[I did not write this post. It was written with great care and in great detail by MichaelH on the news section and is reproduced verbatim here. For those of you that do not know Michael’s work, his work on the Codex and his help with WordPress and its documentation makes him a legend in my books. Thank you Michael!]
These questions and answers were gleaned from the wp-hackers and wp-testers e-mail lists over that last several weeks.
Q. How can I find the Post ID or Page ID?
A. If your browser shows the URL in the status bar, when you mouse over a link, you can see the ID in the as part of the URL displayed in the browser status bar. In FireFox you can show the status bar by checking the Status bar choice under View. A more complicated method to finding the ID is to use something like phpMyAdmin to look at the database table wp_posts–look down the column of post_title to find your Post or Page Title. The ID field on that row will be your Post (or Page) ID.
Q. How do I find the Category ID?
A. In Manage->Categories, place your mouse over the Category Name you are trying to find the ID for and the ‘cat_ID’ will show as part of the URL displayed in the browser status bar. In FireFox you can show the status bar by checking the Status bar choice under View. A more complicated method to finding the Category ID is to use something like phpMyAdmin to look at the database table wp_terms and find the row where name column is your Category Description. The term_id on that row will be your Category ID.
Q. How can I edit my Post slug or my Page slug?
A. The Post (or Page) slug is now displayed as the Permalink under the Title field in writing or editing a Post or Page. If you are using the “Default” Peramlink Settings you will not see and can’t edit the Permalink. Only if you are using a ‘pretty Permalink’ (e.g. Month and name) in Settings->Permalinks will the Permalink be available for edit. When creating a new Post or Page, the Permalink field won’t show up until you complete the Title.
Q. Where are my Post Categories and Tags when writing a Post?
A. Scroll down below the Post content box.
Q. How do I rearrange the order Advanced Options boxes like Custom Fields and Excerpt?
A. This is no longer possible.
Q. I don’t see a link to edit a user’s name.
A. In the table of Users, click on the name (represented as a link), to edit that user’s information.
Q. What happened to my Import Links ability?
A. Export Links is displayed under the Related section on the Write->Link screen
Q. Where’s the menu tab to access the Dashboard?
A. The link to the Dashboard is in the dark border at the top left of the screen.
Q. What happened to my child categories? I had the Category Ford both as a Child of New Cars, and as a Child of Old Car, but I can’t do that any longer?
A. Duplicate Category (and Tag) names are not longer allowed.
Q. I can’t upload certain file types and get message “File type does not meet security guidelines. Try another”
A. Unknown file extensions are ‘blocked from uploading’. New extensions and their icons can be added via changes to the functions wp_check_filetype and wp_ext2type in wp-includes/functions.php.
Q. How can I change that red banner in the Dashboard?
A. Change to the ‘Classic’ Admin Color Schemes in Users->Your Profile.
Q. What happened to my Options choices?
A. Options are now called Settings and that menu tab is to the right on your menu next to Plugins and Users.
Q. How do I edit a Category Description?
A. Under Manage->Categories, click on the Category Name you wish to edit.
Q. How do I edit a Comment?
A. Under Comments, click on the name of the comment author and then you will be placed in ‘Edit Comment’ mode.
Q. Where is the WordPress Bookmarklet?
A. It’s gone for now but will likely be available in Version 2.6 but see Dion Hulce’s suggestion in the Forums.
Q. When in the Media Library, what is this error — Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_get_attachment_image() in /home/public_html/wp-includes/post-template.php on line 384
A. This is usually caused by a PHP file not being correctly uploaded. Make sure wp-includes/media.php and wp-settings.php are intact (reupload them).
Q. When trying to upload media files I get the message “Are you sure you want to do that?” with a link telling me to try again. Clicking “Please try again” simply reloads the dashboard into the frame.
A. You may need to disable your plugins one-by-one to find the ‘problem’ plugin. Some older plugins, such as Ryan Duff’s old WP-Contact plugin, have been reported to cause this problem, so check under the Plugins tab to see if your Plugins need updating.
Q. Has the option to enable/disable Gzip compression been removed from 2.5?
A Yes, the option is gone. WordPress now leaves compression as a decision for the server.
Q. Why can’t I add media in Manage->Media Library?
A. This was planned for 2.5 but didn’t make it into code so this will be included in a future release.
Q. How do I add links to my Blogroll?
A. A new menu choice, Write->Link, allows creation of new Links. In Manage->Links, there is an “add new” link to the right of the Manage Links heading. Also remember the new Manage->Link Categories to add and maintain Link Categories.
