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WordPress

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This article is about the self-hosted blog software. For the free blogging service, see WordPress.com.
WordPress
Developer(s)Matt Mullenweg
Ryan Boren
Donncha O Caoimh
Stable release
2.6.1 / August 15, 2008; 16 years ago (2008-08-15)
Repository
Operating systemCross-platform
PlatformPHP
TypeBlog publishing system
LicenseGNU General Public License version 2
Websitehttp://wordpress.org/

WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP. All data is stored in a MySQL database. WordPress is the official successor of b2\cafelog, developed by Michel Valdrighi. The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of lead developer Matt Mullenweg.

The latest release of WordPress is version 2.6.1, released on 15 August 2008. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2.[1]

Features

  • Templating system
  • Integrated link management
  • Search engine-friendly permalink structure
  • Support for plugins
  • Support for widgets
  • Nested categories and multiple categories for articles
  • Trackback and Pingback
  • Typographic filters for proper formatting and styling of text
  • Static pages
  • Multiple authors
  • Can store a list of users who visit your blog
  • Can block site visitors by IP address
  • Tag support

History

b2\cafelog, more commonly known as simply b2 or cafelog, was the precursor to WordPress. b2\cafelog was estimated to have been employed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing developer to WordPress. Though WordPress is the official successor, another project, b2evolution, is also in active development.

WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little to create a fork of b2.[1]

In 2004 the licensing terms for the competing Movable Type package were changed by Six Apart, and many of its users migrated to WordPress – causing a marked and continuing growth in WordPress's popularity.[2]

In 2007 WordPress won a Packt Open Source CMS Award.[3]

Releases

"Create New Post" page of the WordPress administration interface. Version 2.5

WordPress releases are named after well-known jazz musicians. For example, WordPress 1.2 was code named Mingus (after Charles Mingus).

WordPress 1.5 was released mid-February 2005 and code named Strayhorn. It added a range of new vital features. One such is being able to manage static pages. This allows content pages to be created and managed outside the normal blog chronology and has been the first step away from being simple blog management software to becoming a full content management system. Another is the new template/theme system, which allows users to easily activate and deactivate "skins" for their sites. WordPress was also equipped with a new default template (code named Kubrick[4]) designed by Michael Heilemann.

WordPress 2.0 was released in December 2005 and code named Duke. This version added rich editing, better administration tools, image uploading, faster posting, an improved import system, and completely overhauled the back end. WordPress 2.0 also offered various improvements to plugin developers.[5]

On 22 January 2007, another major upgrade, WordPress 2.1, code named Ella, was released. In addition to correcting security issues, version 2.1 featured a redesigned interface and enhanced editing tools (including integrated spell check and auto save), improved content management options, and a variety of code and database optimizations.

WordPress 2.2, code named Getz, was released on 16 May 2007. Version 2.2 featured widget support for templates, updated Atom feed support, and speed optimizations.[6] Wordpress 2.2 was initially slated to have a revised taxonomy system for categories, as well as tags, but a proposed revision led to the feature being held back from release.[7]

WordPress 2.3, code named Dexter, was released 24 September, 2007. Version 2.3 features native tagging support, new taxonomy system for categories, easy notification of updates as well as other interface improvements. 2.3 also fully supports Atom 1.0 along with the publishing protocol. WordPress 2.3 also includes some much needed security fixes.[8]

WordPress 2.5, code named Brecker, was released 29 March, 2008. Developers skipped the release of version 2.4 so version 2.5 contained two releases worth of new code. WordPress 2.5 saw a complete overhaul of the administration interface and the WordPress website was also redesigned to match the new style.

WordPress 2.6, code named Tyner, was released 15 July, 2008. It contains a number of new features that make WordPress a more powerful CMS: you can now track changes to every post and page and easily post from wherever you are on the web, plus there are dozens of incremental improvements to the features introduced in version 2.5.

WordPress 2.6.1 was released on 15 August, 2008. It contains several bug fixes.[9]

Vulnerabilities

BlogSecurity currently maintains a list of WordPress vulnerabilities.[10]

In January 2007, many high-profile Search engine optimization (SEO) blogs, as well as many low-profile commercial blogs featuring AdSense, were targeted and attacked with a WordPress exploit.[11]

A separate vulnerability on one of the project site's web servers allowed an attacker to introduce exploitable code in the form of a back door to some downloads of WordPress 2.1.1. The 2.1.2 release addressed this issue; an advisory released at the time advised all users to upgrade immediately.[12]

In May 2007, a study revealed that 98% of WordPress blogs being run are exploitable.[13]

In a June 2007 interview, Stefen Esser, the founder of the PHP Security Response Team, spoke critically of WordPress's security track record, citing problems with the application's architecture that make it unnecessarily difficult to write code that is secure from SQL injection vulnerabilities, as well as other problems.[14]

Multi-blogging

WordPress supports one weblog per installation, though multiple concurrent copies may be run from different directories if configured to use separate database tables.

Wordpress Multi-User (Wordpress MU) is a fork of WordPress created to allow simultaneous blogs to exist within one installation. Wordpress MU makes it possible for anyone with a website to host their own blogging community, control, and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard. Wordpress MU adds eight new data tables for each blog.

Lyceum is another enterprise-edition of Wordpress. Unlike WordPress MU, Lyceum stores all of its information in a set number of database tables. Notable communities that use Lyceum are TeachFor.Us[15] (Teach For America teachers' blogs), BodyBlogs and the Hopkins Blogs.

