- Keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation (Ticket 7643)
- Sticky Posts (Ticket 7457)
- Theme update api, like we do for plugins (Ticket 7519)
- Dashboard and write box rearranging (write box in trunk)
- One-click plugin installs (Ticket 6015)
- Reply to comments from admin (Ticket 7435)
- Core updating (Ticket 5560)
- Frame-like method for moderating ping/trackbacks
- Plugin browser embedded (Ticket 6015)
- PHPXref hosted on WordPress.org
- Separate Large and Full image sizes, related improvements (Ticket 7151)
- Comment threading (Ticket 7635)
- Comment paging
- Batch and inline editing (Ticket 6815)
- HTTPOnly cookies
- Column hiding for all management pages
- Post box hiding for all edit pages
- Upgrades and install over SFTP
- Template Tag wp_page_menu wrapper for wp_list_pages and support for Home page (Ticket 7698)
Developer Features
All of these features should be experimental at the moment and subject to change or removal before the final release.
HTTP API
The HTTP API is an attempt to standardize the HTTP requests and responses for WordPress. It will eventually obsolete Snoopy and deprecate the other functions in WordPress. That is, once the HTTP API is completely stable.
Plugin Uninstaller
There is a new plugin uninstall in WordPress 2.7 that allows a plugin to uninstall itself, when the user deletes the plugin. There are two uninstall methods that the plugin can implement. One is by creating a file in the base plugin directory named uninstall.php and storing the uninstall code there. The second method is by creating a hook that will execute the uninstall routines and using register_uninstall_hook() function to register the hook with WordPress.
Comment API
The Comment API is for managing comments using the XMLRPC protocol. See Ticket #7446 for more information and progress.
Inline Documentation
The WordPress 2.7 has almost every file fully documented with phpdoc type inline documentation. This includes most of the files with file level phpdoc blocks. The functions have the parameters accepted type documented with descriptions. The functions also have short descriptions and many functions have long descriptions.
This should improve the support and limit the questions newcomers have about the WordPress library. It is also along the goal of better quality assurance.
Administration Manage Section API
WordPress 2.7 is going to have an API for adding additional sections to the manage or settings administration panels. This means directly in those pages and not as a new page. The functions add_settings_section(), add_settings_field(), register_setting(), unregister_setting() implement this feature.
The functions are found in wp-admin/includes/template.php.
Page Menu API
The wp_page_menu() function can be found in wp-includes/post-template.php. The details on the function are minor, so more information should be on the way.
User Features
Plugin Installer
The ticket can be found at #6015.
The plugin installer allows for installing plugins from the WordPress Administration panels. You can search for plugins by tag, plugin author, or by subject. It also lists the featured, most popular, and recently added and updated. When you click on the title of a plugin, you can see the details and choose to install it into your WordPress plugin list.
WordPress Upgrader
The ticket can be found at #5560.
The WordPress Upgrader will give you the option of downloading, installing, and upgrading to the latest WordPress version from your Administration Panel.
The upgrader can be executed by clicking on the “stay updated” link at the bottom of the screen. It will take you to a page that will ask you whether you want to download the latest version or update automatically. Update automatically will download the latest version of WordPress and install it over the current installation.
Some hosts may have problems with automatic upgrade. Check with your web hosting provider’s support team to see if your web host supports the new core updating functionality.
Some old files and folders are deleted upon upgrading. Check the Files Automatically Replaced by Core Upgrade page, for more information on which files are deleted, if you’ve modified any WordPress files.
2.7 supports SFTP if you have the ssh2 php extension installed.
The code is currently being finalized, with only a rough draft being committed. It will be finalized before WordPress 2.7 is released.
