As a whole, the new WordPress Admin panel is organized fairly well, however when it comes to editing posts quickly without having to open each post in a new tab or window, it isn’t a very efficient process.  When I was working on another blog, I was looking for plugins that helped alleviate this problem, more specifically the limited number of posts displayed on the “Manage Posts” page (which I never found a plugin/fix for, by the way).  In the search, I found the Admin Management Xtended Plugin.

The plugin allows you to edit properties of posts and pages directly from the Manage panel, making the fact that WordPress can be used as CMS a reality.  Icons are displayed beside each post - for editing tags, categories, visibility, publish date, post title, post slug, and comment status - open or closed.  

The plugin does exactly what I wanted it to, I am now able to save time and possibly bandwidth by not having to open each individual post or page and change tags, categories, publish status, etc.

Note: The main plugin release page is in German, you simply need to scroll half-way down the page to access the English version.  In addition, the screenshots that I have created show the fact that I am using the Fluency Admin Plugin. 

Installation and upgrading this plugin is a snap, you simply download, extract, upload, and activate for first use, then follow the standard steps to upgrade - deactivate, upload/overwrite the old version, then reactivate.

Compatibility: Requires WordPress Version 2.5+, up to 2.6-beta1
Latest Version: 1.5.0 (June 28, 2008)
Languages Supported/Translated: English, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Turkish 

Features

• Ability to change post and page properties inline in the post or page management view.
• Toggling visibility with a single click
• Calendar using JavaScript displays to change post date
• Post and page titles changeable from their management pages
• Page order (only top-level pages currently) can be changed - either drag-and-drop or direct input
• Two choices of buttons
• Comment status - open/closed changeable
• Ability to change media description and order in Media Management panel

Additional Links

• Screencast
• Support Forums
• Release Page - WordPress Extend Page

WordPress 2.6 is expected to be released in just over a month now, and a recently released beta version of the next version is beginning to leave both bloggers and weblog client creators with questions that need to be answered.

The XML-RPC publishing protocol allows bloggers to use offline blog editors or APIs from other blog systems to publish posts directly to their blog.  By default, this feature is expected to be turned off in the next release of WordPress.  Users will be able to turn it on by entering the “Settings > Writing” area of WordPress and either turn on the XML-RPC or the Atom Publishing Protocol.

Where separation between the parties occurs is why the setting is turned off by default instead of as an option, and why the security isn’t fixed now instead of being ignored or covered up.  If the feature undermines the security of WordPress, allowing for attacks through this feature, shouldn’t it be improved to prevent any possible loopholes?  Previously, this feature was enabled by default and allowed anyone to immediately use a non-WordPress WYSIWYG editor.  

On the Blog Herald blog, the creator of the Mac blog application MarsEdit discusses how this change will impact/affect everyday users of WordPress wanting to publish from their preferred client.  

In the end, if support for XML-RPC is kept as an opt-in feature, essentially stating that “if you enable this, you may compromise your blog’s security”, people may not enable the feature, leaving the blog editor’s software creators out of the scene, without a business.  However, if the security of WordPress is an issue, then it is best to disable the feature, but have one click enabling, rather than having to perform a manual install of the protocol.

Many people may discount this issue, saying that it doesn’t really affect them, but it has found to be a major security flaw and by disabling it, you may find yourself wondering how to enable the feature once WordPress 2.6 rolls out.