The Four-eyed Journal

In a surprising turn of events, the much awaited release of WordPress 2.2 has been delayed to sometime between the 30th of April or the 7th of May.

What gives? They removed the much-talked about tagging support and decided to hold it back until WordPress 2.3 comes out. Looks like every blogger who uses tagging on their blogs as well as tagging plugin creators and developers have been given a breather.

The details has can be seen over at wp-hacks where Matt Mulenweg said:

Let’s create a 2.2 branch and start removing the current tagging
implementation. I’ll announce on my blog that 2.2 will be delayed.

Based on how long it takes to extract and test a tag-free 2.2 we’ll aim
for either the 30th or May 7th best case, depending on how many people
help out with the process. Ryan will also look at bringing back widgets
as an easy, tested, and already-popular feature that will sex up the
release.

I think trunk should start experimenting with the new taxonomy proposal
on the list, which has the potential to do some really neat things, but
I think it’s also going to introduce a lot of complexity and need
testing beyond the window for 2.2. Pushing it to 2.3 will allow it more
breathing room and for us not to rush a pretty critical building block
of WP going forward.

I think this is a good thing and a brilliant move for the WP team, the more time they will have, the better code they will produce. It would even be better if they share a beta or alpha or work directly with tagging plugin creators to work on fine-tuning tagging as a core part of WordPress 2.3 Let’s note that Christine D, creator of the famous and lovable UTW plugin has said that a new upgrade that will be compatible with WP 2.2 will be released soon. I wonder is she will push through with it now that tagging has been removed in WP 2.2?

Instead, the WordPress team will focus work on the making sidebar widgets an additional core function in WP 2.2

Maybe this would be the answer to the problems I’m only revealing today, I’m not using sidebar widgets because for some strange reason, it doesn’t work perfectly on my install of WP. Hope WP 2.2 will be the answer.

In other news, do keep an eye out for Froodee.com, we have something in store for all of you.

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The next major upgrade to WordPress which is version 2.2 is just less than two weeks from being released for all WP bloggers to enjoy and tinker around with.

This new version has some interesting new features and upgrades:

New User Features

• Tagging support
• Permalink redirection
• Improved comment editing

Developer / Power User Stuff

• Atom 1.0 support for feeds.
• Multiple format comment feeds, including Atom.
• Switched to jQuery for core JS, which is lighter and faster.
• Atom API support.
• Additional XML-RPC APIs for pages and such.
• phpmailer was integrated for performance and maintainability.

Future features

• New permalink redirection stuff
• An additional bundled theme?
• Widgets?

You read it right, WP 2.2 now has a tagging system built-in. This could probably spell disaster for tagging plugin makers who have built-up a following and community around their successful tagging plugins. The most famous of all, Ultimate Tag Warrior by Christine Davis.

Making things a bit more complicated, Jaypee points out:

Apparently, the tagging support that is included in Wordpress 2.2 breaks the good old plugin called Ultimate Tag Warrior. The conflict is brought about by the is_tag() function that is used by both Wordpress 2.2 and Ultimate Tag Warrior. That’s bad news for people including myself who are using UTW. Fortunately Moeffju has found a way of fixing the issue with a UTW hack. It involves editing the ultimate-tag-warrior.php file with your text editor and replacing all instances of the is_tag function with UTW_is_tag. After this, just activate the plugin and it’s done.

Like Jaypee, I’ve been using UTW for almost two years now and I’ve come to love the plugin. Making it work with a new theme I’ve chosen to use on my blog has become one of the most basic task every time I change themes. I’ve tried other tagging plugins but UTW has remained the number one choice for my tagging needs.

So now that WP 2.2 breaks UTW even though there’s a fix for this, creates a little dilemma for UTW users.

To drop or not Ultimate Tag Warrior (or any other tagging plugin you use) once you do upgrade to WordPress 2.2

Dropping UTW

This would seem to be the most convenient solution for the following gains:

• One less plugin to lighten up your WP install
• One less plugin to worry about every time you upgrade WordPress
• One less plugin to mess up your WP DBase once it gets hay-wired
• One less plugin to worry about everytime you switch themes
• One less plugin to possibly mess around with the other plugins

Not dropping UTW

If you do decide to stick with UTW or any other tagging plugin it means:

• The complete opposite of the points raised above
• You have to edit your UTW plugin file (which is quite easy to do)
• You minimize the risk of your blog being screwed up by WP 2.2 bugs
• Your relationship, a healthy one at most, would stay on with your tagging plugin

A good point to consider is that this is the first time WordPress would be sporting a built-in tagging system. You then ask, ‘Is this reliable?‘ or ‘Does it work as wonderfully and efficiently as UTW?‘ New features are always good, their stability, security, effectiveness, usability, and performance however, would always make the smart blogger think twice before taking action.

On the other hand, WP users who haven’t implemented any tagging plugin before and would like to go into it would find the built-in tagging system a very convenient feature. It also eliminates the need to use third-party tagging or tag cloud-generating services.

Overall, WordPress 2.2 has once again caused buzz and mixed feelings and will continue to do so in the coming weeks especially once it has been released to the public.

Is this built-in tagging system already in use in WordPress.com blogs? Will the tagging plugins, UTW et.al., be dropped in favor of the built-in tagging system in WP 2.2? Which system would be better? We will soon find out.

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