Version 1.6

This page is deprecated — Version 1.6 was never released, and was replaced with Version 2.0.

New Features

Crossed out items are those which have already been implemented by the developers.

  • Lossless XML import/export re: Carthik
  • Combine enclosure and pingback sending code
  • Media management – exhibit 2.0 re: owen
  • Users – minimize core data
    • Custom fields for users – new table wp_usersmeta
    • ability to email all users from the admin interface
    • Admin interface for adding/removing fields for everyone
    • Needs to modify registration form
    • Required/not required
  • Import/Export system
    • Unified interface under “Manage” (requires WP to be installed)
    • Update importers:
      • Textpattern
      • MT – direct MySQL DB import (high priority)
      • Others?
    • Wanted importers
  • Link manager overhaul
  • Attachment handling for blog-by-email
  • RFC 3229 Delta encoding in HTTP
  • Template editing
    • Easy tags
    • Two views for editing templates – easy and advanced
    • Template converter to/from easytags and also from other systems like MT
    • Versioning of template files, save last 3 copies
  • Combine simple and advance posting view with AJAXy goodness
    • Collapsable extra boxes re: Shuttle
    • Dragable elements, can rearrange
    • Save settings in usermeta table
  • Database Class
    • Make DB connection variables instead of DEFINES and unset after connection
    • Have master/slave distinction
    • Allow read operations to talk to multiple slaves
  • Screenshots for themes
  • Role-based capablity system
  • No popup press it system
  • WYSIWYG
  • Built-in caching ala WP-Cache
  • Active plugins available via XML-RPC

Suggestions

Please don’t edit the list above, if you have any ideas for 1.6 please add them below in the appropriate section:

Administration Panels

  • Separate logic and presentation — use themes.
  • Show/hide menus from options page.
  • A Complete User/Author Profile Page with his/her recent Posts or recent Actions.
  • Ability to customize your RSS and RSS2 feeds. See example.
  • A nice User Interface
  • Ability to display RSS feeds on blog/admin area without a 3rd party program.
  • The functionality of the Adhesive plugin built into core code.
  • Pingback / Trackback manager in the Admin Panel
    • Age posts to set ping_status to closed prior to a specific date.
  • Comments settings all on same page (users must be logged in to comment + moderation options)
    • Age comments to set comment_status to closed prior to a specific date.
  • Customizable Dashboard (ability to place drafts above the WordPress development blog and the Other WordPress news).
    • Switch to enable/disable dashboard feeds. –Dahamsta 18:21, 30 Sep 2005 (GMT)
    • Options to add feeds and more options under latest activity. –Ensellitis 12:11, 10 Oct 2005 (GMT)
  • More bond between the codex and the blog admin.
    • Links directly from the admin to the codex would be nice.
  • Another great feature would be a print-view fuction that’s part of the core to allow auto-generation of print-only views along with permalink, comments, etc.
    • This should be optional. Not sure I’d want a history of all the changes I’ve made to posts.
  • When you log into a WordPress blog, and enter the wrong username, an error appears in red which reads “Wrong Username”. Similarly, if you enter a correct username but incorrect password, the message reads “Incorrect Password”. It should not do this. It should somehow tell you that your login attempt failed, but not specifically what was wrong. BruceWebber 03:38, 2 Jul 2005 (UTC)
    • Allow the customisation of the login screen, possibly through the template, separating it from the admin CSS. For those that have comment registration turned on, it would allow a more consistant look and feel.
  • Should be able to choose whether to have WP remember users between visits. Some people post from public computers, and having to remember to “logout” creates a security risk.

Manage Panel

  • Allow multiple selections for plugin de/activation, comments moderation, post/page management.
  • Show/hide columns in table/list views.
  • Advanced search options (ability to enable full-text?)
    • Advance Search (Search by author, Search by date, etc)
    • Ability to search post and pages, option to search comments too?
    • Order by relevance, even if it’s only searching post body. Chronological search results are next to useless.
    • Ability to search for all hidden and password-protected posts.
  • Alternate display & sorting of posts (by last comment – bb style)
  • Postlevel/Viewlevel functionality should just be integrated right into the WordPress interface.
  • Allow categories to display alphabetically
  • Allow users to enter a “sort key” to control Category/ Article display order. This will allow users to create ‘book-style’ sites – whereby directories and pages are posted in logical order.
  • Allow categories and subcategories to be displayed Yahoo-style.
  • Keep original and subsequent revisions of edited posts and comments, like a cvs, and either put the older versions underneath the newer, or have a history link.
  • Have a one click method to back up your blog (not including the basic wp php files).
  • Built in stats program to track vistors, unique hits, keywords used, referrers, maybe even visitor paths.
  • Create a WYSWYG way of customizing the sidebar, posts, headers, footers and comments.
  • Create a recent posts section that shows on the sidebar and have the ability to define how many posts are listed ie. 5 or 10.
  • When deleting comments using “Manage -> Comments”, there should be a choice to add the IPs, names, and what not to your spam list.
  • Improved Page Management section. It should be made more like the Post Management page, with better navigation.