Developers

WordPress development is led by Ryan Boren and Matt Mullenweg. Mullenweg and Mike Little were co-founders of the project.

The contributing developers include:

Though much developed by the community surrounding it, WordPress is closely associated with Automattic, where some of WordPress's main contributing developers are employees.[16]

WordPress is also in part developed by its community, among which are the WP testers, a group of people who volunteer time and effort to testing each release. They have early access to nightly builds, Beta versions and Release Candidates. Upgrading to these versions, they can find and report errors to a special mailing list, or the project's Trac tool.

On 10 July 2007, following a discussion on the WordPress ideas forum[17] and a post by Mark Ghosh in his blog Weblog Tools Collection,[18] Matt Mullenweg announced that the official WordPress theme directory at http://themes.wordpress.net would no longer host themes containing sponsored links.[19] Although this move was criticized by designers and users of sponsored themes, it was applauded by some WordPress users who consider such themes to be spam.[20] The official WordPress theme directory ceased to accept any new themes, including those without sponsored links, shortly after the announcement was made. [21] Ironically, the closure of the official site and its consequent lack of up-to-date themes drove many people into downloading themes from unofficial sites which inserted their own spam links into all themes downloaded from them. [22] [23]

On July 18, 2008, a new theme directory opened at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. It was styled along the same lines as the plug-ins directory.[24] Any theme that is uploaded to it will be vetted, first by an automated program and then by a human.

Wordpress native iPhone & iPod Touch app

On 11 July 2008, with the launch of iTunes App Store by Apple, Wordpress has also released its native app for iPhone and iPod Touch[25] Wordpress app has all the features which Wordpress Admin panel have. This app works for all the Wordpress.com and self hosted Wordpress 2.5.1 or above blogs.

Criticisms

  • Several security issues[26] [27] but reasonable turnaround time on fixes. According to Secunia, Wordpress still has 98+ security issues as of August 2008[28].
  • No built-in ‘Preview Post’ link when writing a post. A link was added to open a preview in a new window or tab, but that has caused its own confusion[29] [30] [31].
  • Not great for large project with a very large amounts (hundreds or thousands) of page (rather than post) content. You could easily outgrow it if your needs grow beyond what WordPress can do[32]. Extendable, but there are limitations[33]. Still very good for small scale projects. Blogging is not the answer to everything for everyone. There are many advantages to making your entire website a blog, but there are some disadvantages to it as well[34].

See also

References

  1. ^ "WordPress › About". wordpress.org. Retrieved 2007-03-04. WordPress started in 2003 (…)
  2. ^ Google Trends: wordpress, blogger, moveable type, typepad
  3. ^ http://www.packtpub.com/open-source-cms-award-previous-winners
  4. ^ Kubrick at Binary Bonsai
  5. ^ WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2
  6. ^ WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.2
  7. ^ [wp-hackers] 2.2 release
  8. ^ WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.3
  9. ^ WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.6.1
  10. ^ BlogSecurity » Blog Archive » WordPress BlogWatch
  11. ^ Wordpress Exploit Nails Big Name Seo Bloggers | Threadwatch.org
  12. ^ "WordPress 2.1.1 dangerous, Upgrade to 2.1.2". WordPress.org. 2 March 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Blog Security | Survey Finds Most WordPress Blogs Vulnerable
  14. ^ BlogSecurity » Blog Archive » Interview with Stefan Esser
  15. ^ TeachFor.Us » TeachFor.Us News » Thanks are in order
  16. ^ About « Automattic
  17. ^ "Idea: Remove Sponsored Themes from WordPress.org". WordPress Ideas. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  18. ^ Mark Ghosh (2007-07-10). "No Sponsored themes on WeblogToolsCollection". Retrieved 2007-07-18.
  19. ^ Matt Mullenweg (2007-07-10). "WLTC High Ground". Retrieved 2007-07-18.
  20. ^ Lorelle van Fossen (2007-07-11). "It's Official. Sponsored WordPress Themes Are Out". Lorelle on WordPress. Retrieved 2007-07-25.
  21. ^ Matt Mullenweg (2007-07-15). "Version 3.0". Retrieved 2008-05-18.
  22. ^ Mark Ghosh (2007-08-04). "WARNING: TemplatesBrowser dot com". Weblog Tools Collection. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
  23. ^ Mark Ghosh (2007-11-09). "Blogstheme.com WARNING". Weblog Tools Collection. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
  24. ^ Joseph Scott (2008-07-18). "Theme Directory". Wordpress Blog. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  25. ^ "Idea: WordPress App For iPhone and iPod Touch". WordPress iPhone & iPod Touch. Retrieved 2008-07-12.
  26. ^ "Wincent Colaiuta". 2007-06-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ "David Kierznowski". 2007-06-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  28. ^ "Secunia". 2008-08-06. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  29. ^ "Thomas McMahon". 2007-02-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  30. ^ "TwisterMc". 2008-02-22. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  31. ^ "Lorelle". 2008-XX-XX. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. ^ "Michael Martine". 2008-02-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  33. ^ "James Mowery". 2008-06-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  34. ^ "Michael Martine". 2008-02-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Further reading

  • Douglass, Robert T. (2005). Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress. New York: Apress. ISBN 1-59059-562-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Hayder, Hasin (2006). WordPress Complete. United Kingdom: Packt Publishing. ISBN 1-90481-189-2.
  • Langer, Maria (2006). WordPress 2 (Visual QuickStart Guide). USA: Peachpit Press. ISBN 978-0321450197. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
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