WordPress 2.5 was finally released today, after much anticipation. Matt Mullenweg did a comprehensive post on the WordPress Blog about this new update and the changes to 2.5. I won’t go through all the major changes – - just read Matt’s post.. he’s done a nice job of explaining a few things and includes a video on some the enhancements. The WordPress.Org website has undergone a brand new re-design that coordinates with the new design of the WordPress Dashboard, as well. Some very nice improvements in the design you’ll notice when you upgrade to WordPress 2.4 – - it’s a little difficult to get used to, at first, but it’s a lighter interface with, overall, some very nice improvements. I think once users get over the initial shock of everything looking different and being moved around and renamed… the old design will be a distant memory as we all move forward. My only sticky point on the new interface design is that it is all left aligned. On my 1280 monitor – - it’s a little hard to take. But if that’s the worst of it – I’m good.

This question came in via my email today, from a reader of my WordPress For Dummies book, regarding adding themes to a WordPress.Com blog ¹ :

How do I set up my wordpress.com blog to use your xMark theme? The setup instructions on the website say to send the xMark folder to the server, but that sounds like a wordpress.org setup. …. Recently I’ve tried again using the wordpress.com setup, and found that was more my speed. Now that my blog is up, http://dominickrusso.wordpress.com/ I’m trying to find a fluid theme, and that’s why I wanted to try xMark.

1. Management of themes on your WordPress.Com account is covered in WordPress For Dummies in Chapter 5. [↩]

One of the more limiting features of the Widgets in WordPress is the inability to disperse your different blogroll link lists to different areas of your template. By using the Links Widget packaged within WordPress, your blogrolls will all appear in the same spot. This is a fine thing, if you only have one blogroll category. But what about those sites that have more than one… or even several, blogroll categories??

Further, what if that particular person doesn’t want all the blogrolls to appear in the same spot, listed one after another? Using the Links Widget, you have no choice really – at least not at this time. You place the Blogroll Widget in your sidebar and all your link lists appear in the same spot.

Matt Mullenweg, of Automattic, announced at WordCamp Argentina that Automattic will soon launch a service for premium WordPress themes. The idea? To provide a repository of ‘premium’ WordPress themes for sale. Designers make 50% of the revenue from themes that sell – - Automattic pockets the other 50%.

It will be interesting to see if this kills the free WordPress theme offerings. From a designers standpoint – why continue offering up free themes when you can submit them to this WordPress Themes Marketplace and make a buck, or two.

And what will the going price be for these premium themes? Is it a standard price – for instance will it be a blanket price for all themes? If not, will Automattic valuate each theme? Based on what criteria? Or will the designer be allowed to set the price? Maybe it will be an auction-type setup where users can bid on the themes that are only sold once?

Do you run a WordPress MU site? Are you thinking of running a WordPress MU site? Do you know anyone who runs a WordPress MU site?

This post is about WordPress MU – could ya tell?

If you answered yes to any, or all, of the above questions – then run.. don’t walk – to download Farms Really Big Theme Pack

Just like the title of the theme pack suggests… it’s REALLY BIG!

In Farms own words…”Here’s my latest pack.. and it’s a whopper. It contains all the themes from the last pack, updated with Nevin’s fixes and a stack more besides. All in all there are 67 themes, all Widget compatible, all tested and in use of popular WPMU sites…”

Get ‘em while they’re hot (and they ARE hot!)

With the release of the latest version of WordPress 2.3 came the added functionality of tagging. I’ve recieved several emails and questions from client to clarify what tagging is, exactly. The most popular question by far:

Why use tags when I can use categories? Aren’t they, essentially, the same thing?

Yes…. and no. I look at it this way – I can use tags to further describe and archive my posts by topic, but I don’t have to have a super huge long category/subcategory listing mucking up my theme and the tag clouds are trendy at the moment – so what the heck? Tags also get indexed with the rel=”tag” attribute, making them attractive to tag crawling services like Technorati and search engines, like Google, because tags are treated like keywords (because of the rel=”tag attribute).