Uploading Images and Files

  • More upload options
    • Expanded formats
    • File overwrite check box
    • Custom resize options
  • Random image support and resizing
  • Ability to add folders for more organization
    • Needs ability to call random image from a directory without a third-party plugin; images should be able to be uploaded via the WordPress menus
    • Random image should come with some thumbnail script to resize images to the proportions users desire; sizes editable via WordPress menus.
    • Linked thumbnail would take one to the full-size picture automatically held in a Page Template.
  • Gallery functionality that handles individual pics the same way as posts or pages, to replace (or enhance) the current file upload option.
  • Option to allow all file uploads (all file extensions that is).
    • My opinion: that should be granted by clearing all allowed extensions, since allowing no extensions is done by unchecking the file upload option. (Jcraveiro)
  • Instead of putting all attachments into one destination I would prefer them being attached to the specific post/ page. To ease backups the attachments should end up in the database (is that stupid ?)
    • Well, maybe just store the file on the FS, not database, but have the file location in the database and attach it to a post. I’d think it’d be too slow going through the DB for files themselves. At least maybe?
  • add a photoblog section with password protection feature
  • Take the Files section out of User 6’s Admin menu. This would allow someone to be an admin on a site without having the power to upload and run scripts on it. As it is, a level 6 admin can add .php to the File options, upload, and run scripts on a server.

Comment Management

  • Friendlier ways to deal with posts that have many comments
    • Threaded comments
  • Option to allow/require titles for comments (and to mark replies to them RE: automatically)

Pages

  • Pages should have a title and a short title. Title appears on the page. Short title appears on the page list (menu).
  • Option to allow PHP in Pages (i don’t think it is a need to allow it in posts, but in Pages it really is)
    • Plugins are your friends — PHPExec plugin
    • This is in fact implemented into WP 1.5, under the form of Page Templates. –MathiasBynens 19:04, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • And in fact, it seems as in 1.6, there is a nice little checkbox saying “Execute page content between <?php and ?>” on the post page. How cool is that? –MathiasBynens 07:34, 3 Sep 2005 (GMT)
  • Ability to browse through pages (ie, Next and Back links) for Mass Edit Mode comment editing
  • A better display of managed pages. Perhaps a collapsible display.
  • Manage Posts Panel featuring sorting by category, author, and date, similar to Coldforged’s Enhanced Post View.
  • Save and Continue Editing for Pages.
  • Pages (Make wordpress a better CMS solution)
    • Category system for Pages similar to that of Posts.
    • More detailed Page listing system
    • Multiple pages within Pages using the “nextpage” tag, or something similar.
      • More detailed (possibly customisable) “nextpage” tag, use sub titles of next page instead of 1, 2, 3… or dropdown menu.
    • Page distinction on e-mail comment notification (current notifications refer to pages as posts) –Jcraveiro 01:58, 17 Jul 2005 (UTC)
  • Add ‘extract’ attribute to wp_list_pages(), to enable listing of subpages in page templates. –Dahamsta 18:21, 30 Sep 2005 (GMT) Do you mean ‘excerpt’? There is already a field in database. It would be nice to be able to edit this in admin area!
  • Include a “tell a friend” e-mail notification –Markush 23:03, 3 Oct 2005 (GMT)

Links

Authors like to comment on the pages that they link to, and readers like to comment. (Particularly, people like to be able to leave a comment on the link to their page, thanking the author for kind words, etc.)

  • Links should be able to do most things that posts do. Most of the data structure is there, just not the functionality.
    • Comments, just like on posts.
    • “Link pages”, showing (n) links with their description.
    • “Link Single pages”, showing one link with description and notes.
    • Comments on links
    • More than just visible/invisible – should also have a “private” status. This is important if you use your blog as a “blogmarks” system, but don’t necessarily want to provide the world with a link to your email, cpanel, etc.
    • Set a “links page base” in Options-Permalinks, default to “/links” (for the links page.)

