WordPress 2.5 | Release Notes | Download

I just downloaded the beta RC2 last night to test it out with the ComicPress theme, then surprisingly the final version shows up today. From what I can tell, everything should work fine with the ComicPress 2.1 theme. I haven’t seen any problems in a test scenario.

EDIT: There is a problem with navigation. Using ComicPress with WordPress 2.5 it no longer distinguishes between next and previous comic or blog posts. Fix on the way!

This is a big upgrade though, mainly on the back end, the admin panel. You might want to give it a few days for quick fix releases or make sure it works with any of your necessary plugins. Unless your just excited to try out the fancy new panel and features, which you can read about here. Also you can see a screencast of the new admin panel in action here.

Some of the new features:

• Simplified customizable admin area
• Multiple file uploading
• One-click plugin upgrades
• Built in galleries
• Media library
• Gravatars

IMPORTANT! If you are anxious to use WordPress 2.5 and don’t want to wait for the first or second bug fix update, I don’t blame you (if everyone did that there would be no real world application to find those bugs not caught in beta).

The problem is, there is a now known bug that will directly affect your ComicPress previous/next navigation. Navigating from blog post to blog post will function correctly, but navigating from comic to comic will not, and it will navigate to a blog post from a blog post. Blog Posts are set to navigate to the same category, comic posts are set to navigate to any post not in the blog post category, this is the item that is broken in WordPress 2.5.

HOW TO FIX IT!
Much thanks to Filosofo from the WordPress support forums for providing the fix which can be seen here and must be used until an official bug fix for the 2.5 release.

To make it easy on you I’ve made the fix and am providing the fixed file here, just download it and replace the one in your WordPress install’s “wp-includes” folder (this is just for users of the current 2.5 release):

link-template.php file fix for WordPress 2.5

Let me know if you have any more trouble. Also stay tuned for information on the next scheduled ComicPress release.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that this fix does not work if you use multiple blog categories (have blog posts in the “blog” category as well as others). If that is the case, then you will need to have all comics be in the “comic” category (they can be in other categories as well) and use this fix in the forums.

WordPress 2.5.1 | Release Notes | Download

Well, the first update for the 2.5 branch has arrived today. It includes a security fix and over 70 bug fixes. Unfortunately, none of those bugs were our bug. That’s okay though, it kind of forced me into a decision.

Preparing For ComicPress 2.5…

There will now be a Comic Category ($comiccat) and a Blog Category ($blogcat). Which kind of simplifies things, rather than the “everything that is not a blog is a comic” reasoning. It will make it simpler for those of you wanting to build out some of your own features. Also paves the way for other specialty categories (that navigate within themselves only), like perhaps a press box that just has news of your comic in the media, or a latest video blog or podcast that you want to feature and navigate separately.

You can still use other categories, but all comics must be in the “Comic” category and all blogs must be in the “Blog” category. Which means some of us might have some editing to do to prepare for ComicPress 2.5. Hopefully any time invested in changing stuff will be worth it. I suggest using Tags more now for tagging and grouping similar posts or comics, and save the categories for the more functional aspects (treating and navigating blogs and comics differently, along with whatever other specialty categories come up).

I’m moving along on the new ComicPress but slower than I’d wanted, covering every detail. Rerunning every query, stripping it down to the bare essentials. Making the design simple enough to build off of, but pretty enough to run it right out of the box. I’m making it more stable by containing queries so they don’t affect other elements of the page, and containing DIV’s so they can’t easily break the layout.

I’m going to keep a status of where I am at in the project here in the forums. Feel free to cheer me on, throw in last minute requests, or just yell at me.

Also that’s where I’ll post an early release when I’m done.