Drag & Drop Media Uploader & Flyout Dashboard Menus
We’re excited to share some new features that will make it even faster to create content on your WordPress.com site.
Drag & Drop Uploads
The media uploader now supports drag and drop!
You’ll be able to use the new drag and drop media uploader wherever you need to upload your media files – while writing a Post or Page, or directly in the Media Library. In fact while you’re creating a post, you’ll notice now there’s just one icon to represent all of the different media files you’ll upload called “Add Media“:
After you’ve clicked that, find those image/music/video/other files you need on your computer, drag them over and drop them into the WordPress interface, and watch the magic happen! Learn more about adding images and video with step-by-step tips on Learn.WordPress.com.
Flyout Dashboard Menus
We want you to spend the most time creating content as possible, and that’s why new flyout menus have been introduced. They’ll save you time by allowing you to access any of the dashboard menu items from wherever you are, in just one click!
Simply hover over the menu item and the submenu will fly out, allowing you to navigate directly to Add a New Post right after you activated your new theme, or Invite Users right after you finished moderating comments.
More Room for Content Creation
There’s something else you might have noticed. Your blog title is no longer at the top of the dashboard.
Since clicking on your site’s name in the toolbar will take you to your site’s front page, we reclaimed that space back so you have even more room for editing your content.
So to get to your site’s front page, just click on your site title in the toolbar!
We’re looking forward to the extra content you’ll be able to create with the time you’re saving. Happy Blogging!
For WordPress.org users, these features will be coming to you soon in the upcoming version 3.3.
- November 17, 2011
- Administration, Dashboard, New Features
WordPress.com News 
Awesome!
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NICE! Thank you! Thank you!Thank you!
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Awesome. Thank-you!
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Awesome! Thanks again! You guys rock!
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I’m not really excited about the Flyout Menu. I thought the old menu worked just as well…
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Awesome – wordpress.com just gets better and better 🙂
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Awesome!
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thank you! I love the way the site is evolving. I am forever grateful for WordPress 🙂 enabling me to write on my blog.
cheers
Lorraine
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Very nice! Drag and drop for uploading media will be a huge time saver.
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Even before I received this post was uploading some photos this morning and used the drag and drop media uploader …thanks WordPress it certainly is easy!
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That rocks.
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I love the flyout menus! However, I am still missing a DIRECT link to the dashboard from my site and a DIRECT link to add a new post from everywhere (dashboard and website). I am really annoyed that it’s so complicated to start a new post when writing should be the easiest thing to do .
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@Dr. CaSO – there is definitely a direct link from your site to the Dashboard – click on your site’s name in the toolbar (at the top of the browser window), and then Dashboard. In the toolbar you’ll also find a link to Add New Post (click on your site’s name, then New, then Post / Page, etc.) Check out the screenshots in the above post for an example.
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I like the easier access to my dashboard. Thanks WordPress! 🙂
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Oh, well, I like the new look, although I’m sure that with all things, there will be some people who can’t handle change and will start a futile petition
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ROCKING! You guys are making the blogging experience smoother and funner. I love waking up and seeing posts from WordPress in my inbox!
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COOL:)
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The old way of adding media was great, but this is even better. It will really save time when I’m adding pictures to my posts, so thanks a billion. 🙂
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Very nifty! Thank you!
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Great new additions! I see drag and drop being very useful and the flyouts will save me time. Great work.
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I’m glad that there is a drag and drop method now to adding photos into posts. This will be so much easier for my students to use.
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Love the drag and drop feature…. 🙂 Happy Blogging !
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Nice! Very, very nice! Sweet.
In fact – you’re on my Christmas list, WordPress!
Now, if you could just design ONE BIG BUTTON to push to automatically and fully publicize each post on every search engine!
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great to be the ones who know this first! uploading files now become easier as embedding.
and just noticed, i still can see my blog title in the top of my dashboard..
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Sigh! The same old inconvenience is still there despite the new drag-and-drop feature. I made a suggestion to staff a while back (even received an acknowledgement that it’s a good idea) but so disappointed that the single biggest user-experience improvement isn’t implemented along with this. Basically, the idea is keep the Media Library menu open after inserting one image to post so user can continue to insert subsequent images that have been dragged-n-dropped into the library. How the images are sorted in the post depends on which images the user inserts first, etc.
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The Drag & Drop option – thank you so much! I’ve just tried it and thought it might be a feature of my new blog theme (just changed it), then saw this post. Love it! So quick and convenient!