Q. What happened to the Post Timestamp box? How do I change the Post Timestamp?
A. In Write->Post, in the Publish Status area, click on the Edit button to the right of Publish immediately. When editing a Post, there is a similar edit button in the Publish Status area next to the Published on date and time.
Q. My screen is using 1280×960 pixels and I notice that admin screens are left aligned, not centered or stretched 100%.
A. This is the intended design. Viper007bond has Remove Max Width Plugin to change this.
Q. The collation set in “wp-config.php” (DB_COLLATE) is not being used in searches.
A. This will be likely be fixed in 2.5.1 but see this thread at wp-testers for a suggested fix.
Q. I get a “403 Forbidden” error when uploading files. I am also using the Bad Behavior plugin.
A. May need to delete the “Shockwave Flash” from the Bad Behavior blacklist file. See Rick Beckman’s post for a detailed description.
Q. I just tried to upload several media file and my browser crashed when it got to the “Crunching” part.
A. It is possible your system doesn’t support the Flash uploader or needs an upgrade to your Flash Player. Dion Hulse also wrote the the No Flash Uploader plugin to disable the Flash uploader.
Q. I can’t edit the Post slug/permalink and I’m sure I’m using pretty permalinks
A. To help debug the problem, answer these questions. What is your permalink structure? Can you provide the permalink for a post that does not show the Permalink field in the editor? Do you get any JS errors in the console? If you have plugins activated, does the problem persist if they are deactivated?
Q. The Change button (beside the Remove button) in Design->Widgets isn’t working. When I click change (beside remove button) it doesn’t save the changes to the widget.
A. Clicking Change doesn’t actually do a save and reload. You have to click “Save Changes” at the bottom to make the changes stick.
Q. In older versions, below widgets we had the option to select how many ‘Text’ widgets we want to use, but I don’t see that in 2.5.
A. The option is no longer needed. Widgets that allow multiple instances (e.g. Text widget) can be added as many times as you like by just clicking on the Add button. Remember to “Save Changes” when done adding the widgets.
Q. Can I revert from Version 2.5 to Version 2.3.3?
A. The best way is to restore your 2.3.3 database and files. If that is not possible, then any user that accessed the 2.5 blog or was added in 2.5 would need the MD5 password reset in the user table.
Q. I have several production blogs using Version 2.3.3 and I just upgraded to Version 2.5 on one of those blog. All the blogs share a common user table for the user names and passwords, but when I login to the Version 2.5 blog with a user, why can’t I use that same user to login to the 2.3.3 blogs.
A. Version 2.5 has enhance the password authentication so the passwords created/used for a 2.5 blog will not work on a 2.3.3 blog. Ryan wrote MD5 Password Hashes plugin to use the old password hashing (like what is used in Version 2.3.3) in a Version 2.5 blog.
Q. How do I add a youtube video to a 2.5 Post?
A. In the HTML mode, paste the youtube URL (youtube tells you this) into the post. In the Visual mode, paste the youtube URL into the popup activated when you click on the “Insert/edit embedded media” icon on the 2nd toolbar row.
In addition to these questions and the provided answers, if you have any new ones that you would like to add, please leave us a comment and we will add them to the list.
Oh cool. A very handy FAQ list 🙂
This list is very, very comprehensive and useful. I hope half of this issues will get fixed with the upcoming release of 2.5.1. Thanks for a great resource.
Sweet Q&A I was looking for some of the answers my self.
Is there a way to see a count on the number of comments you have total? It used to be on the dashboard but I don’t see it any longer in 2.5.
@Chip – better wait a new and bug free release, I’m sure I’ll do that for all my blogs.
Hi, with this 2.5 version of WordPress, I can’t enable the Comments and the pings in new posts (They are enable in the >settings >discussion)I mark the boxes beside them in >advanced options, but when I save the post, the boxes appear empty. Any suggestions?
what happens if i don’t upgrade to WP 2.5?
Is there any security issue involved if i don’t upgrade? because it looks like there are some things one should have a learning curve again with 2.5 and right now i don’t have the time to do it…
The Remove Max Width Plugin is from the famous DD32 (Dion Hulse).
Apologies to DD32
http://wordpress.org/extend/pl.....max-width/
Hi, i can’t figure out how to upload any picture file to a post. Before it was easy, now it openes one box when i click upload file but it only displays From Computer, or from a URL…..OK i used the from my computer, i then click upload, but that is as far as i can go because i don’t see to get the URL to insert in the post and align it right or left.