–Isaac Schlueter

  • Subcategories for links would be nice (Kyle French)

Write Post Panel

  • Same editing options for Pages than for Posts (ie “Save and Continue Editing”)
    • The ability to expand the editing field for when writing epic novels
      • Have you looked under Options > Writing lately (“size of the writing box”)?
        • Been there, done that. Stopping what you’re writing to go digging around the options and make a temporary change is dumb and it assumes that the writer even knows they have the option. I’m suggesting something along the lines of a maximize button for the writing field to temporarily make it larger. (jonabad)
      • Textarea tools http://livsey.org/experiments/textareatools/ (Jcraveiro)
  • Site-wide setting or per-post setting of adding break tags to every row
  • Ability to add quicktags buttons easily.
  • Built-in spell check for posts (and comments?)
  • On-the-fly addition of categories like Speedy Cat or Cat2Tag
    • The addition of new tags can be had just after the category selection list.
  • Ditto for custom fields, ’cause the Edit Page refreshes whenever you add/modify the custom field values.
  • Add Search box to Write screen so that blogger can search for information in other posts instead of having to use google internal site search or navigating to Manage screen to use Search.
    • Add ‘View Post’ link to Write screen so author can view fully-formatted post. Preview mode (at bottom of Write screen) does not show full formatting and so is often not helpful especially for image display formatting.
  • Put back in the functionality to enable/disable Pingback/Trackback per post. I’d just assume leave it off for the site, but then enable it for a post here and there. This all or nothing option is absurd.
  • Automatic recognition of a double space as a paragraph tag in the Write Post Preview.
  • Using templates (like in wordprocessing software) for blog entries which are being repeated (like “The new novel XYZ by ZYX has been published”)

Themes, Templates and Template Tags

  • Current category selected with a class on the li, like current_page_item for pages.
  • template tag overhaul, use XML tiles instead with XSLT and built-in caching
  • Ability to detect cell phones or small-screen devices and feed acceptably lightweight content out of the box.
    • With XHTML and media=”screen” (when the CSS stylesheet is called) in your template should be enough in some cell phones (WML 2)
      • Most Cell plans charge an abusive amount for packet data, I was thinking that being able auto-detect them and feed more conservative templates would be a nice out of the box feature.
    • Don’t forget 320×240 (QVGA) and VGA screened PDAs
  • Separation between comments and pingbacks/trackbacks
  • Gotta love those mk-notes plugins
  • Built-in Plugin and Theme Managers that provide Automagic installs (or at least easy downloads) and update notifications in the dashboard.
  • Modify all link-generation to use currently employed protocol; so that HTTPS can be used in conjunction with HTTP
  • Meet Accessibility Standards by allowing the use of accesskeys in wp_list_pages() and other similar template tags.
  • ‘Previous Entries’ link at bottom of Category page display should not take you to 404 “post not found” error after clicking the Previous Entries link on last page of a Category’s posts. Instead, the last page of Category entries should have a link saying “Return to Category first page” or something like that. A forum support maven said this sounds like a bug.
  • Allow the_loop to process future-dated posts
  • Change Categories for Tags
  • Allow the use of variables in style.css
  • Provide a configuration in the admin to change the weblog direction for right-to-left languages, and give theme writers a way to make use of this configuration.
  • The list of posts in any of the ‘categories’ and in the results of any search, add the possibility in the panel control of choose between show the full posts or the excerpt, and chose if you whant to show the images of the post in them (search results and lists of posts in the categories).
  • Change all permissions in the theme folder (is this possible?) to make modifying theme files easier.
  • WordPress should recognize other stylesheets than just style.css. For example, I want to have print.css, handheld.css etc. as well, but WordPress doesn’t show them, so I have to edit and upload them manually.
  • “Edit theme” link next to theme title under “Manage Themes” to allow quick editing of any theme.
  • More template tags to move up the parent child relationship. lots of ways to get to the children with x known but it’s hard to go up without custom php. Really, more ‘family’ template tags in general. siblings_of, parent_of, grandparent_, third_cousin_of…
  • Add new template_tag for is_home() WP loop to only show thumbnails instead of full images on your index page or any other template file. Something like that.

