Today we’re pretty excited to launch a new dashboard design to everyone here on WordPress.com.
If you have a few minutes, try clicking around and exploring the new layout and features. It’ll be unfamiliar at first, but like riding a bike you’ll find yourself picking up new habits and cruising down the road in no time.
Those of you who follow the wordpress.org side of things probably saw the sneak peak that included several screenshots, the screencast of the new gallery feature, and the exhaustive list of features from the 2.5 release announcement. Now those improvements are available to you, including a few cool bonuses like a blog switcher menu on top.
Here’s a brief rundown of the features that are relevant to WordPress.com users:
Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard — we’ve worked hard to take your feedback about what’s most important in the dashboard and organize things to allow you to focus on what’s important — your blog — and get out of your way. In collaboration with Happy Cog and the community we’ve taken the first major step forward in the WordPress interface since WordPress.com was created.
Dashboard Widgets — the dashboard home page is now a series of widgets, including ones to show you fun stats about your posting, latest comments, stats, people linking to you, and we’ll allow more customization here soon.
Multi-file upload with progress bar — before when you would upload a large file you’d wait forever, never knowing how far along it was. And uploading more than one photo was an exercise in patience, as you could only do one at a time. Now you can select a whole of folder images or music or videos at once and it’ll show you the progress of each upload.
Now you can put that 3gb of free space to good use!
Search posts and pages — search used to cover just posts, now it includes pages too, a great boon for those using WordPress.com as a CMS.
Tag management — you can now add, rename, delete, and do whatever else you like to tags from inside WordPress.
Concurrent editing protection — for those of you on multi-author blogs, have you ever opened a post while someone was already editing it, and your auto-saves kept overwriting each other, irrecoverably losing hours of work? I bet that added a few words to your vocabulary. Now if you open a post that someone else is editing, WordPress magically locks it and prevents you from saving until the other person is done. You’ll see a message like below.
Friendlier visual post editor — I’m not sure how to articulate this improvement except to say “it doesn’t mess with your code anymore.” We’re now using version 3.0 of TinyMCE, which means better compatibility with Safari, and we’ve paid particular attention this release to its integration and interaction with complex HTML. It also now has a “no-distractions” mode which is like Writeroom for your browser.
Built-in galleries — when you take advantage of multi-file upload to upload a bunch of photos, we have a new shortcode that lets you to easily embed galleries by just putting [ gallery] (without the space) in your post. It’ll display all your thumbnails and captions and each will link each to a page where people can comment on the individual photos. I’ve been using this feature on my blog and have already uploaded over 1,200 pictures into 23 galleries. The shortcode has some hidden options too, check out this documentation.
In light of the launch, we’re also going to be keeping support open this weekend so you can let us know of any issues that pop up as a result of the new design. This new dashboard being out also allows us to roll out some other improvements we’ve been holding off for a bit as they didn’t make sense before. Keep an eye on this blog next week.
March Wrap-up
- 298,194 blogs were created.
- 381,855 new users joined.
- 2,242,997 file uploads.
- 3,225,059 posts and 1,420,975 new pages.
- 5,622,696 comments.
- 4,418,407 logins.
- 636,024,114 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 347,679,330 on self-hosted blogs. (983,703,444 pageviews total across blogs we know about.)
- 863,470 active blogs, where “active” means they got a human visitor.
WordPress.com News 
For someone like me, who has to use glasses, the letters on the new dashboard are far toooooo smal! That makes using the new dashboard for me very hard to read.
Holla!
I don’t think this is going to grow on me. I’m afraid you have to think of the less experienced new-comers to WordPress. I mean, when they see this load of words & confusment, maybe they’ll just turn away.
I really thought the last one was a whole lot better. Easier, wasn’t a hassle. Who needs to know their amount of catagories before their ‘Stuff’?
I have to agree with dontbesadblog. Too much colours, too much info in the one dashboard. It was much easier to navigate in the old Dashboard.