Does anybody has a suggestion>?
Great FAQ list, thanks for it! 🙂
one thing i did not find in it.
Some people got problems when they use custom fields in wordpress 2.5.x.. – posts are published and saved as draft, too (twice or three times one post, relates on how many custom fields user use..)
how to fix? till now, no bugfix but workaround, just save the new post before adding custom fields, after saving, you can add custom fields and the post will not be saved as draft, too.
have a good day
Chris
Where can I find “Multi-file upload with progress bar” as described by Matt on his launching WP 2.5 post?
Mine is only one file at a time.
the insert/ edit embedded media is a nice feature, but seems to work a bit randomly. I tried to add a flash movie that I host myself (both as flv and swf) but, no luck, either it didn’t play or else it had no controls, in spite setting the parameters for this.
Since the vipers video quicktags no longer works in 2.5, I had to resort to pasting manual code snippets using the http://www.jeroenwijering.com flash player.
To be able to customize the insert/ edit embedded media feature to acommodate for more video-types would be nice.
Also the editing is a bit buggy. Often when you click a video to highlight it for editing and then hit the insert/ edit embedded media button, it doesn’t “take”, which is rather frustrating.
Q. What happened to my Import Links ability?
A. Export Links is displayed under the Related section on the Write->Link screen
The answer doesn’t seem to correspond to the question.
Widgets title bug
if you have a very long word as a title for a widget , you can’t see the *edit*button
solution:
http://www.webdesign-in.de/mts.....ment-16023
in German languages, but code is international and css too 😉
posts and pages ID
a member of forum.wordpress.deutschland wrote a plugin for this
http://www.schloebe.de/wordpre.....25-plugin/
and so much member would like to have *choose a categorie* at the right side and not under *write a post*, because this is logical ..
@Showbiz Intriga – You don’t have to upgrade but as far as I know support for 2.3 has been discontinued. At this point in time there are no known vulnerabilities in the 2.3 branch but should one be uncovered in the future…
@Admin,
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/164999
@Deny Sri Supriyono,
Once you click the “choose files to upload” button a window will open up allowing to choose what directory you wish to upload from. Once you do that simply select your multiple files using your mouse.
http://img.photobucket.com/alb.....pic293.gif
Thanks for the link back to my post about Bad Behavior! Hope that it’s useful to others.
Couple of image realted questions; I’ve fixed the Bad-Behaviour-no-uploads thing, but the new image handling business is, well, “horrible” is a strong word, but “unfamiliar and unnecessarily complicated” works as well. Why no more thumbnails created on upload? And what the hell is up with all that CSS class cruft that the insertion brings with it? I use custom classes for images already, and now I have to mess about removing these mystery classes from the code, as well as having to work out size parameters to make thumbnails for excerpts that onlu appear on the front page.
In short – I’m sure many people will be overjoyed by the changes, but will there be any sort of legacy support for old-school thumbnailing and no-WP-supplied-CSS-classes-we’re-British?
The rest of the suite looks freaking awesome, and seems to run faster too, BTW.
Good to know before upgrading, but I guess I’ll wait just a little bit longer before upgrading my blog.
Hi Len,
Thanks for your answer and the screenshot too.
Mine is different than yours, Len.
Write > Post > Add an image
I can not select multiple files – it behave the same on my 2 WP2.5 blog.
below is my screenshot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/denysri/2381484550/
Is it just me? poor me :d
Hi Deny Sri Supriyono,
You’re doing it right. That’s the same as mine. When you have the window open containing the images you wish to upload simply use your mouse to choose whatever files you want. Left-click than drag over the images. Alternatively, while holding down the Ctrl button down on your PC right click each image you want to add.
Oops, should have read “..while holding down the Ctrl button down on your PC left click each image you want to add.”
2.5 should have never been released. At least not in it’s current form. It is absolutely miserable to work with right now. Specifically, the Media Handler.
That’s DD32’s “Remove Max Width” plugin, not mine. 😉
Why can’t I “Save and continue editing” anymore? How can anybody work without that?
nonhocapito: Pressing the “Save” button has the same affect as the “Save and continue editing” button used to have. At least it does for me. Try it. 🙂
thanks for patiently responses on my problem, Len 🙂
finally, the uploader works with multiple files – re-uploading the files solve my problem.
previously, I’m using wordpress-automatic-upgrade plugin to upgrade 2 of my blog installation.
