The link to the demo has been restored 2.5 Demo Site Chris has reassured me that he has taken the proper steps to ensure that redirects and the changing of the admin username and password will not happen anymore. If you see otherwise, please let us know.
Chris Johnston has announced the availability of a public WordPress 2.5 demo site. This site will house the most up to date version of WordPress 2.5 prior to its release in March. This is particularly useful to those who do not wish to setup an SVN install of WordPress on their local machine or web server. Feel free to play around within the administration panel as the database is reset with default information every hour. The login credentials for the demo are as follows:
The username is admin and the password is demo.
I want to personally extend a thanks to Chris for taking the time to set this up and maintain it. What an awesome way to check out the progress of WordPress 2.5 without the need of doing a manual subversion install. (Although that would still be a good learning experience for those interested).
[Mark’s edit] Please be mindful that there is a feature freeze and the devs are polishing up the product and ironing out bugs in order to get version 2.5 ready for the March release. This is not the final release.
[Another Edit] Please be aware that the demo site might be redirected to some other place that is less than savory. The blog does get wiped out and re-instated every hour.
Wow, that’s really exciting looking. I LOVE the new Dashboard page.
And Pages come before Posts in the “Right Now” panel… curious.
The admin looks great, much nicer eye candy. I also like the way the Dashboard has the latest plugins feed. But won’t that compete with the posts you guys have here about new plugins? How do you feel about that?
Jacob
did someone change the password? it’s not letting me log in.
Yeah, the navigation seems much more intuitive and helpful. I’m not sure about the dashboard layout though… seems like too much space above the fold for just comments and links.
@Josh
The username/password combination works for me, but this may be a result of the fact thaT the database is reset with default information every hour
Why does it still say “2.4-bleeding” at the footer?
Yeah, admin login and pass not working.
I like the old login screen better. I don’t like the bar across the top, is way more invasive than the old one.
Como han dicho, el user y clave no funciona!
—–
Username and password dont work!
I’m very interested to test, but username & password is not working.
While the use of Ajax may simplify usefulness of some of the features, it seems there’s a lot of wasted space. Specifically, I’m not thrilled with the Write page, as it seems you have to do a lot of scrolling to reach the various options. I’m hoping we’ll have the ability to change the page layout to suit the tastes of each user?
Got in the admin. Its a bit underwhelming. The Write page now just sucks. Take everything from the sidebar and move it under the textbox – what were they thinking? I like that they have a simple tag manager in place. But the write page is not efficient.
Not very impressed at all. It’s pretty ugly.
I wasn’t really impress with the dashboard. I preferred the current one (2.3)… it’s much more structured looking. The new look reminds me of the dreaded blogger.com
It’s alright. I’ll re-iterate my previous sentiment that though the design does look a bit better then the current 1998 looking pages, it simply has way too much of a web2.0 look rather then something useful for “power” users.
I really like the way MT looks though. I’m giving it a try right now and am amazed. Good Use of Space and overall better admin panel.
Dont get me wrong, I think WordPress is a great software, but from the looks of it, theres nothing new. The backend may be different, but the interface doesnt have any new features.
I hope there will be a way to implement the old WP dashboard. I prefer that layout a lot better than this one. It looks nice, but the re-organization of certain areas (especially the write page) really throws me off. Otherwise, it looks pretty cool.
Backend is new-maybe better.
write a post…
scroll down to fill out all the necessary fields–
scroll up to safe or publish.. this is not intuitiv-
First time I’m searching for the *publish* button at the end of the *write panel* 😉 the second time I saw it at the top of the page.. I can’tunderstand why …. maybe it is not the last release
kindly regards
Monika
Stabiancorp – I also tested the new MT, and agree – the admin panel and feature set was really nice. What I didn’t like was the difficulty in customizing themes, hence – sticking with what I know. I’m trying to keep my focus on building content, not on constant tweaking. For now, anyway.
Nice to see Add Link added to the Write Panel.
Media Library looks like a good addition.
Thank you for changing “Blogroll” to “Links.”
The Write panel’s current layout leaves much to be desired, but I’m sure that’s being attended to.