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The flyout dashboard menus are just the thing I was hoping for. Thanks WordPress 🙂
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Congratulations! The new drag and drop media uploader is a really great tool
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I may write more now…
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I am loving the drag and drop feature, makes everything much faster. Good stuff WP!
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nice feature!! wordpress rocks!
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This is great! All these recent updates are amazing.
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I must try them immediately 🙂
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I am definitely trying out the drag-and-drop media uploader now. I hope we can still upload multiple photos, and not just one at a time?
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@Reggie – you can definitely upload more than one file at a time with the drag & drop – try it! 🙂
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Hello there!
I just want to say that these are exciting updates! The only problem is, I don’t see these on any of my sites, sub-domains, etc.. Do I need to actually do something like install and update for these new updates to take effect?
I’m itching to try these out!
Thanks in advance for your reply
-C
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@C. James – Every site hosted here at WordPress.com has all of these new features available immediately.
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That may be true in theory, but I have 9 different sites that are all hosted on WordPress and I’m using the newest version and none of my sites have either the fly-out menus or the all-in-one media drag and drop. Any other ideas as to why this might be? I sure would love to use these new features.
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@Claude – it sounds like you’re self-hosted, not hosted here at WordPress.com. Self-hosted WordPress sites will have access to the new features when 3.3 comes out of beta!
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I like it!
Thanks a lot!
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This is awesome! Nice work!
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Yes, WordPress rocks!!!
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The drag-and-drop is really great, things go much faster now. The menus… well, after a day or so, I shall get used to them as well. 🙂
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Thank you – super time and space savers!
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Awesome! Talk about making life easier! y’all @ WP really have innovation on lockdown
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I love being a blogger with WordPress..It’s like fresh new ideas daily…
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Whoa! That’s cool!
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Really Awesome !! WordPress is getting better and better day by day, that’s the one of the reasons I love WordPress.
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I can’t embed videos, neither writing directly the code instead of using the uploader. Is it a temporary problem?
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@Ciccio – Users who have purchased the Video Upgrade can upload videos. More info here: https://wordpress.com/support/videopress
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It was better when the blog title was at the top of the dashboard. So you were able to watch your blog, while editing, in http connection and it was more useful than now.
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These new features make the interface more friendly.
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@ Sara – I know about VideoPress, I was referring to the embedding of videos from websites as Youtube or Vimeo. Is it just me not familiar with the new uploader yet or is it no longer a free feature?
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@Ciccio you should be able to insert URLs just like before – make sure you click on “from a URL” – it’s its own tab. Otherwise WP.com automatically recognizes a ton of embeds, like YouTube, if you just put the URL on its own line, like this:
http://youtubeurl
For more info on this: https://wordpress.com/support/videos/youtube/
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I don’t suppose you’ll publish this comment, but in my opinion, if you would stop changing everything every five minutes, that would help me save time and create.
I’ll reserve judgement on the drag and drop media – that seems like a good idea that’s long overdue, but as to the menus and removing the name link…. I’d need too many asterisks to tell you how I feel.
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@Val – we know that not all change is welcome by everyone, but we’re dedicated to giving you the best WordPress experience, with the latest and greatest features!
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The drag and drop media feature just awesome for me. Everytime I upload my album (instead of using gallery feature, I prefer all photos show in the post instead), I need to spend a lot of time just to figure out filename/photo to upload to make sure they in sequence I prefer. Now, I just need drag from folder thumbnail view will do… Thx!
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@Chorwin, you have some options for ordering the images in your gallery – check that info out here: https://wordpress.com/support/images/gallery/
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I’ve been using it and it’s really nice. Thanks WordPress.com team for such good work!
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Great work!
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Many thanks to the WordPress.Com team for these new improvements!
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Are these available on Live Writer, too?
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@Catskill – these features are available for sites using the WordPress.com interface only.
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Fantastic move, thank you thank you. I’ve already used it two or three times and drag and drop is great.
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Welcome features. Making life easy for bloggers.
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Drag and drop uploading will make our work easier, faster and enjoyable!
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Sara – Thanks for the great info and updates you guys at WP are providing for us. I’ve searched the forums and can’t seem to find the answer to this.
Above for C. James Cote’s question you stated that all sites “hosted here with WP” are available immediately, however what about the rest of us that have WP hosted somewhere else? Cause I’m with him, I don’t see the changes and assumedly because I’m not hosted on wp.com servers.
