This is going to be a post which will be interesting only to fellow techno-geeks. 
So, I have placed most of it below the fold. If you aren’t a geek, feel free to pass this post up.
My first impressions of version 2.0 of WordPress are mostly favorable. I like the new administrative interface. It doesn’t really add a whole lot of new features, but the ones it does add are impressive.
First and most noticeable is the WYSIWYG editor for posts. I line it and I don’t. I like it as a tool to create and write my posts, but the inability to use a spell checker within it without opening up the “edit HTML directly” windows is a drag. Hopefully, the next release will address this problem and either bundle a spell-checker or make it compatible with what is already out there. Also notable on the New Post Page or Edit Post Page is the fact that the post preview section now uses the CSS file that your chosen theme uses, which means you can see exactly how your post will look before you publish. This is a good addition and almost makes the WYDIWYG editor redundant.
Next comes the uploading feature, which was hyped as being useful for dragging images into your posts without having to remember where they’re located or what their names are. It does these things, but with a few important limitations. First, all images are uploaded to a folder called uploads which WordPress creates the first time you attempt to upload an image. Problem is, most bloggers usually place their images into a folder called images, and these folders could be located anywhere on the server, however WordPress 2.0 doesn’t allow you to change the default placement of the upload folder. Also, when you drag an image into a post and drop it, it actually only drops a thumbnail of the image into your post, not the original picture. Finally, the drag and drop ability is only available if you use the WYSIWYG editor. If you don’t use the editor, you don’t get drag and drop.
Other new features include a place to display snapshots (if provided) of the Themes you have available to you. This could be handy, except I noticed that there were no snapshots included with either of the Themes which are included in the WordPress 2.0 distribution archive. Oops!
The only other major change is the way user permissions are dealt with. In WP 1.5.x, User Levels were used, but in WP 2.0 these have been changed to User Roles. This was done mostly so that in the future, you’ll be able to allow users to only use those plugins you restrict them to, instead of having access to any plugin which has been installed. Unless you host a group blog or blog with lots of contributors, this change won’t mean a whole lot to you.
Many of the areas on the Write New Post screen have been made collapsible (such as the Category selection area), so in order to access them you have to click on the plus sign to expand them. The good news is that once you’ve expanded an area, it will remain that way the next time you go to the Write Post screen.
All-in-all, this upgrade adds some new functionality and an update of the look and feel of the Administrative UI, without changing anything for the readers. I probably would have numbered this release 1.6 instead of 2.0, but that’s just me. I like the enhancements, and all of my plugins were compatible with WP 2.0 so I have not lost any functionality. Be aware, however, that there are several plugins which are not compatible with the new release, so check out your plugins before you make the decision to upgrade or not.
January 3rd, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Hey Nick, my impressions are mostly the same. Biggest problem so far, though, are the trackback issues with WP2.0.
I agree about the non-configurable upload functionality. Year/Month may not be the most appropriate storage convention for everyone (and in order to make the entire blog consistent, I had to manually move my old uploads into the current directory structure underneath “uploads”, and then manually edit posts that referenced those files; fortunately, only a few posts were affected).
I like the way the upload changes work with respect to posting/editing now, however. I don’t use the WYSIWYG editor (it’s just a blog post, after all), so I don’t know how the functionality differs between it and the HTML editor; however, the upload functionality in the HTML editor has options for the images that allow configuring how the image is displayed: thumbnail linked to image page, image linked to image page, or stand-alone image. The “send to editor” command accomplishes the same thing as WYSIWIG drag-and-drop, IMO.
I really don’t think there’s much inherent difference between user “levels” and “roles”, assuming levels were used consistently. If so, then “roles” are nothing more than pre-defined levels. Regardless, it might be a bit more intuitive to think in terms of roles than numbers.
But, all-in-all, I do like the new release!