It looks like there may be a bit of a learning curve with the new widget page layout. Wonder how the change is beneficial…
Also the Hello Dolly plugin doesn’t seem to work. If I’m right, it will be a devastatingly tragic loss to the WP community. 😉
All in all, looks like a promising start.
me like the new design.
I still think the new admin panel is horrific. Looks like I’ll be continuing to use tools like Windows Live Writer for my page/post composition and limiting my time in the new admin panel.
stabani, dkaye – yeah, I like MT’s admin a lot – I even said as much on the WordPress.org forums hoping the devs would take a look. And MT handles multiple blogs – with a plugin – better, short of going to WordPress MU. I am looking at MT and Drupal myself.
Wow that is gorgeous! I can hardly wait until it becomes available. Wonderful work indeed! 🙂
I’m a bite sorry but I don’t like the admin colors and layout.
Hedi K.
Gah! the Write page is stinkybad. All of the handy sidebar controls have slid below the fold. On the plus side, Links are back!
There were alot of issues with the demo site earlier because of the lack of security that was built in. I believe Chris has hard coded the site url into WP-Config so that no one can redirect the page to their own site anymore. A very rude thing to do.
Not impressed one bit with the new admin theme. Like most people above have said; it’s not intuitive.
They need to bring in a proper UI designer. If they already have one, get someone else!
The admin UI’s of MT and Expression Engine are much better.
I have posted it there, and reposting here: this new interface is terrible.
Seriously, what are you guys smoking? Huge boxes, scrolling down to reach options that were perfectly side on the sidebars, weird positioning of publish button – just NO.
I’m actually starting to like the new admin. For those who do not currently like it, it will gradually grow on you.
If not, your too damn picky.
Phil – I respect your comment. However, a drastic change – such as is planned with for 2.5 – is not going to “gradually grow” on me. In fact, it will do the opposite and potentially sway me in the direction of another CMS/software that affords the ease of use. For the power user, a dumbed down version is not what I’m seeking.
Phil, I respect where you are coming from, but I have to disagree. Although I can get pretty picky and pedantic, for a CMS interface, it’s not a huge deal – I use an external post editor and edit all my theme files via FTP or SSH, so I only interact with the Dashboard to manage comments, install plugins or whatever – but I still think the Dashboard has a long way to go. Overall, I think it’s better than the last version (I’ll have to truly use it to see), but then, I don’t compose posts from it, so that might not be universal.
One thing I will say is that although I get how they tried to simplify the navigation, it is still kind of hackneyed. Putting some things in viewable tabs and other options in a different area is kind of disconcerting, and for a new user, I don’t know how well this will fare. I love WordPress, but ExpressionEngine, Movable Type, Joomla and Drupal 6 all have superior backend interfaces. This is an improvement, but it’s still not up to par with the other guys.
Bahis Tahminleri
also tested the new MT, and agree – the admin panel and feature set was really nice. What I didn’t like was the difficulty in customizing themes, hence – sticking with what I know. I’m trying to keep my focus on building content, not on constant tweaking. For now, anyway.
Grow on me, it hasn’t yet. It still isn’t intuitive. You can’t tell me that the new write page is better than the old write page with a straight face. I wish there was someplace where the WordPress Devs could read this and realize what a turd they produced. I certainly won’t be upgrading to WordPress 2.5. Like I said, I’m checking out MT and Drupal. MT really knows how to design an admin panel.
I do like the red bubble that has a comment count, but if there are no comments to deal with, the bubble should no show.
Hmmm, the link to the demo now leads to a rather busted looking site using the default theme announcing the demo with no link to the login page. Adding “wp-login.php” to the end of the site URL only sits there until the “Server is taking too long to respond” message comes up”. That’s okay for me since I’ve been downloading the nightly builds and throwing them into a XAMPP on Windows setup.
Yes, I agree that the editor page is rather badly laid out however, the editor does load a bit faster than any previous version even in Rich Text mode, the addition of the new Media Upload feature is a great improvement over what we had available before and just having the editor remember whether it was in Rich Text or Code mode when you leave it and come back to it later is a welcome relief.