Multiple file uploader works now.
Some examples of code that uses the [gallery] feature of 2.5. For instance, how to write a page or post that has several different galleries in it would be helpful.
I will be waiting for a more stable release myself. I didn’t read anywhere nor has WordPress stated that upgrading was mandatory for security purposes, so I will wait. Thanks for the FAQ list.
In 2.3 i was able to go into several of my widgets and edit their settings. Some widgets have additional configuration, Top Commentators for example, that you would click the widget box in the edit widget screen and it would give you the opportunity to exclude users.
I can’t edit the widgets like this in 2.5 … how can i do it???
The fact that there’s a need for all those “How do I” and “Where is” is a clear evidence that the new UI is, in most of its parts, everything but a step forward.
question: in wp 2.x.x. i was able to insert what music i was listening ( usign firefox and foxytunes plug in ) whitout any plug in or widget in wp.
now in wp 2.5 i can’t…why?
nice work
we’ll give it a couple more weeks until you guys sort out some of these issues 🙂
Can we get a FAQ just for uploading photos? It seems from reading through these comments everyone is having some sort of problem with it. I can’t seem to upload multiple photos either like we’re supposed to.
Also, I have over 100 photos in my media library, should there be thumb nail images next to the file names so I can tell them apart? Thank You!!
Rick, what happens to me is that when I press save I am forced out of the editor whereas before I stayed in the editor, as the “continue editing” implied… If you take a look at the code you’ll notice that the “save and continue editing” button is in fact still there but it’s not echoed.
Great list! Thank you.
Have another question. On activating my plugins after the upgrade, after activating about 3/4 of them, I get a 500 Error, and when I reload the page, everything below the blog name & logo line is missing. That is the whole DashboardMenu & the contents of the plugins page has disappeared and nothing seems to bring it back.
This seems like a Database issue. How can this be fixed?
Thanks
Peter
I love the new media features of WP 2.5, but I’ve run into a problem. When I try to “Insert into Post”, it just hangs and media, in my case image, doesn’t get inserted. I use Firefox 2.0.0.13. Also tried IE and had similar results. Anybody else experienced this?
nonhocapito: I went in to edit a post just now on my blog, pressed edit, and I was returned to that post’s edit screen with the message, “Post updated. Continue editing below or go back.”
Creating a new post and pressing save, I am again returned to that post’s edit screen with the message, “Post updated.”
I don’t have any plugins installed that would affect that behavior, that I am aware of.
Strange that you’re getting different results.
Nice post. I have this problem when updated this site http://justtellmewhy.com
When I use get_category_link($cat) in a single page it doesn´t work just shows the base category, in other pages works perfectly.
Any suggestions??
Here’s what I found so far:
# My custom permalinks didn’t work until I reset them after the upgrade. This was a biggie IMHO because the editor always pointed to the numbered post on the main page, as if it was the post slug, although the post should have been using the post name. The end result was that the post ended up on the main page but would return to a “post not found” search page if someone clicked on the hyper-linked title. The same was true for the editor links. A quick trip to the permalink page fixed that after a re-save.
# I believe that Viper007Bond must have written the “add video” buttons because they are very similar to his quite excellent Viper’s Video Quicktags plugin. The difference however is that the 5.4.1 quicktags are more configurable than the built in buttons. I especially like the option to set the default location and size of individual video embeds via the quick tag plugin console.
# I also found that the new editor gets confused quite easily. I rely much more heavily on the HTML view because cut and pastes often have unintended consequences. Munged code, especially with embeds, the inability to remove italics from a cut and paste that has a
element inside of tags to name a few recent experiences.# At one time you used to be able to go to the comment list and click on an IP address to do a whois lookup on arin. This no longer seems to work. Not quite sure what happened here. No matter as I usually go to the meGA Whois for these kind of lookups.
# Hyperlinks have this quirky tendency to stick while typing if you happen to insert one in place without typing past the words you are hyperlinking before hypelinking them up. This is the same as the bold or italics buttons. In other words your typing will be included in the hyperlinked tags unless you type the word or phrase you want hyperlinked and then highlight it and link it up. This is word for Windows ish so no big deal. It is actually a feature if you want to look at it that way.
# Beware those of you with text widgets. My good friend Big Dog is reporting that the upgrade wiped out his text widgets. This is a real bummer and probably poses the worst bug I have seen so far. It could be theme related so it all depends.
