If you like WordPress, you will absolutely love the next version. Well… unless you liked any of the following:

• Administration navigation: say goodbye to the bar across the top, everything is down the side now. Oh, and there are icons. Neat! Seriously, this in itself takes a bit to get used to. Even when I can see all options (which is great, seeing everything is very helpful) I still get lost. I think WordPress still has a UX problem here but can’t put my finger on it.
• Top-level navigation tabs: I had a lot of plugins that would show up top next to ‘Write’ and ‘Manage’. It took me two days to realize they went into the ‘Tools’ section. TWO DAYS. Why so long, you ask? Another plugin, that didn’t use the right methodology (use the WordPress functions, don’t hack it, jerk), is still at the ‘top level’, with no icon, looking very randomly out of place.
• Plugins: see previous point, stuff is going to break. Especially if you’ve built something that didn’t go nicely into the ‘Settings’ menu.
• Importing content: I’ve setup three new blogs in the last two weeks and the ability to import attachments fails. It failed on Dreamhost and Bluehost both. Not sure what fread’s problem is, but that was painful. Oh, and why doesn’t WordPress export into Y-sized chunks? If I can’t change my PHP import size then I have to manually break up my files before I import them.
• Media Library: Still sucks. Yeah you wish this was any better.
• Intense Debate: Not yet integrated. Features in this release are frozen so, no, it won’t make it.
• PollDaddy: Hmm, not there either. It’s obvious the focus is business first (that happens with investors) a la WordPress.com. Oh well, that’s why we have plugins!

Now here’s the stuff you’re looking for. The following will really help and change the way you use WordPress:

• Plugin installation: you can download and install them directly from a browser (WordPress.org) built into the dashboard. Just search, click, install, activate, done. So great. This will help people who don’t use “protection” or “common sense” when downloading plugins that can potentially damage their sites.
• Plugin uninstallation: They can uninstall themselves which is great, instead of me just de-activating and deleting the developer can have a routine that removes the data and “leftovers” that I invariably miss when playing with dozens of plugins.
• Administration navigation: This stuff is awesome, you can customize what elements are on your ‘Write’ pages (tags should be below categories, drag and drop it). The sidebar is still a bit iffy, but things will get fixed before beta/release.
• New Akismet: lots of little updates, one being an Akismet Stats screen added to the dashboard.
• Quick Edit: This awesome feature was around up until around October 15th. With the power of AJAX you wouldn’t have to load a page to change a post/page: slug, title, category, tags, publish status, date, etc. Such a necessary feature that disappear as of this posting.
• Sticky Posts: Welp, that killed a perfectly good plugin. But seriously, this is handy.
• Comment Threading and Pagination: I haven’t played much with this but look forward to it. A quick look at the tickets suggests this has nothing to do with IntenseDebate.
• Updating Core WordPress: Finally! You can update plugins and WordPress all from the dashboard. Never again will you need to FTP (in theory) to maintain your blog.
• Oh, and the new dashboard is going to be pretty sweet.

I’m still annoyed that there is no structure for how plugin settings should be arranged in the back-end administration. I have WordPress Stats options under Plugins, other plugins under Settings, other plugins under Tools. This is too confusing. What if I could pick where they go?

Conclusion

Visually speaking, WordPress 2.7 is a great leap forward. Just like any big revision people will have trouble and stuff will break. But, I think it’s a step in the right direction for the user interaction. There is still lots to do but I think the plugins, core WordPress updating and ‘movable’ elements on administration pages is huge.

This update is definitely worth looking at now so you don’t get stuck in the headlights in November. Oh, and always remember to backup. For more information check out Planet WordPress (Automattic has become very open about their development and iteration process).