Steps performed during upgrade
As taken from Ryan’s Trac comments:
- Send version and locale to https://api.wordpress.org/core/version-check/1.2/ to see if there is an update available. Get a link to the WP package if so. The package for the requested locale is used if available, otherwise the English package is used. Only locales that have setup an international site on wp.org will have packages available. Reference https://api.wordpress.org/core/version-check/1.2/
- Download the package from wordpress.org to the system temp directory
- Create working dir, usually wp-content/upgrade/core
- Unzip the package into our working dir
- Copy wp-admin/includes/update-core.php from the new version unzipped in the working dir into the current WP install
- Include the new update-core.php
- Call update_core(), which is defined in update-core.php
- update_core() takes over and does the following:
- Sanity check the new version of WP sitting in the working dir
- Create a .maintenance file in the WP root dir. wp-settings.php checks this and prevents WP from fully loading if it exists. We don’t want WP loading while files are being upgraded
- Overwrite old WP files with the new ones
- Remove files that are no longer part of the WP distro
- Send a request to ugrade.php to perform a DB upgrade. We do this as a separate request instead of calling the upgrade function directly because we need a fresh request that has all of the new stuff loaded.
- Delete the working dir
- Delete .maintenance
- Done
File Permissions
All file operations are performed as the user that owns the files, not as the web server’s user. All files are set to 0644 and all directories are set to 0755, and writable by only the user and readable by everyone else, including the web server.
Administration Panel
The WordPress Administration panels are undergoing another set of changes. The general look and navigation are intended to make the administration interface highly customizable as well as faster and easier to use.
Other parts of the Administration panels are being improved to ease the administration tasks. Improvements so far have been made to the comments view, the posts and pages management panels.
These changes are merged from the crazyhorse branch and development is ongoing and subject to change.
Navigation
The most drastic change is the move from a top navigation to a side navigation. This will allow for virtually unlimited amount of plugins to add “top level” links to the administration. The side navigation will allow users to expand and collapse sections to reveal the submenus without loading a new screen. In addition, the entire navigation column is collapsible, with a remnant of icons providing an “advanced” mode that creates the largest possible working area.
Shortcuts
A shortcuts menu in the header near the blog title allows one-click access to frequently used screens such as Add New Post and Comments.
Module Control
On the Dashboard and the Add New Post screens, modules can be moved between columns using drag and drop, can be expanded or collapsed based on your preferences, and can even be removed from (or returned to) the screen based on which modules you find the most useful.
Column Control
On screens that display lists in table format (posts, media library, etc), you will now be able to decide for yourself which columns to display on the screen. Columns you’ve hidden may be returned to the table at any time by using the new options tab.
Post Editor
The update notifications have moved to the bottom of the writing area, as well as the word count. Additional icons for embedding media will enable fast posting of media from external sources.
Sticky Posts
WordPress 2.7 will include Sticky Posts check box on the write screens. This will place the post at the top of the front page for posts and keep it there after new posts are made.
Admin Comment Inline Reply
The ticket can be found at #7435.
The Administration Comment Panel inline reply to comments opens a JavaScript HTML window that allows for replying to the comment. This enhancement is over having to visit the article and using the comment box. The dialog window can be resized and will save the resize state only while on that page. Going to a separate page will not save the resize state. The dialog also has buttons for adding HTML tags, but does not use TinyMCE.
QuickPress
The new QuickPress module on the Dashboard provides a fast way to create drafts or posts that don’t require the full metadata options of the Add New Post screen. Drafts created with QuickPress will be listed immediately in the Recent Drafts module on the Dashboard.
Recent Drafts
A module will now appear on the Dashboard displaying links to your most recent drafts, for quick access to posts in progress.
Dashboard Comment Moderation
In 2.7 you will be able to moderate new comments directly from the Dashboard, including the new Reply to Comment function.
Features That Didn’t Make It
These features didn’t make it into 2.7, but there’s hope that they might make it into 2.8.
- Some default shortcodes, maybe the most popular 10 from WordPress.com
- oEmbed support, tied in with shortcodes
- Better UI for post revisions, maybe an optional field to say what changed in a version
- OAuth support
- GeoData for posts, comments, attachments, etc.
- Duplicate post Tags UI for other taxonomies (Ticket 6387)
- Template tags to do everything the custom gallery on ma.tt does
- Codepress code highlighting for template editing
- Menu editor
- Unbalanced tags across more and nextpage tags (Ticket 6297)
- Sitemaps by default
- Refresh of the importers
- Gallery post_type
- Versioning of template edits
- Documentation links for functions used in currently edited template
- MPTT for hierarchies
- Automatic notification of theme updates (Ticket 7519)