New Features: Linking, Sorting, Paging
Oh my!
It’s that time of year again, when the folks over at WordPress.org start putting the finishing touches on the next version of WordPress (in this case, version 3.1), and the lucky users of WordPress.com are automatically included in the beta testing, giving you all access to new features about a month before they are officially released. This is awesome, because you get early access, and your feedback can help us make even more improvements. I’m personally pretty excited about the new features you’ll be seeing around here starting later tonight, as they are additions I’ve been wanting for a long time. Here are the new things you can expect to see the next time you’re in your dashboard:
Easier Internal Linking
Yay. Finally. Literally. Seriously. What?! I know, right? 🙂
You’re writing a post (or a page) in WordPress. You mention something you’ve written about before, and think to yourself, “I’m going to link to that last post!” What do you do? You might open a new tab and search for the older content in your dashboard’s list of posts, or you might go to your live blog and find it. Either way, you have to find that content and get the URL, so that when you click on the link button in the post editor, you’ll have it ready. Right? What’s that, 5-8 steps, depending on which way you do it? No more!
With our sexy new internal linking feature, you can now enter any URL to create a link just like you used to, OR you can search your existing posts and pages right there in the link popup. A combination of pre-loading, autocomplete, and some ajaxy goodness make the new link creation tool a joy to use (and man, that popup is so much faster!). We hope this addition spurs you to make more connections between pieces of content on your site, which will make it easier for your visitors to find more related content from you. One more time, all together now: Yay! (Right?)
Column Sorting
When you’re in your dashboard and you click to the Posts section (or Pages, Media, any screen with one of those listing tables), do you ever wish you could click a column header to change the display, like to sort things by date, alphabetically, by author, or other criteria? I know I wish for it all the time. And now we have it! This feature is a product of a successful Google Summer of Code student project, proof that the program is a great way to get involved with WordPress development. The little arrow next to the column heading (in my example screenshot, the Date column) shows you which column is determining the sort order, and if it’s ascending or descending. Just click on the column header to sort by that column, or to reverse the order.
Better Pagination
If you have a lot of content, you may have run into a mildly annoying experience at some point when paging through screens in the dashboard that list your posts, media files, etc. Clicking forward and back is easy enough, as is skipping to the first or last couple of screens, but what about the middle? Say you had 23 screens worth of post listings, you’re on screen #6, and based on the dates, you think the one you’re looking for might be around page 15 or so. You would have had to click several times to advance a few screens at a time until you reached the screen you wanted. No more! With our new pagination style, those quick forward/back and first/last links are still there, but now you can jump right to any screen by just changing the editable number shown in the pagination area (and hitting enter). Sweet!
Ajax Search Results
Reviewing search results will be faster and no longer require screen refreshes in the dashboard, thanks to the addition of ajax to the search results screen. Go Speed Racer!
Revised Blue Color Scheme
In the personal options in your profile, you have a choice between gray and blue dashboard color schemes (the default is gray). We updated the gray color scheme a while back, but didn’t update the blue one at the same time. (Remember when we moved from the dark header to the lighter header? Good times.) The new blue color scheme is lighter, cleaner, and based on the same shadings as the gray color scheme but with a blue hue so that your focus can remain firmly on your content creation, without distraction. If you’ve never tried the blue color scheme, now would be a great time to give it a whirl and see how you like it! Are there other colors you’d like to have as options? Let us know in the comments!
Improved IE9 Support
If you’ve had any trouble using drag and drop features in the dashboard or have had any problems with the Visual editor on the post creation screen when using Internet Explorer 9, sorry! Improvements have been made to make these features work smoothly in the latest Microsoft browser.
Good stuff, yeah? Things to bear in mind: these are new features, and though they’ve been worked on and tested for some time, you may find a bug we missed. If one of these features gives you any trouble, please let us know. You can leave a comment on this post within the next two weeks, talk about it in the forums, or contact support through the usual channels.
I hope you enjoy these additions as much as we enjoyed making them for you. Happy blogging!
Update: November 20, 2010 11:30am
Thanks to your reports we’ve been able to find and fix a couple of bugs that we didn’t encounter in our own advance testing.
- We fixed a conflict with the CSS plugin wordpress.com uses (the incompatibility did weird things to content in the editor), so reported problems like content being all underlined or bolded unexpectedly should no longer be happening.
- We fixed an issue with IE8 for internal linking. We are still working on issues with IE7. (But seriously, using outdated browsers is generally not a good idea. Update your browser!)
If you are still encountering issues with the new features, when you leave a comment or contact support, please state what operating system and browser you are using so we can troubleshoot faster. Examples: “I’m using Firefox 3.9 on Mac OSX 10.5.” “I’m using Google Chrome on Windows 7.”
