squareCircleZ

I upgraded this blog’s engine to v2.0 last night.

The process recommended by Wordpress is:

• Back up everything
• Delete almost all of the old php files, except wp-config.php
• Upload all the new php files

Actually, this is silly advice. If you have a disaster, how do you roll back easily? I actually did a better thing and renamed unwanted files and directories.

Anyway, all went well until I attempted the final upgrade step - it gave a fatal error. Some messing around showed that there were 4 lines different in the wp-config.php file and should not be there in the new version.

• $server = DB_HOST;
• $loginsql = DB_USER;
• $passsql = DB_PASSWORD;
• $base = DB_NAME;

I got rid of those lines and voila - I now have v2.0. The new admin interface is much better. It is easier to write a post, upload images and preview the post (it truly is WYSIWYG). You can even resize the editing window by dragging.

Images

Did I say easier image uploading? Yes it is, in that you no longer have to go to another place to upload, then come back to your post. Now you can upload and drag the image to the post. Great, except you only get a thumbnail, not the full image. Say, what?

New Theme

While I was at it, I thought I would try a new look. You are seeing a new theme “Ocadia”, by Beccary.

I have made several changes to the theme, to address the following problems with default Wordpress settings:

• Font size was too small. Hey Web developers, user feedback consistently rates small font sizes as an annoyance on the Web.
• Title links pointing to the article that you are already reading doesn’t make sense, so the link is gone. (The permalink is still available).
• Blog home link on every page, including the home page, does not make sense. Also gone. Replaced with a “squareCircleZ Home” link - more descriptive and useful.
• Various other tweaks to make things more readable.

Hope you like it.