WordPress 2.8 upgrade

Posted on June 11, 2009

WordPress 2.8 came out yesterday afternoon and I just finished the upgrade. For the past few versions, WordPress has become one of the most user-friendly pieces of software I’ve seen. It seems well thought out and well-constructed.

WordPress has a tool called Upgrade in the Admin panel, which allows people to easily upgrade or reinstall the WordPress code. No FTP needed, since it’s as simple as clicking a button. However, it’s not problem-free.

I have this blog for myself and a test blog I use for work. I logged into this blog and there was nothing new – there was no notice about the new version. Logging into the test blog, there were two banners mentioning the upgrade. Upgrading the test blog was virtually effortless, but I was puzzled by the lack of a notice on gottahavacuppamocha. The Upgrade tool said the blog was using 2.7.1 and that it was the latest version. On a hunch, I clicked on the Re-install button. WordPress 2.7.1 was reinstalled, but when it finished, there was a notice about the 2.8 version. I clicked on the button and let it upgrade. The upgrade went easy, but I had to trick WordPress to do so.

Still, WordPress is far more user-friendly than MediaWiki. MediaWiki is easier to setup, but WordPress is easier to maintain. WP isn’t perfect, but it’s damn close.

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MediaWiki and image gallery columns – mini-tutorial

Posted on March 16, 2009

I’m mainly noting this for posterity, because I couldn’t find a quick answer online and finally figured it out after a day or two.

Last year I setup a MediaWiki site for work to take the place of a site one of the resident’s had setup. The site’s overall look-and-feel has to comply with standards from the School of Medicine, and this year they’ve redesigned everything. I like the school’s new design concept, since the old one was starting to feel dated. Still, it takes work to convert a site from one theme to another.

The previous design took up almost the entire width of the browser window, which means MediaWiki could easily accommodate 6 columns of image thumbnails. The downside is it’s hard coded into the MediaWiki code. It’s a variable, but not one that’s documented. Normally, variables that are meant to be changed in MediaWiki are meant to be included in the LocalSettings.php file or the includes/DefaultSettings.php file. However, in the includes/ImageGallery.php file is $mPerRow = x; near the beginning of the file, where x is the number of columns. It can be set to whatever is appropriate, so I set it to 4 for the new layout.

The moral of the tutorial is that it pays to look in unusual places if you are hunting for some hidden variable.

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