As to the rest of the admin layout, I think it’s a bit more appealing overall and what the heck, it’s easy enough to figure out since the devs didn’t just go hog wild and decide to change everything around to something completely different that no one would recognize. Like making it look like an entirely different platform all at once. In other words, current WordPress bloggers will know pretty much where to go right off the bat. As for myself I’m a complete tech type so it’s no sweat but I certainly don’t represent the majority of the new WordPress blogger that’s only seen the last few versions go by. It kinda makes sense to take a rebuild of the backend one set of changes at a time and let constructive feedback be the guide.
BTW, for Windows users, why would anyone expect to be able to switch from Windows Live Writer back to TinyMCE? TinyMCE is purposely made to be a lightweight, basic online editor whereas Windows Live Writer is as a locally installed editor that’s as fully featured as you can get. No other local editor can hold a candle to it.
Just my opinion here folks.
Oh man! You should see where the link to the demo leads now. 😀
I agree that the Write page REALLY needs to be fixed. Everything needs to go back on the sidebar and become drag-and-droppable again. That was the best part!
Additionally, the Widgets page is a HUGE STEP BACKWARDS. It’s just awful. It’s sad because the Widgets page needed to be updated, but not like this. You can’t drag-and-drop things into the sidebars, you have to “add” them. And you have to use a drop down box and click “Save Changes” a bunch of times to navigate around multiple sidebars. REALLY ANNOYING. The dropdown box should be an Ajax tab or something. Something faster. And let us drag-and-drop again! Why take that out?
so cute bro! but I don’t like comments balloon 🙂
H-A-T-E the dashboard. I won’t be upgrading if it stays like that!
Not impressed with the new dashboard.
wow is really the best admin panel I ever seen! Love WP
username and password work fine, and everything inside the panel is well organisied.
Hope to Upgrade as soon as possible
Thanks
ERROR: Incorrect password.
Forgive Mark, he was looking at WordPress 2.3 – because if he is making those kind of comments after looking at WordPress 2.5 then he is obviously high.
Ok, Mark’s not high, I just looked at his site and intuitive and organized aren’t words he is familiar with.
The new dashboard and write page are quite annoying for experienced users and I expect a lot of plugins will break with those changes.
Boy, that looks ugly. Colours, links, page design – what the hell is this for?
No way I am going to upgrade until someone makes a plugin to convert admin panel style back to normal. Or maybe I can use another admin panel style – hope they will be compatible with 2.5.
Now being redirected to (http://www.viciamos.com/). Somebody out there is being a real jerk.
Dont really like the new dashboard…
So we’re finally able to disable the dashboard spam without the use of plugins? That in itself makes 2.5 worthwhile! I value news about WordPress, but I don’t want my dashboard full of blog posts whose sole content is a link to a picture of toenail clippings just because Matt Mullenweg’s entire site (rather than just the WordPress-related posts) is included in the Dashboard feed.
ERROR: Invalid username.
The new admin interface is completely and utterly terrible. I see no redeeming feature.
Everything is really big and chunky. I feel like I’m viewing it on an 800×600 monitor.
The dashboard is massive. I can’t get rid of sections, just have them blank.
The write page is a scroller’s paradise. Loads of space is wasted for the title and tags. The right hand side of the screen is empty. Get rid of it or fill it with the original sections. Don’t keep it with one box and loads of wasted space. The headings for each section waste so much space. Tt’s like is was “designed” on a 50 inch plasma, not a regular monitor!
The menus are split all over the place. There’s the main links (Write, Manage, Design, Comments), then floating over on the right there’s Plugins, Users and Settings. Why are they split? If common stuff is on the main menu, why is “Design” there? I don’t change the look & feel more often than messing with plugins!
It’s just a really bad mess and needs some serious work. It’s all too big, clunky, messy and a big step backwards from the current interface.
I really don’t want to switch from WordPress so I hope this crap gets rectified before it goes live.
Shocking!!!!
Tim…
Automattic must be full of yes men because I don’t know how anyone in charge over there could have let such trash make it into a release as the new admin design. I can’t believe they would make such drastic changes without asking the community for feedback. I guess now they have all this money, the WordPress.org community doesn’t matter anymore.
To be honest, I pretty much like the old style admin area – this one is.. kinda confusing. It will be very nice if the wp-admin could be styled.
Is it just me, or has the demo site been hijacked to take you to a gambling site? I get the sign in screen for the demo, but not long enough to enter, before a redirect happens.
