I know this post is a little late and most of you have probably already noticed this in your WordPress dashboard already, but WordPress 2.7.1 is now available to download.  This update includes at least 68 bug fixes, so it is definitely worth making the upgrade.

As this is the first update in the WordPress 2.7.1 branch, I just wanted to make sure everyone knows that you can now easily upgrade from within your dashboard by going to Tools –> Upgrade.  Those of you waiting to upgrade to the WordPress 2.7.x branch until the first update was available will still need to upgrade manually.

Okay, so the title is a little misleading, but I wasn’t really sure how to title this post.    What I wanted to do was write a quick post to congratulate the WordPress team on the great success that has been WordPress 2.7 launch!

In case you haven’t noticed, we are coming up on 2 full months now since the release of WordPress 2.7  and there hasn’t been a WordPress 2.7.1 release yet, which shows that everything was well tested prior to the official launch.  

For those of you that have been with WordPress for a few years or so, I imagine you’ll appreciate this accomplishment the most.   I remember getting to the 2.x.7 or higher releases with most WordPress branches and I think at least once we got to double digits before the next major release?  

Out of curiosity, for those of you that traditionally like to wait until the first security patch is released to upgrade to the next major branch, have you already upgraded or are you still waiting to experience WordPress 2.7?

One of the lesser talked about features introduced in WordPress 2.7 is the new feature that breaks comments into multiple pages to create faster load times.   By default, this feature is activated and set to allow 50 comments before the break.    The problem is, with this new feature activated, your WordPress blog is creating duplicate content.

Here is what I found while checking my Google Webmaster Tools account for this website:

Duplicate Title Tags

Duplicate Descriptions

Is this a huge deal?  Probably not, but you may want to consider unchecking this box in your Dashboard > Settings > Discussion tab.   Hopefully in a future version of WordPress this will NOT be checked by default and instead be an option.

Possibly my favorite WordPress plugin of all time has always been the Popularity Contest WordPress plugin from Alex King.    Back when WordPress 2.5 first came out, there was a minor scare where Popularity Contest quit working on new WordPress blogs, but a fix was eventually published and once again all was right with the world.

Now that WordPress 2.7 has been released, I noticed the other day while setting up a couple new niche blogs that Popularity Contest appears to again be broken on fresh installations of WordPress 2.7.    My WordPress installations which already had Popularity Contest installed and were upgraded to WordPress 2.7 seem to still be working fine.

While checking for updates on the authors page, I noticed that it appears that Popularity Contest (along with Alex’s other plugins) are no longer supported and will not receive any future updates.  In fact, the last update was over a year ago.   The only exception I know of is the Share This plugin, which I believe was purchased by someone who has continued to improve the plugin.

My hope with this post is that someone will either take over supporting this WordPress plugin (if Alex is willing to hand it over to someone), or that someone will create a similar plugin for the WordPress community.   Heck, something like this that is supported and gets regular feature updates might even be something I would happily pay a one time fee for!

Anyone having luck with Popularity Contest and brand new WordPress 2.7 installations?

It was with great excitement that Wordpress 2.7 was released late last week, but what does it mean for you? Well, the admin section has been given a makeover, and now looks a lot slicker. Alongside this, there has been an emphasis on doing everything with a single click. You can see the new interface for yourself:

So, how do you get 2.7? If you installed Wordpress using Fantastico then you upgrade by logging into your Fantastico control panel and selecting “upgrade to 2.7″. Its advisable to backup your database first, but don’t let this put you off upgrading - I’ve just upgraded two sites from 2.5.2 and 2.6.2 to 2.7 via Fantastico with no problems at all. Otherwise, head over to WordPress and download the software.

But why should you upgrade in the first place? 2.7’s visual overhaul makes it so much easier to use; you can rearrange your dashboard and have literally everything at your fingertips. You can reply and moderate comments from the dash (even by keyboard shortcuts!), as well as write new posts directly from the dashboard.

Plugins can be installed by installed by searching the Wordpress.org plugins database with a single click without leaving your site. How cool is that! You can upload plugins from your computer without unzipping them and Wordpress will install them. You can also upgrade your plugins with a single click. Speaking of single click upgrading, your upgrade to 2.7 could well be your last manual upgrade as 2.7 includes a feature that lets you upgrade your Wordpress install with a single click.

With Wordpress increasingly being used for everything, a useful new feature, Sticky Posts, allows you to keep a post at the top of your blog, even if you have more recent posts. In practice, this means if you’re running a competition or something like that, then you can keep attention directed at your big post.

The shiny new interface extends beyond the dashboad, and the focus is very much on moving everything around to suit you. The screen below shows how you can rearrange your post-writing page.

And for those wondering why 2.7 isn’t 3.0 with all of these great additions, according to Weblog Tools Collection, Matt doesn’t want to skip version numbers anymore.

For the complete lowdown, visit the codex.

Finally, this video from the Wordpress team briefly looks through some of the new features

This was a guest post by Alex Denning, who is a Wordpress power user, web design freelancer and currently maintains two sites - Nometet.com and GreenGrassGames.com. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you have WordPress knowledge and are interested in writing a post for WordPress Hacks, please contact us.