I’m pretty excited about WordPress 2.5 being (hopefully) released sometime in March. According to the WordPress Roadmap, 2.5 it’s set to be released on March 10, 2008, which is a little less than a month from today.
One of the most anticipated things for WordPress 2.5, is the new WP-Admin interface. Chris Johnston has put up a WordPress 2.5 Demo Site where you can check out new WP-Admin interface. The username is “admin” and the password is “demo”.
Despite the colors (orange on light blue just don’t go, but nothing a little CSS couldn’t fix), I’m liking what I see. It has a nice new and refreshed feel to it.
I’d like to know what you guys think of the new WP-Admin. Do you like it better than the 2.3 WP-Admin? If you do like what you see, will you end up upgrading?
By: 
February 13, 2008 
21 Comments 
I’ve wanted to update to the latest bleeding-edge version (with the new WP-Admin interface), but whenever I do, I get tons of PHP Fatal errors relating to plugins. At least SVN makes jumping back to 2.3.2 a breeze!
I like the looks of 2.5 very web 2.0ish. I am excited to see its release. I am newer to wordpress and blogging so I started on 2.3.1 but it is very nice and easy to use. I am looking forward to the updates and the styling. The header and color sub menu is sweet. Its a grea tool for a n00b like me.
Bud
@Chris: Hmm well have you tried upgrading those plugins as well?
@Bud: Haha yeah, that’s what makes WordPress so great: it’s so user-friendly so anyone can use it.
@Michael Castilla: Haha, not quite all of them. Actually that’s on my Anxiety list, and has been for like a week already.
I have to admit, I’m not feeling the new admin interface so much. I like the web 2.0 feel of it, but when you move around the options for writing new pages or posts, that’s borderline annoying. However, if the post options are movable around the page (like iGoogle is set up), that would be excellent. And probably a lot of work.
Other than that, I do like the new interface. It would be a tough call for me to choose between the two.
Best thing about 2.5 would be the new cleaner admin feature! I have a client who complains that the back end is too complicated (I agree). This looks cleaner especially for non-tech people!!
Great news!!
I’m not so sure about the new admin, it felt unfinished somehow. I’m expecting that they currently have an even better-polished admin, yet still hiding it for 2.5.
I agree with the others who mentioned that the theme does look cleaner. The architecture felt better, less-cluttered and easier to work with.
Can’t wait to see the real deal.
@Jermayn - It looks like they new panel is going to be what you’re looking for!
@Hafiz: Yeah bro I agree and I hope you’re right.
The 2.5 redesign looks great! I’m so excited for it. Despite some older design elements still sitting around (some tables) which I’m sure will be cleaned up by the time it’s made final, the new interface organization is very well done. I am especially glad to see the term “blogroll” gone!
Me like.
I’ve tried to login at http://wp.chrisjohnston.org/wp-admin/ with the username admin and password demo, but without success.
Could somebody tell me what I’m doing wrong? I would very much like to see the new WordPress Admin.
Thanks!
@Ricky: Haha yeah I’m glad to see “Blogroll” is gone too!
@Anand: Hmm it seems that link is redirecting to another site. I’m not sure what’s up with it. It was working fine yesterday!
I too like the refreshed feel and look of the admin panel. However, the light shades on everything seem to play with my eyes and once I get a hold of 2.5 final, I think I am going to play around with the colors and make everything darker.
The site has been fixed.. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Woohoo, the new administration interface looks exciting.
However, what’s happened to WordPress 2.4? Are they missing that number out?
Thanks Chris, for fixing the site. The new admin looks great. A lot more user friendly.
@Jeffro2pto: I see what you mean. It is sorta annoying, but we’ll see!
@Chris: Thanks stopping by, as well as fixing the test site.
@Joshua: Haha I’m glad you’re as excited as we are. WordPress 2.4 was actually skipped due to so many updates and not enough time to finish it all before the release date.
Man, these jerks that are redirecting the demo site to their own are wreaking havoc. Hope that this can be taking cared of by hardcoding the site url into wp.config.
@Jeffro2pto: Yeah that was pretty lame. It looks like Chris has now disabled that option.
Excluding the new interface, what else is really new? Couldn’t get it.
WordPress seems to be going in the wrong direction if you ask me, how long before this becomes a corporate product? From the looks of that new admin interface they are adding what seems to be branding, and product copyrights as though you were using a product, rather than a community based project were you have control of the code.
Also that interface is quite confusing! I think they need to add better support for controlling WordPress as a CMS rather than messing with what currently works fine. x