The biggest difference you will see after Upgrading to WordPress 2.7 is the new Dashboard in the administrators area. Just login to your new or upgraded WordPress 2.7 website and you will see what I mean!
The whole Dashboard has been radically designed by the developers at WordPress and a very good job they have done on it. It may take you a while to get used to, but you will soon be wondering how you ever got by without it.
Introduction To The WordPress 2.7 Dashboard
When you log in as the WordPress administrator at your website (yourdomain.com/wp-admin) you will see a very different layout than that in previous versions.
The major benefits from a user perspective are that the newly designed Dashboard has much more funtionality then before and can be totally customised by you to suit your style and method of work.
Movable, Collapsible and Hideable Screen Component Modules
Just like the way that more recnt version of WordPress have allowed you to move the positions of widgets in sidebars, you can now rearrange the modules within the central area of the dashboard screen.
Just grab the heading of any module with your mouse and drag the module to it’s new location in the dashboard (click on the heading and hold down the click while moving the cursor with your mouse).
REARRANGE MODULES
Here is a changed view of the previous dashboard image above completely rearranged…
EXPAND AND COLLAPSE MODULES
To collapse a particular module just click on the Heading bar once and click again to expand it…
This is a great way of tidying up your dashboard so that only the modules you are really interested at any given time are showing.
HIDE MODULES
In addition you now have the ability to completely hide any module you wish temporarily by clciking on the Screen Options tab in the top right hand corner of the dashboard. Make modules go away and come back whenever you want.
You can customize the order, layout and what is showing to whatever suits you best.
Drop Down Menu For Frequently Used Options
For things that you do most frequently just clcik on the gray drop-down menu in the top right corner of the dashboard…
This will give you one-click access to…
[1] Add a New Post
[2] Add a New Page
[3] Edit Draft Posts
[4] Upload New Media
[5] Edit Comments
TURBO Link: This allows you to download the images, scripts and CSS files that WordPress admin uses to your personal computer for speedier page load and therefore development times.
New Collapsible Menus and Menu Icons
The new collapsible menu bar is a great innovation in the WordPress 2.7 dashboard.
Just click on the gray line below the top icon (labelled Dashboard) in the menu to collapse it and then click again to expand it.
With this new facility you are now able to collapse the menu right down to just icons on the left or expand each menu item to see the all options in it…
Expanded Version of the Menu Bar
Icons Only version of the Menu Bar
Note: To expand the icons menu bar above back into the normal wider version just click on the (very) small double arrows at the end of the line below the top (home) icon:
So that’s your introduction to the new Dashboard in WordPress 2.7 and how you can customise it.
For more on how to use the new and individual modules in this amazing new dashboard design please read the next post…
Call me crazy but somehow I accidentally set the admin menu to icons only and can’t change it back. Where do I go to do that?
Mark – just click on the very small double arrows under the top home icon in the icon menu bar. See above at end of post for the icon I am talking about (just added!).