I knew that I should test it locally or in a demo site first before I actually upgrade my blog, but I couldn’t resist clicking on the “Upgrade to 2.3″ link on my Dreamhost panel when the new WordPress version finally became available yesterday. It wasn’t just because I couldn’t wait to see the features of WordPress 2.3, but it’s also because I’ve got two projects right now that will each need a fresh WordPress installation soon after I’m done with their blog layouts. I had to see it in action first so I’ll know if there’s anything that I need to add, delete or change in the codes.

Incompatible Plugins

My decision to go ahead without testing it was obviously a bad one as there were errors that appeared in my blog the moment I upgraded it. But it was only for about 10 minutes, nothing too complicated that I couldn’t fix. Besides, WordPress 2.3 has an update notification, so there’s really no need to panic. The update notification is found in the Plugins menu in your WP 2.3 dashboard. If there’s a plugin that needs updating, you will see a note and a link just below the outdated plugin that says: “There is a new version of [Plugin Name] available. Download [latest version link] here.” Just click on those links, download the latest version of your favorite plugins, delete the old plugins via FTP, upload the new ones, and activate them in your admin panel.

Here’s the list of plugins that I needed to upgrade:

1. Full Text Feed by Cavemonkey
2. Get Recent Comments by Krischan Jodies
3. Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold – The previous version of this caused an error in my blog and in my dashboard. Make sure you deactivate yours first.
4. Another WordPress Meta Plugin by uberdose – Although this one had an updated plugin, I decided to switch to All-in-one SEO Pack instead.
5. Sideblog WordPress Plugin by Kates Gasis
6. WP-PostViews and WP-UserOnline by Lester ‘GaMerZ’ Chan.
7. Subscribe to Comments by Mark Jaquith
8. Headlines Images by Brian “ColdForged” Dupuis – This one doesn’t have an updated version so I had to get rid of it. I hated to see it go, but it’s not like it played a vital role in my blog layout. I’ll just replace it with the same kind of plugin next time. :)

It’s a must that you deactivate all your plugins first before you upgrade to WP 2.3 as what those pros have been mentioning in their blogs over and over again. But I also know that there are cases when the deactivation of a plugin is the one that’s causing an error. This is where the “If” PHP statement before your plugin command tags comes in handy. To be safe, make sure all the plugin tags in your blog layout are within these conditional tags:

<?php if (function_exists('insert-plugin-name-here')) { ?>
insert-plugin-php-tag-here
<?php } ?>


or simply:

<?php if(function_exists('insert-plugin-name-here')) { insert-plugin-command-tag-here(); } ?>

Here’s a working example with plugin the_views:

<?php if (function_exists('the_views')) { ?>
<?php the_views(); ?>
<?php } ?>

or simply:

<?php if(function_exists('the_views')) { the_views(); } ?>

Hopefully, once you’ve got all your plugin command tags covered, there will be no error when you deactivate all your plugins and do the upgrade.

Adding WordPress 2.3 Tags to your Theme

One of the features of WP 2.3 that I was looking forward to try was the built-in tagging function. I honestly thought it makes use of Technorati tags, but I was wrong. Apparently, the developers of WP have moved away from favoring Technorati that even the “Incoming Links” feed in the admin panel is no longer supplied by Technorati, but Google Blog Search. In my opinion, Google Blog Search is more efficient in fetching my blog’s trackbacks or pingbacks, but I still find Technorati’s listing of all my blog’s backlinks (and not just pingbacks) useful. But OK – whatever. I don’t really need to see Technorati feeds in my dashboard. I can just go directly to their website.

Anyway, in order for you to make your WordPress 2.3 tags appear within your posts (I have mine at the bottom of this post), you need to modify your current theme’s index.php and/or single.php, depending on where you want the tags to show up. The PHP command tag is just a one-liner, and it should be placed inside The Loop. This is the format I used:

<?php the_tags(); ?>


After you’ve placed that one line inside The Loop, you can then make use of the tag feature whenever you write a post. You will find the “Tags” field just below your WYSIWYG or code editor. To learn more about adding and customizing your WordPress 2.3 tags, go here and here.

Good luck!