# There is a compatibility issue with the sodelind image manager. This is no surprise because the developer kind of abandoned the plugin over a year ago. Too bad because it was pretty slick. If anyone knows of any image manager plugin that lets you browse images on your site image directory please let me know.
That's about it so far. i replaced the 2.5 admin console with Fluency and life is much more manageable in 2.5.
I will post more on my blog as I find it.
V useful post and I’m enjoying 2.5.
I am having one serious problem; posts are fine but pages suddenly won’t display! They appear in the nav (eg About Me) but when trying to display it I get “Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.”
It’s Published, non-Private and the URL rewriting works fine for posts. Any help would be much appreciated, otherwise I’m going to have to try and roll back 🙁
I like this FAQ. It’s helpful.
How do you add a thumbnail to your posts on your homepage (or category page) like Matt has done on his gallery posts on ma.tt ??
Thanks for this list! Some features of 2.5 are really nice. Nevertheless I liked the look and feel of the old wordpress UI much better! At least, it is possible to use different themes. There are even UI themes that change the whole thing 😉
thanks for the faq! i know this may sound like a very silly question, but how do we customise the widgets on the dashboard?
I have been fighting the “Fatal error: Call to undefined function:” error since day one. The generic and almost useless direction from WP forums was to reinstall all the files and make sure that they were copied correctly. (They actually gave 8 potencial fixes that did nothing for me except eat four hours of my time.) I did this three times (reload, and check. There are hundreds of files) and found nothing. The more focused, “Make sure wp-includes/media.php and wp-settings.php are intact (reupload them).” worked perfectly! I did check on them and sure enough there was partial files there in the directory when compared to the original files. (You can deduce this by comparing file sizes, in this case 8k vs 14k). I re-uploaded these files and cleared the cache and restarted the browser and all seems to be well.
So the bottom line is; Yes the WP forum support was right. Make sure the files were uploaded correctly and all is well. However, why did I have to digg here to focus on these particular files? Or is this just me protecting my ego from my denseness? Anyway. it seems to work.
This was fixed in Bad Behavior 2.0.14.
“Q. How do I add a youtube video to a 2.5 Post?”
As it seems, if a user has the role of “Author” they will see it get embedded, they’ll see it in the HTML editor and code editor fine, but when they save the post, it will be removed. Quite frustrating for 10 minutes or so 😐
To fix it, get Role Manager and turn on Unfiltered HTML for Authors. Dangerous, but simple. You could probably also so something like Vipers Quicktags, but I trust the current user base.
Great post. Has either solved many problems or reassured me that I’m not in it alone.
Does anyone know how to indent the first line of a paragraph? Both indent/outdent and blockquote indent the entire paragraph. doesn’t work. Just typing in spaces in the Visual Editor doesn’t work.
Am I missing the obvious?
christine – When you click “Indent” on a paragraph, the HTML should look like this in Code view:
...To indent just the first line, change that code to this:
...Of course, change
3emto however much of an indention you want.Oops, the code didn’t show up; the two lines of HTML can be seen here:
http://pastebin.com/f130448fc
Rick
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, the … didn’t work. In HTML, the Editor added a for a second, took it out, and left the … visible in Visual mode right before the sentence, and same on the post.
But I think we’re on to something – Where you say ” click Indent on a paragraph”, do you mean the Indent/Outdent button,or another?
Also tried the line of code from your link. The Visual Editor changes it so the code is on one line and the sentence on the line beneath; what shows in the published post is … on one line, and the sentence (not indented) on the line below.
Surely I don’t have to go into the CSS to fix this??? I use Firefox (just recently installed because I couldn’t load pictures in IE7).
I appreciate the help.
Sorry, the first line should say “added a paragraph tag for a second”
christine: I wrote this up just for you:
http://rickbeckman.org/how-to-.....dpress-25/
Let me know if that helps any better than what I said above; if not, be sure to let me know. 😀
Hi, I’m administrator of a new wordpress 2.5.1 blog and I wanted to add authors, so I changed the settings of some of my friends to “author”. Everything was fine, until today. I tried to post as me (the administrator)and the post said, that the author of it, was one of my friends (one of the “authors”). I edit the message in the dashboard, went all the way down the page, and try to change it, but in the options I only got all my authors friend names but I am not in there. How can I post as me, the admin of the blog, without erasing my authors? Thank you (sorry, english is not my first language)