I have been playing with WordPress 2.5 on my local computer for some time now, and I must admit I like it. What I like the most is the new post editor. Now they use TinyMCE v3.06 (v2.1.1.1 was used in WP 2.3.2) and it seems like a huge improvement.

OK, let me show you my favorite improvements.

If you write long posts, you will like the fullscreen mode of the editor. You can see all the text at once and don’t have to scroll it back and forth all the time.

Right below the post title you can see the permalink that will be assigned to your post when you publish. And if you don’t like like it, you can change it. Much clearer than the “post slug” in the previous versions.

To my mind, the new “Add media” toolbar is not an improvement, just a change in the user interface. It consists of four buttons to add images, videos, music, and other media files respectively. If you can’t find the file upload section, click one of these buttons.

What I can call an improvement is the new Media Library, something that was previously known as “Browse All” in the file upload section. It is not only lists all your uploaded files, but also breaks them down by type, date, and allows to search for files. Really convenient when you have many uploaded files.

Another good news for those who like to add some spice to their posts in HTML mode. Your code will be saved intact.

In previous version, the post editor had an irritating habit of modifying your html code. It would convert your div’s into old-fashioned p’s, neglecting nested div’s and breaking your formatting. Even when you don’t have the “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically” enabled.

This behavior had a side effect for UseShots generated posts. UseShots Editor makes use of div’s to format post. Each screen is a div. And the screen div contains nested div’s for screen shots and annotations. If you publish your articles directly from within UseShots Editor, they are saved correclty and formatting is preserved. However when you edit the published articles in the admin area of WordPress, all divs will be silently converted into p’s. As a result, the formatting of the post will not be as solid. The post will still look pretty good, but the fact that WordPress can’t preserve your formatting after modification means you can’t rely on CSS in your own posts, which is really bad.

This is no longer the case in WordPress 2.5. The editor keeps your html formatting intact. You can modify your UseShots-generated posts however you like in the WordPress post editor - the structure and your own html code will be preserved.

It’s good to see that your creativity is no longer limited by a dumb text editor.

I like WordPress 2.5. It is worth it to spend half an hour and upgrade your existing blog to the latest version. (If you are not sure how to do it, you can find some links to the upgrade guides here.)