What’s new in Wordpress land

For folks running Wordpress powered websites, it’s good to pop up your head every couple months to see what’s new.  New uses, plugins, and ideas spring forth from the open-source community of international developers.  So… in no particular order:

1.  Wordpress 2.7 is due to come out soon.  Word on the street is that the look of the backend will significantly change.  (Note:  you can check what version you have at the bottom of your Dashboard.  The latest is 2.6.3.  Contact me if you want to upgrade, which I recommend doing for security purposes.)

2.  On Wednesday a very well-respected theme developer will launch new themes and make them free.  The results will be exciting, especially for folks looking for a theme upgrade.  His are very professional, versatile, and easy to modify.

3.  I’m going to begin learning how to write my own theme.  The idea is to create a basic theme on which to use for future sites.  I’m using this source along with this one to begin.

4.  There are some newly updated plugins that may help your website ministry.

• Google Maps in Post:  Announcing an event that requires a map?  Easily insert Google Maps with this plugin.
• Draft Notifier:  Do you have folks that edit the site but cannot directly publish?  Be automatically notified whenever someone writes content and needs your permission to post.
• User Manager:  Want the ability to manage multiple users for your site?  Perhaps you want to have content managers for particular ministries so you don’t have to be the sole person working on the site?  This is one of many plugins that can assist in devolving responsibility for the site.

5.  Interested in unique ways to use Wordpress?  View this post called “The Weirdest and Wackiest Uses for Wordpress.“