Thanks!
- November 19, 2010
- Features
A much needed feature…thank you very much.
LikeLike
Never thought you could describe linking as “sexy,” but it so totally is! 😉
Great info…thanks!
LikeLike
I really like the new blue, but I’ve been posting on and off all day, and all of the sudden, it’s much brighter! It kinda scared me. Thought my blog was gonna s’plode! lol…
LikeLike
Awesome! Love these new improvements! Thanks again! Can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
LikeLike
I found myself nodding my head constantly, thinking ‘yes, finally!’ to almost all of it! Great improvements!
LikeLike
Maybe I’ve been clueless, but looks like comments are listed under a published Blog post when it’s in EDIT mode. Anyway I didn’t notice it before or it’s new?
LikeLike
That’s been there since the end of 2008. It’s just a convenience so that everything related to a post can be found in one place. Hopefully you find it useful, but if not, you can hide the comments from that screen by unchecking the Comments box in the Screen Options tab.
LikeLike
I could have used some of these two days ago and yesterday when I did my anniversary post. So much hunting…this will be most usable.
LikeLike
Better Pagination is one thing i like bcs when ever i want to add a image it takes hell lot of time bcs i have more than 300+ images sometime i need to add image in between 100 so it takes a lot of time clicking next and all yeah we can use keyword and search but this feature is cool thank u wordress keep rocking
LikeLike
Ooooooooooooh!!!!! I know I will use the internal linking feature. That will save so many steps and therefore lots of time, which will be great when I’m in a locale that has slow Internet service. Same with the pagination feature. Thank you!
LikeLike
Better Pagination is it only for pages ???????? i want it also in media library
LikeLike
All list-type screens have the new pagination.
LikeLike
I made a post a mins ago, after I posted.. All pics from the post are gone…. Can you help me?? When I upload pictures, wordpress color still dark.
LikeLike
There were a couple of temporary, unexpected bugs at first, but they were ironed out as quickly as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience! If you are still having issues with your images, please contact support for help.
LikeLike
VERY cool features! WordPress just gets better and better 🙂
LikeLike
I write my material in word documents, often with pictorial included, and when ‘copy & paste’ or ‘drag’ the document into the WordPress blog the pictures ALWAYS disappear … the ‘copy and paste’ function has also started to stop leaving only the ‘drag’ option open …
These are issues I hear complaints about from other users too and should be addressed – I and others have raised it with you before but to no avail yet …
Wolfgang
LikeLike
Hi Wolfgang! Sorry to hear you’re having trouble. Your comment doesn’t sound related to any of the new features mentioned in this post, it sounds like a problem associated with trying to put Microsoft Word content into WordPress. To better understand why this is, please read our support article about pasting from Microsoft Word.
Please contact support if you need more help.
LikeLike
Love it! you guys keep getting better and better.
LikeLike
Easier internal Linking. Sounds really helpful. Marvelous 😉
LikeLike
Easier Internal Linking – this is really exciting to me because I link to older posts all the time. You have saved me time and made it more likely that I will bother to post every link to older posts. Thanks so much for all you do to make WordPress the absolute best blogging site on the internet!!
LikeLike
The “Easier Internal Linking” part made me laugh. What Jane described there has happened to me soooooo many times 😀
LikeLike
these are zupeerr!! thx wordpress 🙂
LikeLike
Awesome! Keep up the great work!
LikeLike
Awesome!
LikeLike
Thanks, WordPress. Going to check this out for my site.
LikeLike
Awesome! Really like the idea of easier internal linking. Looking forward to using it…
LikeLike
its bugging 😦 i lost whole content in my home page today when i went to edit it and even the restore feature is not working for me 😦 i think its bcs of this new feature damn please correct it it takes 1 hour for me to reconstruct everything on my homepage
LikeLike
Unfortunately, there were a couple of temporary, unexpected bugs at first, but they were ironed out as quickly as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience! If you are still having issues with your site, please contact support for help.
LikeLike
Absolutely GREAT! So excited about the new LINKING feature! YAYYYYYYY!
LikeLike
Digging the new improvements, especially the Pagination! This was always a pain in the butt when I was looking for an older pic I posted to use in a new post. 😀
Good Job! Keep em comin’!
LikeLike
Holy COW!!! That first new feature is gonna make my life so much better! Wow! I’ve got over 1000 posts on one blog and hundreds of posts on other blogs and I’m often trying to link old content to new! Thanks so much!
LikeLike
Internal linking – I know, right 🙂
The Blue is nice too …thanks!
LikeLike
If you can provide better support for Simplified Chinese, I think I will be more convenient to use the various features of WordPress, whether new or old.
