A new version of WordPress 2.1 named “Ella” (named for jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald ) has been released recently. It’s another great update that brings some fantastic improvements on the layout and inner work of Wordpress (which powers this site and many others).

Here’s a sample of the stuff in the new version:

* Autosave added.
* Switch between WYSIWYG and code editing instantly while writing a post.
* Completely redone visual editor, now includes spell checking.
* New search engine privacy option allows you take you to indicate your blog shouldn’t ping or be indexed by search engines like Google.
* You can set any “page” to be the front page of your site, and put the latest posts somewhere else.
* Much more efficient database code, faster than previous versions
* Blogroll links now support sub-categories and you can add categories on the fly.
* Redesigned login screen from the Shuttle project.
* More AJAX and admin has been refreshed to load faster and be more visually consistent.
* Comment feeds now include all the comments, not just the last 10.
* The upload manager lets you easily manage all your uploads pictures, video, and audio.
* A new version of the Akismet plugin is bundled.

You can read the entire post and stroll through all the new improvements at Wordpress.org.

If you wish to alter the way the admin section looks there’s a chance these two next plugins will interest you, by installing them you can change the entire look and feel of the admin backoffice and in some cases improving the usability too.

The first one is SpotMilk which is inspired by Spotlight on Mac OSX Tiger and the Milk theme by Max Rudberg, modifies the main layout based on the default admin theme in Wordpress so that means all the usual elements will be in the same place you know but with a different (better) look. It was made by Sunghwa Park.

On the other hand, Tiger Style Administration changes your entire Wordpress admin layout to feel more like an application, and less like a traditional website. It’s also very inspired by Mac OSX Tiger. Made by Steve Smith.

I’m going to install the new version and have some fun discovering all the new stuff included in the update. See you in the next post.