WordPress (Blogging Software) Version 2.1 Released

WordPress, a popular blogging software, has released version 2.1 with many exciting features and over 550 bug fixes.

The key features are:

• Autosaving of posts - It has incorporated the features of tw_autosave plugin in the core.
• Tabbed editor - Allows switching between WYSIWYG & plain text mode editor. I am not too excited about this feature going by my previous experiences with WordPress’ WYSIWYG editor implementation (based on TinyMCE).
• XML import / export features allows moving from one WordPress blog to another. I wonder if it will allow wordpress.com bloggers to graduate to moving to their own domains.
• MySQL code optimization by MySQL team. Hopefully page access will be faster though no performance numbers have been released.
• “Improved” admin interface with more AJAXification.
• Finally they decided to make the Dashboard faster by asynchronously loading the feeds. Why not just ditch the feeds?
• Support for right-to-left languages, for example Arabic.

I think the WordPress team should allow this version to stabilize a bit instead of moving in their ever increasing rush to create a bloatware like Netscape. Take a look at their ideas for the next release and you will know what I mean. They are trying to incorporate the functionality of every plugin developed for WordPress like WordPress backup plugin, autosave plugin etc., an effective recipe for a bloatware.

I liked WordPress because it was a simple and yet very functional blogging platform. Today it is bulging at the seams. I am starting to look beyond WordPress, fresh ideas like Habari are worth looking into and exploring.