After all, even write a short text, I still need Google’s translation function.
LikeLike
Translations of WordPress
, like WordPress itself, are completed as open source community projects, and if you have the ability to contribute and improved the Simplified Chinese translations, I’m sure the translating team would appreciate the help.
LikeLike
Love your work! Look forward to quick links! Cheers.
LikeLike
Like the new tweeks. The new linking system is great!
LikeLike
I think the new improvements sound great. I especially think the “easier internal linking” and “column sorting” sound awesome. Thanks for the great work! I think WordPress is ONE place in the world where when you say “We’ve improved this.” – it is actually true. 😉
LikeLike
This “sexy” update seems to have broken all html coding for all new posts saved/edited after this latest update went live. Can’t link, add pics, etc.
LikeLike
So far its a disaster, the new link options links (and underlines) the entire text of a post not just the selected text Formatting like bolding, and justification etc doesn’t stick when you post. Hope teh bugs get sorted out soon
LikeLike
That particular bug totally freaked me out when it happend right after the launch (I noticed it on this post, in fact, when I went back to edit a typo), but it was fixed within about 10 minutes of it being discovered, so hopefully you weren’t inconvenienced for too long.
LikeLike
This is very, very wonderful. As in major, major wonderful.
LikeLike
¡Nice! you are moving ahead, that’s a good sign. Thanks for sharing your dream with all of us.
LikeLike
Awesome! I can’t wait to try the internal linking feature. Thanks for your hard work!
LikeLike
Thank you so much! This is extremely useful!
LikeLike
Internal linking – I like it !!!
LikeLike
They look like very useful options, especially the Internal Linking option.
Just wondering… is there a chance of us getting the “Add To Blogroll” function back? I think it used to be part of the “Blog Info” menu.
LikeLike
The admin bar is occasionally updated based on the usage patterns of the wordpress.com community. I think the Add to Blogroll function was not getting used much, especially since subscriptions were added to the admin bar.
LikeLike
Love your dedication to improving the tech. Something for all of us to appreciate regardless of sophistication [or not].
LikeLike
Cool! Thank you 🙂
LikeLike
The faster linking will become very handy.
Thanks.
LikeLike
Love it! 😀
LikeLike
Yay! Just wondering, does that awesome linking business work between blogs with the same author?
LikeLike
Right now the linking feature is blog-specific (hence “internal” in the name). Having something that is user-specific rather than blog-specific is an interesting idea, though. We’ll think about it!
LikeLike
Rocking. This is a very useful update, thanks.
LikeLike
You had me at Easier Internal Linking.
LikeLike
Yay to ‘Easier Internal Linking’ and also ‘Better Pagination’.
LikeLike
What is wrong with WordPress tonight? I just spent 4 hours, literally, trying to make a new post and update an old post, but no features are working! Couldn’t separate paragraphs. Couldn’t embolden fonts or color change. Whether I tried in HTML or the regular way. Whether I tried to update an old post or start a new one from scratch. It was a good waste of a night 😦
LikeLike
I’m so sorry you had such a bad experience! It’s weird that it was acting up for 4 hours, though, since we fixed that formatting bug about 10-15 minutes after discovering it when we launched the new features. We did have a couple of unexpected bugs, specifically in Internet Explorer browsers, that took longer to fix, so if it was one of those causing you trouble, again, I apologize.
LikeLike
This is better than new themes! It helps alot to link with my older posts and easier admin tasks. Thanks
LikeLike
Great stuff! I’ve tried the linking and I’m off to discover the other features. Thanks so much!
LikeLike
Lovely to know that the WordPress team is just as concerned about the back end of things as the front. Thank you! Looking forward to hearing about the other new features coming our way.
LikeLike
AWESOME!! I am so happy!
🙂 I have no life!!
LikeLike
Love the new features. The linking improvements are inspired. WordPress is wonderful.
LikeLike
I really love the internal linking ability because I’m always going “oh yeah, I want to include a previous post” and then having to go through a lot of trouble finding the old post. Thanks so much for the new features!
LikeLike
You guys are the best.
LikeLike
just thinking about it yesterday and walla here it is!!! WordPress .people have sixth sense
LikeLike
Sounds awesome! Kudos to u guys!
LikeLike
Easier and faster!
Thanks
LikeLike
Thanks for all the new features. Used the new URL feature this evening and it worked great.
LikeLike
AWESOME!
LikeLike
wah..waiting for so long to use this 🙂
LikeLike
Sweet! I am most excited about the internal linking feature. That is going to be a huge time saver! Nice work WP.
LikeLike
Thanks! The internal linking feature is most welcome!