Please forgive me for posting a “question” on here, but I figured this question might be very helpful to others who might be having the same question while we are being jealous of everyone else getting to play with the new toys! 🙂
Thank you – Jami K.
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@Jami – yes, these features are available now only for sites hosted at WordPress.com. Soon self-hosted sites will have access to them when WordPress 3.3 gets released (soon!) 🙂
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Hi WordPress 🙂 This is another cool Feature … More Fun while Blogging, Thanks WordPress… I (we) Love WP 🙂
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Thank you for keep on upgrading WordPress features. Thank you.
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@Sara Rosso Thank you for your reply. It’s not the change that annoys me but the frequency of it. I frequently try to help out my readers with ‘how tos’ on how to use WordPress and every single time I write something within a few days or weeks it’s outdated by a change WordPress has made. I – and a lot of others here – feel like a guinea pig.
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@Val – that’s good feedback, and we hope to keep you informed of the changes with these announcements and by keeping our Support documentation as up-to-date and helpful as possible.
Since you’re helping so many people, you might want to check out http://learn.wordpress.com – it’s a tutorial with step-by-step instructions and tons of screenshots and is something a lot of people who aren’t familiar with WordPress find useful. We’re always updating it with the latest features and information, too.
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Excellent! Clients don’t have to dig around our custom post types to find them between all the expanded menus.
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I love this! So fast ‘n’ easy! Thank you!
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These are great improvements, thanks WordPress team!
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I noticed this last night! One minute I was posting photos one way and the next minute I was able to drag and drop! Thanks WordPress for making my blogging life that much easier!
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I noticed this when I was putting together my blog last night — hooray!
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Love the flyout menus. I notice the current section is open by default. Is there a way to keep them all collapsed at all times? If not, a possible future setting?
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@Jay – it’s not possible at this time. Thanks for the feedback!
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Thank you, Sara!
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Love the drag and drop feature. The media upload process was always a little clunky to me.
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@leetsallen – this is for WordPress.com sites only – make sure you’re logged into WordPress.com and viewing your dashboard.
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Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! 😀 As someone who uploads a lot of pictures, this will make my blog life a lot easier. You rock my socks! 🙂
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I agree with some of the commentators here, it looks odd to have all the menus in fly-out mode – except for one menu. I add my vote.
Also, the top fly-out should be comprised of the most commonly used commands; 1) Add a Post. 2) Comments. 3) Site Stats. 4) Edit Post. 5) Import Media.
However, you know better than I, which are the most-used commands. Could you just rank them in order of actual usage? You genuinely seem to want the blog experience to be as positive as possible – which is why I don’t hesitate to ask.
Thanks for all you do. It’s the best deal on the web!
Best Regards, JBS
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@jbscanada – thanks for the feedback!
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I miss the old direct link to site home page at the top of dashboard, without needing to navigate through two drop down menus from admin bar.
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@Gregorovius – it’s quick, you’ll see! Just click on your site’s title in the toolbar and click again!
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Drag and drop for photos is soooooo easy! Yay!
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Unreal! I work on a Mac and this functionality of drag and drop works so well. (making it easy for beginners like me to WordPress). Thank you WordPress for continuously upgrading your product.
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awesome! makes our lives easier! Thank you Sara! :))
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Hate the flyout menus. Now when I want some feature I do not use very often I have to go through each little set of menus. Is there a way to keep them all expanded?
I also am quite annoyed at the removal of the direct link to my site at the top of the page. I go from admin to my site quite frequently and now it is tucked away in the sub menu of another menu. It takes what used to be an easy operation and makes it annoying with finicky little fly out menus that need precision mouse work to activate. It is surprisingly difficult for an old guy with shaky hands to manage.
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@Wilhelm – thanks for the feedback!
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I just started using WP, and thought that the old version at least for me, having just started using it and getting use it and its interface, was just right. I sent several emails out to you guys looking for the answer to this and it was all for naught. Argh! I really liked the way the older add media and or images button worked better. I didn’t have to scroll on the scroll bar to pull up the insert image button and now I do. It’s kind of annoying now. Well, having changes are here to stay!
