WordPress 2.8 Plugin and Theme Compatibility
I decided to post this today because if I had a few minor problems with WordPress 2.8 and wondered what was going on with my Dashboard, I’m sure many other WordPress users are having similar issues.
There could be several reasons why WordPress 2.8 is behaving weird. I’ve experienced a couple of scenarios which I will go into here.
Your WordPress theme may not work with WordPress 2.8. This week I was tweaking a client’s blog and I couldn’t drag and drop widgets. Neither could he. After some messing around, over-writing files, etc., I discovered that the theme he had purchased, Thesis, needed to be upgraded. So if you are a customer of DIY themes, go and login to your account and download and install the upgrade.
If you are using a free theme, don’t expect the theme author to update the theme to be compatible with WordPress 2.8. You can ask him/her politely but if it’s free, don’t expect or demand instant service. Instead, you may want to get a newer theme and I strongly suggest you get your free themes from WordPress.org. Now you can install new themes from WordPress.org from right within your dashboard: Click Appearance->Add New Themes.
WordPress plugins are so very handy and plugin authors are usually very good at updating their plugins to work with the latest versions of WordPress. But like theme authors, they usually create their plugins for free, so you can ask them if an upgrade is available, but again, don’t expect or demand it.
Today I noticed I was having weird problems in my Dashboard. The WordPress development feed was not working and I couldn’t move things around. I had an instinctive thought to disable the plugin Comment Timeout. Sure enough, by disabling that one plugin, everything worked again. Of course I haven’t needed that plugin since version 2.7 because I can now manage when a comment should be closed from within the WordPress core: Click Settings ->Discussion
In short, you may have to play around a little to get everything working just right in WordPress 2.8, but it will be worth it. In my humble opinion, this version is fantastic and I am so grateful for all the hard work that the WordPress developers have put into it.
As always, if you need some help with tweeks, installs, theme edits, etc., I would be happy to serve you.
Have a wonderful day!
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June 28th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Hi Karen, I also had problems with wordpress 2.8, which weirdly was fixed by separating one line of php into two, not adding any spaces or anything different. Seems it is very fickle :S
June 29th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Hi Jesse,
Thanks for visiting and your comment.
Yes, I’ve found that if you have old plugins, you have to upgrade them and if no upgrade is available, you have to get rid of them or find a suitable replacement. I think theme and plugin creators are having some difficulty with this version. Hopefully a lot of this will be addressed with WordPress 2.8.1.
Making sure your server is running PHP 5 is also really important. I think with some people that could be an issue if they don’t want to bother changing hosts.