LikeLike
Cool, thanks!
LikeLike
I doubt I’ll use the the new URL thing because (1) I don’t memorize URL addresses, (2) The search thing pulls up so many choices that the old method will be just as efficient for me. I never use the previous or next feature anyway. I pretty much know what I posted when because much of what I do is event/date sensitive.
Pagination is promising. Others make it work well.
I could care less about color scheme and I don’t use IE9 but thank you for your continued efforts.
LikeLike
The new linking feature is going to be brilliant – thank you again WP.
LikeLike
Like it but look forward to something like Linkwithin.
LikeLike
“YESssssssss!”
Let’s hear it for internal linking & better pagination.
“Thank-you, thank-you, THANK-YOU!”
LikeLike
Thanks for the newbies…glad to know you are out there somewhere.
Like the linking speedo
all the best
LikeLike
Hi
Love the Easier Internal Linking feature but I am intrigued as to why you refer to it as “Sexy” ?
“With our sexy new internal linking feature, you can now enter any URL to create a link just like you used to…”
Surely it’s practical, easy etc but sexy, never 🙂
LikeLike
Saving time is definitely sexy!
LikeLike
The new link system will be great. I was adding an internal link just a few hours ago – and yes, you’re right – the old way was a bit of a fiddle. I’ll look forward to trying it out! Thanks.
LikeLike
superb feature now i am feeling how helpful it is 🙂 saved half of my work on every post i make and being in wordpress for one year this is the most exciting feature i liked in 2010 heheheh
LikeLike
Hummm… this REALLY nice… Thank You!
LikeLike
Think it’s very useful feature!
LikeLike
Nice new features! I love the internal linking! I’ve been missing that…
I’m still waiting for the feature that lets you try new themes and customize them before they’re shown on the actual blog. Like a “Publish”-button for the new theme when you’re satisfied. I hate the way my blog looks when I’m in the middle of changing themes and is customizing it and trying colors and such – it looks like a constructionsite and it ain’t pretty! I would rather like my visitors to see the old theme until the new theme is complete and ready for the world! =D
LikeLike
It’s something we’ve talked about…. maybe someday!
LikeLike
This is probably the best update for wordpress ever!!!
I wish I had known wordpress earlier.. I used to use a different site and had the worst experience ever.
I really love wordpress! You guys should add a feature of liking a comment!
LikeLike
These new features were much awaited ones. Thank you so much for helping out bloggers who enjoy flying with you.
LikeLike
this is the way to create anthusiasm in community users this is really awaited……………….luv u all who create those things
LikeLike
Was doing some internal linking this morning and discovered this new method … I thought wow, that’s great … and then I read this post!
You guys come up with features that I can use faster than I can think of what I’d like to have.
Brian
LikeLike
Nice..Very nice work wordpress team.
LikeLike
Nice!
LikeLike
Thank you so very much! WP rocks!!!
LikeLike
WordPress, I think I love you!
LikeLike
I think I might like that link feature. I will see if I can get the blue, not loving the gray background.
LikeLike
Great stuff – the linking is great 🙂
LikeLike
Super 😉
LikeLike
Marvellous, thank you! Internal linking is a wish granted 😀
Colour schemes: I’d like to suggest brown (sepia) in addition to blue and gray – it’s a warmer tone. Please? 🙂
LikeLike
Nice one guys! Thanks!! 🙂
LikeLike
Nice!
Thanks for this upgrade!
LikeLike
Well thought! Makes life much easier. Thanks.
LikeLike
Sounds terrific – especially the enhanced Linking. Thanks, WP!
LikeLike
Internal linking is really fantastic as a feature :-p
But also the others are really useful… well done DUDES!!! :-p
LikeLike
Maybe get a lot of color schemes and put all of them as an option. You know, like a website template. And maybe have fancy schemes, such as “Easter” “Thanksgiving” “Aquatic”.
LikeLike
Brilliant! Really liked the idea of easier internal linking. Keep it up guys!
LikeLike
WOW!! this gives me strength to link my older posts to newer ones with ease! Thank you Team WordPress.
LikeLike
Super cool. The linking feature looks awesome. You guys spoil us 😉
LikeLike
That’s why WP is the best blog service in the world! Thanks!
LikeLike
Thanks, WP! I love Easier Internal Linking.
LikeLike
Whoohoo!! Great job!! Uhm, but since it’s beta testing, does that mean it’s gonna beta-ken away from us when the time comes? 😦
LikeLike
Hi, the beta means that you get early access, but the features are there to stay 🙂
LikeLike
Yay!!! Internal linking will save sooo much time … will have to work on a post (have one in mind already) just so I can use it! Thanks!
LikeLike