WordPress 2.7 Dashboard Changes

There are some big changes coming in WordPress version 2.7. One of the biggest changes I noticed so far, is the look and arrangement of the dashboard. There is also the inclusion of few new features like automatic upgrades and the QuickPress feature on the main WordPress dashboard screen. As I said above the big “Wow” I got after upgrading a test blog was the main dashboard view and arrangement. The first thing I thought was “I definitely will need to change most of my step-by-step guides now”. The main dashboard is arranged with the menus on a left sidebar instead of across the top and has eight available modules in the main area. The main eight modules can be arranged to your liking with simple drag-and-drop and you can use the Screen Options drop-down menu to choose what modules you want to be displayed. On the left sidebar, there are two modules containing the usual main menus, clicking the main menu item will expand to show the available sub-menu items under it. The first is for managing posts, media, links, pages and comments. All other menus are in another lower module. The top sidebar module menu items are listed in this order:

1. Posts
2. Media
3. Links (Blogroll)
4. Pages
5. Comments

And the lower module contains these items:

1. Appearance
2. Plugins
3. Users
4. Tools (New)
5. Settings

As you can see the WordPress dashboard changes, at least the look, is significant. Newbies may be a bit confused navigating it if reading some older WordPress guides (Mine included). But experienced WordPress bloggers should have no problem finding their way around the new dashboard. I haven’t given the WordPress version 2.7 Beta3 much of test yet and planned to do so before writing anything about it. But with the major dashboard change, I figured I could get a quick post out before doing much testing. For more on the notable changes and a link to download WordPress 2.7 Beta 3, check out this post on WordPress Hacks: WordPress 2.7 Beta 3 Released