Is your blog ready for Wordpress 2.3?
The official launch date of Wordpress 2.3 is just around the corner. It has been scheduled at September 24, 2007. So far, based from the new features Wordpress 2.3 is adding, it looks very promising. Personally, I’m excited to download it and upgrade my Wordpress as soon as possible. If you want to try the first release candidate of wordpress, you can get it here.
However, before you go on upgrading, you need to ask yourself this question, Is your blog ready for Wordpress 2.3?
Unlike the previous upgrades such as wordpress 2.2.1 to wordpress 2.2.2 and wordpress 2.2.2 to wordpress 2.2.3 which are just minor security updates, Wordpress 2.3 is a huge update. A lot of things have been changed and added. You can’t just go and replace the files since there are bound to be conflicts in your database and also your plug ins.
So how do you get ready for a big upgrade such as this?
Do your back ups
This is the most important thing you need to do before you upgrade, do a back up. If you have read my blog posts last August 2007, I’ve written a series of posts on how to back up your blog. Here are the posts you need to read to do your back ups.
- Back up your wordpress using a plug-in - This is to make a back up of your wordpress database where all your posts, categories, comments and other information are stored.
- Restore your wordpress backup from the wordpress back up plug - in - If you used the wordpress back up plug-in in, then this guide will tell you how to restore it?
- Back up your blog through Cpanel - This guide will teach you how to back up your wordpress blog (optionally your databases too) using the Cpanel.
Check for Plugin compatibility
This is one thing you should not forget when you try to upgrade your Wordpress to Wordpress 2.3… You need to ask your plugin this question, are you compatible with Wordpress 2.3? So what did your plug in say? 
Of course your plugin will not be able to answer you since it is not capable of speech but what you can do to find out is to visit the homepage of the plug-in author.
You can go to your dashboard then plug-ins then click on the plug-in name to go to their homepage. Check them out for their compatibility. Among the plugins that I am using, here are the plugins that have been recently been updated (some updated to add new features but some updated to be compatible with Wordpress 2.3).
- Google Sitemap Generator
- Search Unleashed
- All in One SEO Pack
- Exec PHP
- In Series
- Maintenance Mode
- WP-Ajax Edit Comments
Based from Jaypee’s post, “WP 2.3 changes the database schema in 3 ways but the one with the biggest impact are the taxonomy related changes. What happened is that the development team decided to drop the categories, post2cat, and link2cat tables. This means that any plugin that use or require these tables will break.” So if you have plugins that uses these tables for their info, then there’s a big chance that they might not work in Wordpress 2.3.
So before you upgrade for Wordpress 2.3, make sure your blog is ready. I’m soooo excited!
[...] So how do you get ready for a big upgrade such as this? Click Here. [...]
these are the reasons why I hate upgrading. there are so many things to check and I’m just too lazy
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[...] So how do you get ready for a big upgrade such as this? Click Here. [...]
I don’t know if I’m really ready for that big of an upgrade on my blogs… I’m no longer using plugins for decoration and instead plugins that are useful for seo purposes. Although I can check if everything works on my personal blog, It would still require effort. effort. Effort with a capital EF heh
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Major upgrade is a lot of work, but nice post nevertheless…
Pass muna ko… I’ll mine’s not that critical. I’ll wait till the all my plugins are compatible with the new WP version..
I have the multiple blog installation to worry about.
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Just backed up my database with that nifty little plugin, works a treat! Thanks, I will have to start getting my blog ready for WordPress 2.3! Can’t wait.
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@marhgil - hehe it’s the plug-ins that usually have problems when upgrading. However, I think the upgrade to wordpress 2.3 is worth it. ^_^
@joiz - Haha I just open a lot of tabs in order for me to check all the plugins. You just have to check their version number.
@Elizar - Hmm on the multiple blog installation, which step do you need help? based on the guide i wrote?
@bull3t - I’m glad you liked it. Good luck and get ready.. today is the day!
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[...] Wordpress 2.3 will be out tomorrow. Allen from Silkenhut.com asks if your blog is ready for the new version? Find out if you are ready for the big release by reading his post here! [...]
Also very eager to see the new update, getting ready to upgrade soon.
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i think i will wait awhile before upgrading, i am also concerned there will be issues with plugin incompatibility, i heard google sitemaps plugin has issues with 2.3
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Allen (860 comments.) Reply:
September 25th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I just checked the plug in page today for Google XML Sitemaps. It is now out of beta stage and currently on version 3.0. It is now compatible with wordpress 2.3. ^_^
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All went well for me! Nothing went wrong at all. I am pretty much pleased about this. I did have to make a few manual edits to plugins which called the wp_categories database table (which has been converted to wp_terms - which I think is a little stupid - they should have kept the name). Meh, thanks for the backup plugin though, I have now scheduled a backup each week.
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Allen (860 comments.) Reply:
September 30th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Wow. Good for you, you know how to manually edit the database table structures. I would never dare do such a thing unless I have enough time to read the documentation. Although I do keep backups handy in case somethings goes wrong haha
Hmm no problem, I scheduled mine daily.
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Hehe, actually a daily backup might be better. On my way to change that. Strangely enough, WordPress updates are applied to my blog like a charm, it is theme and plugin updates that I struggle with. I have made edits to nearly every single plugin I have - normally just to tweak them - and also made edits to a lot of the pages of my K2 theme. This makes downloading the newer versions extra hard as I have to add my edits to the newer versions so that I do not lose some of my blog’s features.
I might write a blog post on that actually!
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[...] Is your blog ready for wordpress 2.3? - This guide is still applicable for this upgrade so you may want to read that. However, there’s a more comprehensive write-up for this, and it’s called, Wordpress Upgrade Preparation Checklist. [...]