The link goes to the demo site then redirects to another site [removed link]
xformed: Spammers will stop at nothing. At least the blog gets refreshed every hour. I am going to try to get the owner of that site to refresh more often, maybe every ten minutes.
Yeah, that’s so annoying that people would do that. I’d really like to check out 2.5 but the spammers get to it before I can.
Demo site has been hijacked for sure. Still redirecting to the virtual casinos site.
Based on everyone’s comments, though, it would seem that the admin styling in the forthcoming release really sux. Why is it that good companies make bad decisions, ALL THE TIME. Sound like they’ve taken a mediocre admin and made it worse.
If you don’t need a blog quite as much as a CMS, check out cmsmadesimple. It is awesome. I have been using it a lot. does not have a strong blogging function though, but as a CMS, it is fantastic…with a GREAT admin.
Come on people, please give the developers a chance. You are not looking at the finished product, but a work in progress. Well thought out feedback helps them make it better but jabs and finger pointing will not amount to anything. Please provide real feedback and refrain from “I hate the new admin panel because you su** and xyz rulez” type comments.
I don’t like it. I mean it’s nifty and all but the design sucks.
i prefer the current theme.. the new theme is too bright
The new design sucks. Do they need point by point reasons. Anyone who can SEE knows its terrible. And I think it appropriate to reference other blogging software that does it right. When I first tried MT 4 I posted on WordPress.org in the forums HOPING the WP devs would look at how MT handles the Admin and take some of that for WordPress. And do you really think that Admin section is suddenly going to improve itself in the next month or so.
I know that it is a work in progress, but I still think it is terrible and I don’t like the direction it is heading. Someone should sponsor a WP admin interface design contest and let the WP user community come up with something better than this.
I won’t comment on the current design because this is a demo – and is not to be a representation of the future release.
However, there really isn’t much that I can see from the few minutes I got to spend poking around on the new version that points me to be that excited – yet.
However, I don’t think some of you people realize that this is OPEN SOURCE and a lot of the devs that are working on this are not paid, they’re doing this in their spare time to help the community. Some constructive critique would be much more helpful than “It looks like a turd”.
Tony K – no call for rippin on another user for their opinion. Especially since you’ve given no indication that you know anything about usability yourself since you’ve provided no links to any sites that you work on.
I’ll check this out in March and play around with it. I’m still excited about the release – and I’m sure what we see in admin isn’t the end product. It’s too – harsh – and too drastic a change to be welcomed by the community as a whole.
Tadd – last I checked I can say what I want in this country. Thanks. And I don’t have to post a link to validate my skills. I have been doing web design and development for 10+ years. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how bad the new interface is.
Not to get into a flame war, but WordPress is indeed open source meaning if you don’t like something, you can change it as you please. Perhaps you should create an interface that you deem appropriate for the masses and then release it under GPL.
Jeffro2pt0: Open Source also means that you don’t get to complain about constructive comments before the code is officially released. It means accepting other people’s inputs and opinions.
That said, I do agree with more of the more critical comments here. The new Dashboard is so bad that I will not be upgrading to 2.5 unless it improves. I don’t mind the look, as the look is the least of the problems. The fact is that large portions of it are far, far less usable than they were before. The Write Post page is horrifying, the widgets don’t drag and drop anymore (and are 100x more confusing), the new and improve media uploader is damned well-hidden to say the least (bet most people here didn’t even find it when it should be extremely obvious as it’s one of the major changes)…
If this is 2.5, I’ll wait for 2.6. Or, like you say, I’ll wait for other people to release plugins/addons which fix some of the more atrocious problems.
Since the link has been taken down, I decided that I just had to install the SVN to see if the criticism is warranted. In a word, yes.
Given that this is still beta, there is hope that negative feedback will give the developers some impetus to change the admin template. As it is right now, I pity the poor souls that have to work on a 1024×768 monitor. You’ll be doing a LOT of scrolling. But on the plus side, at least you won’t have to strain your eyes because the layout is so BIG that you can see it from across the room. I’ve got a 24″ iMac and on my screen, I have to still scroll significantly to go up and down the page. It’s insane. And did I mention everything is so BIG.