Hope you understand what I’m meaning, and please reply =D
–
~Ag!~
Pretty cool, more userfriendly, better organized, improved features. – I like it!
looking good 🙂
I have to say that I am not impressed with the new design due several reasons:
1. It’s very slow when using the admin module and I want to write new posts
2. When copying previous blog posts in order to use the same formatting in a new post, the new layout changes my font size to a smaller font meaning I have to go through the HTML formatting of all new posts – not very satisfactory.
3. The new input method for Tags are not very effecient either: Before I could copy the enitre line of Tags from existing posts (with for example related posts) and just paste them in any new post. This is no longer possible
4. I now have to scroll up and down a lot more while writing and editing posts which is annoying.
Dear WordPress guys, I think you have forgot one thing when updating your dashboard: It’s supposed to be EASY and FAST to write and administrate blog posts. It’s okay with a nice looking dashboard but you have made it far to fancy now.
So in my oppinion the new dashboard does not makes it easier and faster, more the opposit actually.
I therefore hope that you take this feedback and critics seriously and make the old version of the dashboard availble.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Leif
It takes time to get used to everything new : )) But changes are always gooood 😀
I like it, only “category” list is not comfortable while it’s down. It was easier at the side.
Hello friends,
First of all I always support all new things. So I like this change too. But in this change I need to learn again all things. I need to find all the buttons. It will waste my time. It’s allright. But I need a snapshot of old dashboard to understand the new design. Do you have any? please inform me.
Thank you Matt.
First of all, thank you very very much for your hard work. 🙂
Two issues:
– I think that the new dashboard is too “vertical”, we have to scroll up and down the page too many times. Will be possible to modify the “Write a new post” layout and put the categories (for instance) on the right side of the page?
– IMHO, “What’s Hot” area is more useful on the top of the page
Thanks for the update Matt! It’s quite a big change for most of us but I’m sure it’s for good. By the way am I wrong or it’s now impossible to move widgets from one sidebar to another?
Love it. It’s a little hard to get used to, especially the new media uploader, but it’s far better than the old one. Also is mac-safari friendlier. Keep up the good spirit and give us more widgets.
Nice layout…
i can’t say i love it. but i’m sure after i’ll get used to it i’ll start to like it.
anyway, great work!
I can’t find my blogroll…I used it SO much….and now where is it?
Please gimme back the old-timey dashboard, it was good enough for me. The new one is a mess and very hard to read (tiny fonts). Go tell your grandma to learn ride a new spiffy bicycle because you took her old one away – and you’ll hear some input!
Love it !
Well, I was mightily peeved this morning when I tried to post to my blog, and what should have taken me less than two minutes ended up taking about three hours because the stupid pics wouldn’t upload. I seem to have figured it out now, but I still wish I could have my old WordPress back. I knew what I was doing with the old format. I have two kids, a husband, a job, and a house that teeters perpetually on the brink of disappearing under a mountain of crap. I don’t really have time to learn how to ride the bike again.
Sirs,
‘Tis all very whizzy and stuff.
I’m liking the new look almost as much as I like my wife (Mrs Belm).
But, tell me, in your explanation way up above you give an example of a stats page with hits up to the 20,000+ mark.
Why can’t I get stats like that?
‘Til then.
Good day!
Derek (Mr) Belm.
Thank you, WordPress.
Looks better than the old dashboard to me. Tag management’s the only new feature I’ve tried out in earnest, for now. I hope the option to modify my tag cloud properties like the ones on the category cloud isn’t too far away.
i dont find in this new dashboard how to get the code of an image i want to use as an widget.
After a few minutes of confusion, I actually managed to find every feature. The new editor seems to work a little better, nevertheless!
Now thats a surprise.. great going guys 😀
i miss the old dashboard 😦
Good day. The editor window is a little problematic.
When I write, I maximize the writing space to fit most of my browser. Then I scroll the page so that the post title is at the top most portion and the writing space stretches all the way to the bottom of the browser window. The problem is, whenever I hit ENTER to begin a new paragraph, the entire window automatically scrolls back to the top. What I see next is the post title at the middle of the screen and my writing space is cut in half until I scroll down again. This has been pretty annoying and has slowed down my writing speed a lot since I have to scroll down every time.