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Thank you, so much easier to post stuff now without wasting time having to correct the layout of every line! Excellent! David
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Nice and Thank you
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cool thanks, this makes it much easier now. Especially with dual screens. 🙂
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Is there any way to remove the white border that now shows up around all my photos? I use a black theme and this white border is messing with my aesthetic! LOL
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@Janece – you can modify the style of your photos one-by-one in the Image Settings editor:
https://wordpress.com/support/images/image-settings/#within-posts
or globally on your site by using the Custom Design Upgrade & CSS:
https://wordpress.com/support/custom-design/
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Drag ‘n’ Drop? Fantastic, that cuts out some hassle. Fly-out Menus? Definitely an improvement for me. Two big plus points! rh abaco
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I just tried the new app and I can’t tell whether I don’t like it or I don’t like change. I will keep going because I guess I just don’t have a choice, but ….grrrrr
That’s all.
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@kathrinjapan – grrr…we are growling back at you, too! But in an encouraging, you-can-do-it way! 🙂
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Thanks for your efforts. Just finished a post which had images, always wanted to type between the images and not simply have an image take up the part of the canvas with blank spaces on both sides. Also being from the software development business really appreciate the efforts you guys put in making WP better. Excellent work. Keep it up.
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Great improvements in ease of use. Thanks!
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Great changes! I’ll be blogging more than ever now… 🙂
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Easier, more ‘n more, thanks!
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Nice Still waiting for something that will create a QR code for my blog post right on wp..
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Thanks WordPress! You guys have been awesome. I’ve so enjoyed posting every day this year and have appreciated all you’ve done to make it easy, free, and fun!
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I blog from mobile. Never liked the ‘minimalism’ of the m.wordpress.com, so I used the normal dashboard all the time. Now, that it’s ‘flyout’, I can’t see its menus at all… I’m thingking about moving my blog to somewhere else…
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We’re working on making the toolbar work better for mobile. In the mean time, try out the mobile apps.
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Thanks for your efforts refining WordPress. I like the idea of drag and drop – will try it out today when I write a new post. I use a lot of images in my posts and it’s always time-consuming so anything that cuts that down is welcome. Not so keen on the flyout menus, though, but I expect I’ll get used to them.
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Lovin’ the drag n drop feature!
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I admit at first I was confused by the change( I do a lot of images on all 3 of my sites, but, now that I’ve noticed this info on it I like it just fine. Works great.
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Awesome update. Thanks WordPress!
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It makes it easier to upload files and photos.
I’ll look forward to another innovation…
Thank you … 🙂
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The idea of drag & drop is great. Will putting it into practice soon. Thanks, gwen
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I’m not bothered by the changes as I have just been blogging since the 15th of November. I was surprised and pleased by the new header allowing easy access to WordPress Home; My Dashboard; or my actual Blog Page. I must have just got on after the ‘flyouts’ were ‘turned on’, as I have always had them.
As you note from the “About Me’ page on my site, I am recently from the financial services industry with a major insurer. Because of regulation by state and federal government; layers of agency regulation; and the privacy issues inherent in personal financial information, the layers of software and the proliferation of software applications made for a clunky and redundant IT experience. In ANY industry; the only thing of which you can be certain is that change is regular and constant.
The usage of the WordPress site, in contrast, is largely transparent and intuitive in nature. Help or support is but one click away, and all in ONE site. It makes me feel fortunate that I selected WordPress to host my long-delayed venture into the blogosphere. To those who have issues with the ‘upgrades’, I would only share my impression that the benefit of improved and eassier access by new members on a continuing basis is worth the temporary discomfort of those whose deny any need for “change”.
After all, the reason for blogging in the first place has to be, at least in some small part, a desire to effect some change in their own life or the life of others. You cannot feel you have the right to be ‘grandfathered out’ of any systematic change. Maybe a good rule of thumb would be, upon each ensuing upgrade by WordPress, to look for and identify an improvement in either appearance, style, content or tagging of your own site. Change can be a “win-win” situation, and should be, since change is a fact of life.
Good blogging, everyone!!
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The more WP updates, the more glitches and non-workables my (old) computer encounters. Reckon it’s coming near the end of the WP road for me. So sad.
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@allycat – It’s probably due to your browser more than your computer’s age. Make sure you’re running the latest version of your browser. Some of the older versions (like IE6) are being pointedly phased-out so you can take advantage of new features and a more secure product.
To find the latest browser version you should be running, go to: http://browsehappy.com/
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WordPress has achieved so much. I remember only three years ago it wasn’t as developed as today & the change is amazing. Good job.
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Very nice. I Love it. at first I was kind of confused when I saw that the “Add Image” and “Add Video” icons were gone. Then I tried to click that “Add Media” button and I was so surprised. It’s a great improvement.
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