Administration Issues

  • More control over URIs for permalink/category structure, eg http://example.com/mycategory/ top-level directories for categories, ability to control how archives are linked to etc.
  • Ability to use subcategories in URLs. Example: http://example.com/mycategory/mysubcategory/
  • Should be a webmail client
  • Email to categories, Email to Pages (this feature should include images and attachments, if the image is too large it should generate a thumbnail with a link to the original)
  • Option to email new posts to users and/or readers (we have a plugin for subscribing to comments now, but something more basic as subscribing to posts is misssing).
  • Password protection (or some other form of security such as GnuPG signing) for the post-by-email system
  • How about making Captcha the default for comments? Make it part of the core WP system and not a plugin. Can enable or disable via Admin.
    • Captcha’s are accessibility and usability hazards, and can usually be outdone. Captcha’s are fine as plugins, but definitely not as part of the WP core. Other spam fighting utilities like Bad Behavior are more usable.
  • Ability to generate true static HTML pages like MovableType and other blogging systems.
    • Can extend WP’s static Pages to be truly static HTML files that can be distributed via CD-Rom.
  • Make WP multi-user come with regular WP and be used like Scoop, where people can have their own blogs and if you like one of their posts, you can put it on the front page.
  • Have a better check on values when saving options (in v1.5 there is no check at all), see my forum topic for a more elaborate explanation
  • Degrade gracefully and transparently when WordPress can’t communicate with the database
    • WordPress currently displays a WordPress-branded page announcing to the world that you have a problem. Doesn’t exactly make you look professional.
    • Wouldn’t it be handy if WordPress generated a static version of the front page every time you updated, and saved it for use in case of just such an eventuality? There could be a discreet, customizable message at the top of the page, such as “Owing to temporary technical difficulties, not all features of the site are available right now. Please check again soon.”
  • Provide a fix for using Permalinks when hosted on IIS 6 and blog administrator cannot modify php.ini or install ISAPI filter to approximate the mod_rewrite behavior.

User Levels

  • Ability to configure user permissions to different admin features along one of these two lines:
    • Users in these (user-definable) groups, and these specific users can do these tasks
    • Users at this level can do these tasks
    • Also, the user permissions system should extend to tasks made available by plugins
    • Ability to have filters based on users (integrate into levels?) to allow for customized ‘friends’ lists.
  • An option to allow users who are at same level as each other to edit each others posts
  • Improved handling of large user lists in admin
    • pagination and search tools
    • user groups and permissions by group
  • Allow users to edit their own comments (and allow admin to automatically add admin-definable string to comments that are edited)

Plugins

  • Plugins as php classes
    • Base class that provides easy methods for doing common things like adding menu buttons / quicktags etc.
  • Built-in Plugin and Theme Managers that provide Automagic installs (or at least easy downloads) and update notifications in the dashboard.
  • Allow multiple selections for plugin de/activation, comments moderation, post/page management.

Core Programming

  • reduce core size
    • rewrite core functions as plugins which load only when called via a base factory class.
    • load functions based on context instead of loading entire core.
  • Should make both Regular *and* Decaf
    • Every feature should ship by default, but the interface should look very simple and use DHTML (+ cookies/xmlhttp to save prefs) to expand panels and show advanced features.
  • Better spam filters. WP should check if the domain of the email actually exists, and if It doesn’t like myfakeemail18394.com for an example, Then the comment will be deleted/put in moderation cause It will most likely be a spam bot.
  • Faster Trackbacks/Posting.
  • Use cURL to parse external files rather than include()
  • OpenID support Jcraveiro 21:23, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Make everything but the most basic core functionality a set of plugins that are packaged with the distro. This would allow for greater individual customization. Core would be a set of well defined apis. (Maybe a set of base classes) Examples: Exhibit 2, Spam Filtering, page support, etc.
    • Provide a fix for using Permalinks when hosted on IIS 6 and blog administrator cannot modify php.ini or install ISAPI filter to approximate the mod_rewrite behavior. As written, Permalinks are currently DOA on IIS 6 in many/most shared hosted environments.

Installation and Importing

  • Upgrading WordPress is REALLY easy to do now, but could it be even easier (one-click via the admin menu)?
    • Not unless you want to make everything world-writable…
    • What if there was an installer that could ask you for your webhost info and upload it for you?
  • Standard .pkg Installer for Mac OS X (doubleclickable) which uses coredata(SQLite) instead of mysql, so dumb users (like me) don’t have deal with mysql-installation.
  • Haloscan Comments Import (see importing haloscan comments into wordpress as an example)
  • Improved Blogger Import (import post-slugs based on old post page filename)
  • Upgrade wp-atom.php to output Atom 1.0
  • importing from Cutenews/Aj-Fork (http://ajfork.berlios.de/)?
  • PMachine import
  • Support more databases like PostregSQL, MS SQL Server, maybe even Firebird DB

Multi-Blog

  • More efficient handling/installation of multiple blogs on same server (ref: MovableType, and Blojsom?)
  • Ability to manage separate (multiple) weblogs on server through one admin interface
  • Ability for WP search to look in multiple weblogs (with one search request)

Suggested Patches

Also see the Commit Candidates and the Attention: Developers reports.

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