If it helps to know, my browser is Firefox Beta 5.
I still can´t upload pictures, and it´s not possible to switch between vision and html.
Sorry, not the real truth…I did manage to upload a picture, once…but it then didn´t appear in the blog!
Why do you change something that was well working, to something that is so full of bugs and so poor working?????
On another note, could we users have the option to use the old dashboard?
The new one is nice, but I’m getting that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” vibe.
The new dashboard was a bit of a surprise and is taking me a little while to get used to, but I like it – it shows you a lot more at once. And it’s cute!
I love it =D
It’s far more dynamic and I don’t have to switch all the time between the stats and the dashboard.
*thumbs up*
Very nice but… I have some error with the sidebar for Freshy theme
My old sidebar is broke now 
The new system of WP Admin delete my ALL text widgets with code of buttons ! I must do it again!!!!!!
Brilliant – it is so smooth and fast. thanks – except that I am trying to unlearn the old WP dashboard
Wow its very kewl and da blog stats r on 1 page nice!
geee…..thanks guys. it’s more friendly, i should say. thanks again and keep up the good work!
thnks thnks thnks …
gr8 new look guys … liked it like anything .. ! 🙂
This is great! Thank you, WordPress!
Thanks for all the new updates. I logged on this morning and nearly refreshed my page at first, thinking something was wrong! But it’s a nice layout and I particularly like the way our most popular posts and most active posts are displayed. Looking forward to nosing around the new features!
Im not sure, it was a surprise to see a new dashboard, going to have to have a play to see how it goes.
Thanks you, for the new dashboard. I feel so surprise when I logged.
Matt, you’re a *star*. It’s great! (o.k., the tomato red isn’t beautiful, but I’m sure you’re working on that colour scheme 😉 )
I like the new design, but I cannot find the spell check button.
Phew, at first I thought my browser had messed up the page – I’ve got to say, though it looks waaaaay unfamiliar, I like it, and the “classic” color scheme is also really nice.
Guys, I love you. 😀 *hugs wordpress*
love it. great work!
Sweet! WordPress just keeps getting better. What will be next?
It’s nice….but maybe you could implement a feature that could allow the user to switch back to the old design? 🙂
I dont like it. And wiht this update, i cant paste from word documents, when i press the word button gives me error all the time. What can i do ?
I think less is more and this new design is more therefore it is less.
Don´t like the colour scheme. Really not.
Well, and the new design is… confusing. I think if I could choose I would take the old one. I didn´t miss anything before.
But honestly spoken – I only have to get used to it, I think.
Hi gents, good work. We can be sure you never forget us…! Thanks…!
Fantastic! Great, great , great work! It’s amazing!
I was surprised by this one, and I can see the force of the views of people who think it’s too busy and has its text too small, but for now I’m liking having everything visible on one page. It’s also made me aware of some extra features, which may be new, like tag editing.
A request on that front: can we please be able to overwrite one tag with another? I have various spelling mistakes forever embedded in tags which can’t be saved as the correct version because that already exists; it would be much simpler to somehow combine them as the correct version. Also, I think that intuitively it should be possible to click on a tag name and be given a list of posts where that tag was used, so if necessary we can go and fix them ourselves rather than, e. g, Googling to find stuff in our own blogs… Either or both of these features would be really nice.
Also, in the new post-editing screen: firstly, I liked being able to see what the post numbers were; this made it easier to refer to one draft post in another. Now I have to hover over the status to see what the address will be, and it’s also not at all intuitive that this is where one needs to click to View the post. It would be nice to have a clear View link for each draft back.
I have to agree, also, that having so many basic navigation tools (`dashboard’, `view drafts’, to name but two) in such small type and in different places is unhelpful. I think an optimum modification of all the hard work you’ve put in here would be a single basic nav bar that puts all the different screens on a list with the same priority. The old `Dashboard’, `Write’, `Comments’ set-up had this virtue that the new layout has scattered and lost. Other than that, though, I do like it. Just these things would help with the way I, and by the sound of it others, use our blogs.
The features and layout are good. But the color scheme is a little straining to my eyes. Kind of hard to read.
