Category: Technology

I work in technology sector. And I do round a clock, not only from 9 to 5. It is my bread and butter, it is my hobby, it is the fascination of my life. And with the current rate of change particular in information technology (IT), there is always something new to learn, to try, to talk about. I often post news, thoughts, and reviews. And when I do, this is the category I use.

The history of WordPress user interface

inMotion Hosting runs the article “WordPress through the ages“, which shows in a number of screenshots how WordPress user interface has changed from version to version.  It is a long run indeed, and the one that brings a nostalgic tear to those of us who have been using the system for a while.  Just look at how much it has changed, how much it has matured.  From this in WordPress 1.0.1:

wordpress-1.0.1

to this in the latest and the greatest WordPress 3.8:

Wordpress-3.8

I don’t think that there is a single item that was left untouched.  Main menu has been reorganized a number of times, moved from top to the left, given sub-menu items, icons, and a variety of different fonts and colors.  The editor has been through a tonne of transformations, adding the What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) feature, icons, HTML preview, media uploader, which is a story of itself, and more.  Custom post types are a fresh addition, but even they went through a bit.  So did all the other elements – social networks integration, publishing options, categories, SEO, and more.  And that’s just the post editing screen.   As much or more has happened to the rest of the screens.  Being redone in responsive layout, ready for smartphone and tablet screens comes to mind.

All these changes happened for a variety of reasons.  Of course, people building WordPress learned better ways, got more feedback, and spent more time on it.  But also the Web itself has changed.  We are seeing faster networks, more powerful browsers, and richer interfaces.

Which brings me to another point.  Pretty much every single time I was involved in building a website or an application, a non-technical client would raise the question of deadlines and phrase it like “When is this going to be finished?”.  And every single time I have to explain that applications and websites they are not finite.  They are more like kids – once you start, you never stop.  It’s an ongoing project, with more and more features, fixes, and improvements.  (There are exceptions, of course, but they are just that – exceptions).  Most times, it’ll never be done.  And one can’t just put everything into a single version, release it and forget about it.  Instead, one should make a plan, a roadmap and decide what goes into each version, leaving some space and time for things that were unthoughtful at the time.

WordPress, like may other awesome applications, illustrates this nicely.  WordPress 1.0 has been released and has been used by a lot of people.  Was it done?  No.  More changes came in during 1.x, 2.x, and now 3.x version series.  Is it done now?  No, not by a mile.  It is a much better system than it used to be.  But there are still gazillion things to be done.  And that’s a good thing!  I wish such a lengthy (and successful) roadmap to every project.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back and drop that nostalgic tear of days gone by…

Vim.js – JavaScript port of Vim

Atwood’s Law – any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript – seems to be getting more and more traction.  Here is the newest example – Vim.js – a JavaScript port of the popular editor Vim.

vim.js

This is not a production day-to-day ready software yet, but it’s a good start.  You can check out the project from GitHub and play with the source code.

Safe display of external images in Gmail

Official Gmail Blog lets us know that the latest update to Gmail now safely shows external images.  Most other email programs and services disable image show by default, because these can either contain all kinds of malware, or they can be used for tracking.  Gmail solves it now by downloading those images and serving them to users from its own servers.

But thanks to new improvements in how Gmail handles images, you’ll soon see all images displayed in your messages automatically across desktop, iOS and Android. Instead of serving images directly from their original external host servers, Gmail will now serve all images through Google’s own secure proxy servers.

So what does this mean for you? Simple: your messages are more safe and secure, your images are checked for known viruses or malware, and you’ll never have to press that pesky “display images below” link again. With this new change, your email will now be safer, faster and more beautiful than ever.

I’m not the biggest fan of HTML emails, but since I have not much choice in this area, I’d rather receive emails with images – at least I won’t be trying to make sense of empty layouts with no text anymore.

WordPress 3.8 is available for immediate download

The bright new and shiny version – WordPress 3.8 – is available for download.  As I mentioned previously, the biggest change is the reworked administration area that now scales well to smaller screens, like those of smartphones and tablets.  It’s far from perfect, but at least it works now.  I’m sure there will be more changes and improvements in the upcoming versions.

WordPress-3.8

But that’s of course not the only change.   The administration area has changed a lot – more contrast, different icons, improved typography, and now even with color schemes.  Also, theme preview and management got changed quite a bit.  With the new theme management interface, the screenshots are larger, which, unfortunately, makes them blur out a bit until theme developers will update with higher resolution versions.