Here is a cobbled together screen shot for those of you who are dying to know what it looks like.
http://home.twcny.rr.com/merb/.....-admin.pngJust to say hello and to cheer you on. The abuse factor ain’t gonna go away anytime soon. But I’m pretty sure that we can work through it.
keep on keepin’ on!
–bentrem
Mark said “Come on people, please give the developers a chance. You are not looking at the finished product, but a work in progress.”
According to Ryan, “The menus have had lots of user testing done on them, and we’ll leave them as is for 2.5.”
Since I typically use semiologic it’ll probably be awhile before I have to worry about the new dashboard. I hope some happy-medium is developed before then!
Tried it last night, it was very good.
User “admin” & pass “demo” is no longer working I think… Screenshot look quite shiny & polished. Worth to wait.
This is pretty sad that people have to ruin something for people like me who teach blogging classes and who would love to see the demo.
I know there are so many more people who would use the demo responsibly, but I guess that is just the way things are sometimes.
I read the comments and am looking forward to seeing what the results are.
Kemal, Sad? Ruin? Love to see the demo?
Geez. Hey, nothing to stop you from downloading the SVN yourself and installing it. Go see for yourself and make your own conclusion.
Sorry Kemal, I meant Rocque.
I started to run it on my local server. As far as I can see the usability of UI is well improved & trying to investigate the code side changes. Verdict: Exciting… 😀
Damn I was looking forward to seeing the 2.5 demo 🙁
aww i wanted 2 see it; jus 3 days late
Is there no way to control the link to the demo site? I thought there were plenty of plugins to stop abuse?
The fact that the link is not working may be a nuisance but then again it is a trivial matter to install the SVN so you can see for yourself.
Don’t like it.. I keep the old one (2.3 version)..
OK, for those of you who can’t seem to understand what a good Admin UI *should* look like, this is it:
http://www.brokenkode.com/shuttle
The Shuttle project needs to be resurrected and implemented, and until it is, I will be sticking with a pre-2.5 build of WordPress for my site or else desperately looking for a 2.5-compatible admin theme plugin.
As for those who *like* the new admin interface, I hope that you’re being sarcastic and not just ignorant.
I just hate spammers. So much waste of time, and what kill-joys they are.
Would be great to see at least some frame grabs?
Oh, I’d never seen that “Shuttle” design before – I like it! That’s clean and neat, there. Don’t like the screencap of the new 2.5 (2.4-bleeding) at all. If I wanted Blogger as my backend, I’d be *using* Blogger as my backend, and there’s more than one reason I’m using a crossposter for LiveJournal, rather than using their rich-text editor. Who do we have to pester to get “Shuttle” moving? (before you say it, yes, I know NASA is the obvious smart-aleck answer)
cant seem to find the link for the demo of wordpress 2.5 here…
Joseph, if you read the whole long list of comments, you’ll see it was taken down due to abuse by spammers. There’s a screenshot in comment #81, and as Michael goes on to mention to those who follow, there’s always the possibility of using SVN to download the latest and set it up for yourself.
For what it’s worth (for Windows users)…
Another way that I’ve been using as a local WordPress sandbox is XAMPP for Windows (the full version, not the lite). It’s very easy to set up and secure. For me, rather than SVN, I download the nightly builds and update the sandbox that way. Takes less than a minute of copy/paste and I’m good to go. I also use this to work up themes and test out changes to my site locally before making them online.
Just another way of doing it.
Ok, the admin sucks, according to a lot of people here. And yes, it was not that nice, really…
But lets talk about the REAL issue here! The most important thing the demo site contains:
Chris has Google AdSense on the ADMIN PAGES. These are password protected pages. This is against Google’s TOS, and he COULD be banned from AdSense, and forfeit all his earnings because of this.
Someone please warn him to remove the ads that are scattered all over the place within the Admin.
Otherwise, thanks for the oh-so-nice (and profitable!) demo site! :-/
One more comment: JUST IN CASE the ads are not from Chris, but one of the 6 other users who are working on the site right now: SHAME ON YOU! Maybe the 10 min refresh will clear things up…
Google Ads are still there. So 6 other users have nothing to do with this. Thanks to Chris who made the demo available, anyway.