Perhaps you can make it so we can choose our own color scheme.
But good jobs, anyway. Improvement is always welcome.
Now that I’m used to it, I like the new dashboard – but I can see why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Reading the comments received so far, I think there’s a big enough demand to warrant providing at least one alternative format if at all possible.
i hate the new design, but i quite like the features.
if only it was new features + old design!!
Really like the new Dashboard
In Germany we say : “may makes everything new”, so you’re early, guys 😀
It’s great by the way!
yep, for what it’s worth, and knowing the kind of work involved in such a re-design, gets my seal of approval… thanks!
Maybe the post editor needs looking at. Clicking that “indent margins” icon doesn’t do the same thing that it used to. Or is that just on my modified Sandbox?
Also, I’ve always referred back to other pages on my blog with “?p=[number]”. This doesn’t seem to work any more.
Thanks so much, I like it! 😉 For a new blogger like me, I find it more organized and easier to use. Great, thanks again! 😉
I was in the process of editing my posts when the change happened … for once i felt something has gone wrong with my wifi connection … but it tool me no long to realize WP has got a new dashboard … its fun and amazing… simple and user friendly. I love the new FEATURES…!! Thanx 🙂
A lot easier on the eye, loads quicker and very user friendly.
Thanks!
“Cleaner, faster, less cluttered dashboard” zero cool
Thanks for the upgrade. I don’t really fancy it, but hey, like you said, it’ll grow on me. The first time I used WordPress, it was confusing for me too. It’s just a matter of re-learning it again.
Hi Matt, thanks for your support.
I’m having problems with the text editor. When I add empty lines between phrases or images in order to separate items for making it more visual, once I save the page, those spaces are ignored and text and images are mixed and overlaped.
Iim having this problem since yesterday.
What can I do? I’ve already removed my cache and restarted my browser.
Thanks in advance.
For those with more than four blogs to manage, is there a way to specify which blogs you want on the dashboard tabs, or does it just default to the first four, with the rest under the “All your blogs” option?
I cannot change the size of the text. The link window did not work last night, and I have not tried today.
I like the upgrade mostly, but I can’t change my text widget. When I open, only half opens, not allowing me to delete or change. It is extremely frustrating!!
Bonnie
I was use to the other one!!! This one is ok i guess
the new features are interesting as far as i’ve explored but some of the widgets doesn’t load quite well like the blog stats for an example.
was thinking the colour combination looks a tad funny too.
but overall, its still a good change! 🙂
The new version is great, its more functional, clean and the new additions are great.
For those complaining: don’t be so lazy! Take some time and learn your way around the new admin and all the new features, they have been implemented to make your blogging experience a more efficient and user friendly one. Then and only then should you start to complain.
Honestly everything you had before is still there, just take some time and explore and along the way you will see how great all the new features are. Remember the new features are not something that was pulled out of a hat, all new features are things that we as a community have requested and/or suggested.
Now if there is something about the new admin that you are having trouble with, try asking for help or instruction, explain what you are having trouble with and why. Comments like “I hate it” will not help anyone. If you are going to take the time to login and post a comment try posting something that is useful.
Great improvements but a mess too. I’ll see if I like it more in the future.
I don’t love the new dashboard, it feels cluttered, and it’s too bad we can’t keep the old one. I AM excited to try the new gallery feature though, yay!
I was taken off guard for a moment, but love it now.
But it would be nice if the post options could just all be open (smaller) on a sidebar of the write-post page.
Diversely, perhaps some user preference settings could solve the issue!
Also, I would love to use google-analytics in the blog, not for marketing, but to know something about the readership of the Trilogy. Even if you don’t want to allow scripts in wordpress.com, perhaps this could be an exception by way of a dedicated widget…
Also, I was going to put up the speech of Martin Luther King, but I suppose that would still need an upgrade!
Thanks again. Fantastic work. Greatly appreciated!
Any chance of getting word counts back?
