Diary of a Wolfeman

Ok, Greyduck got me thinking it was time to upgrade to the WordPress version 2.0, so I have done so. As a part of this, I am trying a new and (what appears to be) better spam killer. Please email me if your comments disappear.

*Update*

Well, for those of you who have been thinking about trying out the new version, I can tell you this is pretty damn cool! There are a number of improvements in the writing interface, most notable a mini rich-text editor that allows you to write posts without worrying about all the tags. Simple keyboard shortcuts turn bold, italics and strikethrough on and off. (There is no longer an underline option, but in web-text, I suppose that makes sense.) Should you need it, there is a button that launches a sub-window with all the bare HTML for direct editing.

Other text-formatting tools include easy bullet-points and lists, an undo/redo option, and text justification. Not so easy are the new hyperlink tools, which only become available after you have highlighted the text you want to link. It does now give you the option of specifying a new window for the link, however. I think I liked the old one better.

The “more” tag still links to the single-page-post view, but there is a plugin to make it simply expand the post in the current page – I’ll play with that later. Another plugin I will be playing with is an automated acronym-replacement widget. Very handy for those of us using acronyms to refer to people. Not so handy …

For those who are more aesthetically-inclined, one of the final and cooler features of the new writing interface is the “live preview”. Previously, in the advenced edit mode, you could see the basic paragraphical layout at the bottom of the writing page; in V2, the preview pane displays it with your theme, so you get a better idea of what the finished product will be. Very handy when you are trying to get images lined up.

Well, that’s about it for now. Maybe more next post if stuff blows up.