WordPress

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database. WordPress is the official successor of b2\cafelog and has a thriving user and developer community.

Distributed under the GNU General Public License, WordPress is free software. The latest release is version 2.1.2, released on March 03, 2007.

History

b2

b2 was the precursor to WordPress. Also written in PHP for use with MySQL, b2 was originally developed 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.

Beginnings of WordPress

The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of lead developer Matt Mullenweg.

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

Currently WordPress supports one weblog or site per installation, but there is a multi-user version available called WordPress MU. Even with the standard WordPress, a user can still have more than one WordPress blog in the same server, even on the same database, by placing the files in different subdirectories and possibly adjusting the database table prefix.

WordPress releases are named after well known jazz musicians (e.g. Mingus).

Movable Type changes

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

Version 1.5

Released mid-February 2005 and codenamed "Strayhorn" after Billy Strayhorn, version 1.5 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 (codenamed Kubrick after the late Stanley Kubrick) designed by Michael Heilemann.

Version 2.0

Released in December 2005 and codenamed "Duke" after jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington, version 2.0 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.^[3]

In January 2007, many high profile Search engine optimization (SEO) blogs, as well as many low-profile commercial blogs featuring adsense were targetted and attacked with a WordPress exploit.^[4]

Version 2.1

On January 22, 2007, another major upgrade, codenamed "Ella" after jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, 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.

Some downloads of version 2.1.1 had a backdoor added by a cracker, so 2.1.2 was released with an advisory that all users of 2.1.1 should upgrade immediately.^[5]

Features

• Generates standards-compliant XML, XHTML, and CSS
• Integrated link management
• Search engine-friendly permalink structure
• Extensible plugin support
• Nested categories and multiple categories for articles
• TrackBack and Pingback
• Typographic filters for proper formatting and styling of text

WordPress MU

WordPress MU is a multi-blog publishing system which is built on WordPress. The main difference between the two is that WordPress MU was created for the sole purpose of allowing simultaneous blogs to exist within one installation. MU makes it possible for any one with a website to host their own blogging community, control and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard. Notable communities that use MU are WordPress.com,^[6] Harvard University.^[7]

Developers

WordPress main theme, based upon Kubrick.

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

The contributing developers include:

• Dougal Campbell
• Mark Jaquith
• Alex King
• Donncha O'Caoimh
• Michel Valdrighi

Though developed much by the community surrounding it, WordPress is closely associated with Automattic, where some of WordPress's main contributing developers are employees.^[8]

WordPress is also in part developed by its community, among which are the WP testers, a group of people that volunteer time and effort to testing each releases. 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.

References

• http://www.suntimes.com/technology/clickhere/251053,CST-FIN-Web10.article
• http://software.newsforge.com/software/07/02/05/1618218.shtml?tid=132
• http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6157702.html
• http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128274-c,webauthoringsoftware/article.html

See also

• Comparison of content management systems
• WordPress.com
• bbPress
• Automattic

Further reading

• Douglass, Robert T.; Mike Little, Jared W. Smith (2005). Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress. New York: Apress. ISBN 1-59059-562-9. 
• Langer, Maria; Miraz Jordan (2006). WordPress 2 (Visual QuickStart Guide). Berkeley: Peachpit Press. ISBN 0-321-45019-1. 

External links

• Official site
• WordPress Documentation
• MU Official Site