Good morning Matt. Thanks for fixing the image insertion, it worked perfectly this morning. I also changed the the color back to classic as the funky colors are not for me. Having slept on it, I can work with the new dashboard. It’s different and there are some features that are clunky, but overall, I do think it’s an improvement. One note though, I use Firefox rather than Safari on my Mac because Firefox is better and quicker despite what Apple claims. However, with the new dashboard, after creating a new post, I can no longer go back via browser, only by the ‘go back’ button or by shutting down the browser and reopening.
Another thing I noticed was that the template preview was disabled, if you clicked on a template it changed without showing. That may have already been fixed. For those of us that blog casually, this new dashboard is rather much, but I can see how it helps professional and frequent bloggers the most.
Thanks for all your hard work in keeping WordPress growing and thriving.
I can see the sense of the new features but they’re not working for me. The old system was SO easy and this is driving me nuts.
Image upload has gone from being simple and very fast to being totally confusing. As for the layout of my postings it’s gone bananas. I’ve managed to get today looking normal but every other day’s gone weird on me and the CSS is not working.
I’m running OS X 10.5.2 and Safari. have the new features been aimed at Windows users without checking what goes on for the rest of us?
Last week I was in Egypt and upped my blogged from a laptop with 10.4.11 on it, a lot of the usual layout facilities I see in Leopard weren’t there. I know we’re only a small percentage of users but please think of us!
Hi: I can’t find spellcheck. It’s not in the usual place on my writer’s area. Also, I can’t get my videos to load properly at the end of my post where I place the flashing line. Before, there was an area to put the URL in, and then send it to the editor. Now I click on Media, then Video, and a box comes up, and I put the URL in, but when it goes to my blog, it goes to the beginning, instead of the end. When I try to move it, it doesn’t work. I’m totally frustrated…but I’ll get the hang of it soon, I hope. LOL!
I also wanted to add that the smaller type is too hard to read, and my whole writing keeps freezing continually. Is this is a bug? Thanks!
[This may have been answered already but I if so, I didn’t see it.]
Can you no longer edit the comments of others on my posts? That is how I used to respond to people’s comments…by writing in bold undeneath their comments instead of making a whole new comment on my post.
I like the new layout.
One last problem-every time I try to edit, my screen freezes. This is really frustrating. I wish we had some advance notice of this, and maybe a tutorial. Thanks.
Hi Matt,
The “insert image/edit” link on the “write post” page is not working???? Thanks for all you do.
It’s not bad, although I was also pretty shocked when I saw this new layout this morning. But it seems that the management of the widget is now much more difficult. For this, I preferred the previous dashboard design. I thought it was more intuitive and easier to use.
I have to say, the new dashboard is narcissistic as hell. The *right now* section is completely superfluous and vain, and I miss the blog stats chart being at the top, which of course makes that entire sentence hypocritical.
But you have a genuine bug on the page. If I click Write or Manage or Design or any of the main links there is not then a link to go back to the Dashboard and I have to wade through however many pages I’ve viewed with my Back button to get back there.
Can you guys put a Dashboard link back in the main link queue?
Well, now I’m sober and it’s time for real criticism.
I’m one of the guys who were happy with the old design. Now there’s a new design and well, let’s give it a try. But there are some things I really do not like.
First of all, Matt, you told me that I can change the colours. So tell me where. Maybe I’m just blind but I can’t find any option that allows that. Not at settings nor at design. Please help me someone with that…
Second: Why is the Dashboard missing in the main ihavenoideahowitiscalled-menu at the top of the page. I have always to use my blog’s name to switch back to the dashboard. Well, that could be done better.
That are the two most annoying points. Everything else is just a question of time to get used to.
It was confusing at the start, but now it’s funny.
hi
I love this new design .
thank you matt .
Thank you! We love it!
Just letting you know that the spelling checker in IE is not working for me. I get an “Error Response” popup window. Looks like a piece of debugging code that got left in.
suprised at the first time yet i feel it’s a nice improvement. thanks, WP! great!
Like anything new, I’m sure it’ll just take a little time for us to familiarize ourselves with it. I’m sure we’ll feel like it’s ‘home’ in no time. I like the blog switcher menu on top, and I appreciate that WordPress works so hard to respond to user suggestions and build new improvements. Thank you.