This blog is now running WordPress 2.1 Ella and I am impressed. This server was running a much older version of MySql and since Ella requires MySql 4.1 support, I could not upgrade right away. I was somewhat apprehensive of upgrading MySql on Plesk and wanted to put aside some time for the upgrade in case things went south. This morning, I upgraded MySql, this blog, all the plugins and performed some much needed tweaking and maintenance.
For those that are on Plesk servers and would like some instructions on how to upgrade MySql safely, this post should help. The upgrade was simple, the instructions made sense and were complete, and the upgrade itself went without a hitch. After the upgrade, I tweaked the query cache (sorely missed in MySql 3), upped the key buffer and the thread cache sizes and optimized all the tables. I am satisfied with the results. Once I have gathered enough performance information, I will post an update with a screenshot. This post on CircleSix, mentioned previously, is a great place to start.
None of the plugins I had installed required updates right away beside Ultimate Tag Warrior which I updated and patched. I was also really glad to find that this theme was completely compatible with WordPress 2.1 It just goes to show the proficiency of Joao Craviero. That being said, if something is broken or non-functional, please let us know.
I alluded that I was impressed with Ella and I am (with not just her music). The number of queries to generate the front page has dropped 41% and the memory requirements for the query and its cache has dropped many fold due to the improvements in the query structure. I am loving the autosave feature and the code tab on the write post page. I also like the quicker back end, the fast dashboard, the built in spell check and the small improvements scattered around the admin interface. The TinyMCE WYSIWYG interface is much easier to use and the auto formatting is more intuitive. I did end up hacking the link button on the write page so the “Insert” button was on the left instead of the right since I kept clicking the “Cancel” intuitively. Also, since we have been receiving a lot of questions on how to add news to this blog, I have added a Submit News menu item to the top menu for future reference.
So when are you upgrading to WordPress 2.1 Ella?
I already have upgraded to wp 2.1. I too am impressed with the new wysiwyg editor and the ability to switch to “code” view via a tab.
Oh, thanks, but it was just a matter of luck for not having used any template tags that were changed. Heck, my own weblog’s theme’s go ruined with WordPress 2.1, how proficient is that? 😉
I just upgraded as well and so far so good 🙂
I upgraded to WordPress 2.1 on the first day, and encountered many problems, one of which is still unresolved and appears to have no resolution, since no one has an answer to my query in the forum.
As to the spellchecker, does it work? I purposefully built in errors such as ‘peice’ and ‘writen’ and it failed to find them.
I upgraded to Ella last Tuesday and have had very little problems since then. I did notice that when writing posts in Mozilla-based browsers my lines would seldom wrap properly, but this does not appear to be an issue for the various releases of IE. Spell check does work (it puts red lines under mis-spelled words), but I’m uncertain how to add words to the dictionary.
From what I’ve seen in the various forums and sites, this upgrade has been painless for most of the early adopters.
Kudos to the development and testing teams for all their hard work 🙂
I upgraded to Ella a few days ago, and I’m largely impressed. The editor feels more responsive and I do like the “Code” tab (though if you notice, it’s not 100% true code; markup like paragraph tags isn’t shown). If you’re having mysterious problems with the TinyMCE editor, try clearing your cache and reloading the Edit Post page. Fixed all my odd problems, including the weird “inescapable URL popup” problem.
Mine was smooth as silk
😀
I have upgraded and at present my theme does not work well. I might move to a theme (temp) that works well. I love my current theme and I have requested the author/designer for an update 🙂
I have heaps of plugins, some on/some off and except for 2 plugins (which have been update) others worked well.
Cheers!
Alpesh
I made the leap 4 days ago, and the only casualty was my Drop down Links plugin. I like the speedier admin, but have yet to fully explore the new stuff.
I too have upgraded and yes, the AJAX popups are kind of confusing because the positions of the Cancel and Insert buttons have switched. But other than that, i love it 🙂 and i’m glad my design had no problems with it :).
nice job there Mark
I have rework my site and use wp 2.1 since my web hosting is support for mysql ver 5.0. wp 2.1 work well for me and much easier and faster than previous version 😉
Did it on the first day and it seems fine, but I am still quite new to WP.
That UTW patch doesn’t work on trackbacks.
i upgraded on the first day. since i have fantastico xD its pretty nifty.
I’m just about done with a new site setup on WP 2.1 and, well, not bad, but still some quirks. I’m seeing segmentation faults of apache with the WP 2.1 site, though only here and there, and the Categories tab in admin crashes every time. It’s PHP 4 – hoping to upgrade to 5 soon – though I’ve never had any problems before.
That said – it is faster and I like the admin improvements.
My biggest complaint by far is the truncating of feeds after the tag. I tease posts all the time but like having the full post in a feed. This should have been an option. Hoping I can hack the original behavior back in with a plugin.
My other sites likely need some theme updates before I make the jump so I’ll be on 2.0.x with many of them for a time.
What problems I had when I upgraded seemed based either in the template out front, or in the administration template I was using. Turning off the admin template plugin cleared my writing window shoving off to the right when I switched from visual to code views. (I’ve dropped a note to the designer of the template.)
As for the public view, that problem was based in the tags looking for links instead of a blogroll. I was able to patch the sidebar code by borrowing the correct line from the Classic template and pasting it into the veryplaintext sidebar; however, I also found that lines I’d tagged for centered display wouldn’t. I’ve since switched to another template that I find attractive, and is a little more graphically oriented. In fact, it has almost every feature I’m looking for, except for the big quotes on a blockquote instead of just boxing the excerpt off. If I sit down and examine the themes, I may be able to psych this out myself and do my own revision. (It’s time I learned a little PHP anyway, I suppose.)
I’ve upgraded to Ella with little to no problems (less than 2 hrs after the announcement 🙂 ). Some plugins had to be dropped, but nothing that my blog couldn’t run without. I can’t count how many times I clicked “Cancel” instead of “Insert” so if you could write a post on how you hacked it to be the old way around, please let us know.
I upgraded a few days ago already. It went like a breeze. Only one thing: since the update Akismet in catching between 100 and 150 spam posts a day instead of 30 before that. It looks like 2.1 is attracting way more spam… but that is ridiculous, ain’t it?
I would love to upgrade however my host (godaddy) has mysql 3.23 installed. 🙁
Very much looking forward to seeing the benchmarks you find.
Maybe tomorrow
Hello Mark,
I have also successfully upgraded from 2.0.6. So far, there have been no issues to report. I am in the process of moving my content to new host provider and wanted to test the export and import features of 2.1. That’s why I needed to upgrade. v 2.0.6 does not have an export feature that I know of. I exported from the upgrade into a fresh install at my new host. I am quite pleased with how that worked.
Take a look when you have an opportunity.