If you are looking for a category number (this is most often needed for setting up the homepage of Magazine WordPress themes), here is a really easy way you can locate it until the WordPress team adds the category number display we all took for granted before:

1) Go to Manage > Categories.

2) Hover your mouse over the category that you need the ID of.

3) Look in the lower left corner of your web browser for the ID of that category.

Here is a screenshot example:

Hopefully WordPress will again display the category ID in one of the future updates, but thankfully this workaround is really easy.

• Bootstrapper has listed their 100 most usable plugins. I’m a sucker for lists like this and hopefully you enjoy them also. It is always fun to see what other peoples favorites are.
• Last week I collected your input on what you’d like to see on WordPress 2.6. It looks like Dan at WPCandy has collected over 30 ideas he’d like to see with WordPress 2.6. Talk about thorough! This list has a lot of great ideas that hopefully the WordPress team sees.
• Noticed some of your favorite WordPress features missing? The WordPress Expert has listed the 5 features removed in WordPress 2.5. Hopefully we can get these back for WordPress 2.6 (if not before).
• ThemeLab has explained how to setup a privacy policy on your WordPress blog. This is crucial for people that monetize their blogs with Google AdSense.

The links importer allows you to import links from an OPML file. In previous versions of WordPress, the links importer was located under the Blogroll section. However, with the admin menu redesign in WordPress 2.5, the links importer isn’t even on the menu anymore!

WordPress 2.5 still has a links importer, but you have to go through a few extra steps to get to it:

1. Login to your WordPress admin
2. Click “Write”
3. Click “Link”
4. Look under the “Related” section on the right
5. Click “Import Links”

From there you can use the link importer like you would in WordPress 2.3.

Funny that the links importer still uses the term “Blogroll,” even though it’s been changed to “Links” in other parts of the administration.

If you would like to learn how to use widgets in WordPress 2.5+, I recommend you check out the WordPress 2.5 Sidebar Widgets Guide over at WordPress Max.  He does a good job of getting you used to the new look and feel of the new WordPress widgets system.

Anyway, in order to get your copy, head over to WordPress.org, check out the new redesign, and upgrade your blog software!  Then come back here and share your thoughts on the new look and other changes.

WordPress.com users should have the upgrade within a week (though don’t expect it the next few days while the entire team is in Dallas).

I know this will disappoint some people because we were hoping to have it in time for WordCamp, but it is good to see they are taking the time to get everything right. Because WordPress 2.4 was skipped, this is like two releases at once.

So, you’ve got WordPress 2.5 installed and you’re ready to assign Gravatars to your comments? All you need to do is a quick code hack to the comments loop where you want the Gravatar to show up:

<?php if(function_exists(’get_avatar’)){ echo get_avatar($comment, ‘50’);} ?>

I encourage everyone to support WordPress by displaying Gravatars on their blogs once you’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.5.

Now that you have the good news, there is also some bad news.  I did run across one quick note about the release candidate that I wanted to share with everyone.   Apparently there are known problems with the automatic plugin upgrade feature, so you’ll want to avoid using the automatic plugin upgrade feature until a fix is in place.  Guess I’m glad they went with a release candidate to start!

Once you’ve upgraded, the good news is that you have options.  If you prefer to customize your own colors, Ozh has a nice tutorial up explaining how to make a custom stylesheet in WordPress 2.5.

As previously mentioned, you also have the option of using a plugin such as Fluency Admin to adjust the look of your dashboard (WordPress 2.5+).   I’m sure other plugins will be released as well, giving you a wide variety of looks to choose from.

Dougal lists the following new features:

• Faster load times.
• Multi-file uploads.
• New “Media Manager” for images, audio, video, etc.
• Built-in gallery function.
• Built-in (and pluggable) Gravatars support.
• New backend design.
• One-click auto-update for plugins.
• Reactivate plugins after a ‘Deactivate All Plugins’ action.

Along with the new features will come a period of adjustment as we get used to the new admin panel. Not only have the colors changed, but the location of many links and information has been moved.  You may also want to check out 10 things you need to know about WordPress 2.5 by TechnoSailor.

As we get closer and closer to the release I think I’m getting more and more excited. What feature are you most looking for to?

Note: As a reminder, this is just a release candidate which is designed for locating bugs in the software. If you are waiting for a more stable version of WordPress 2.5 you’ll want to wait until the official release.