wordpress I’ve moved from MovableType to WordPress, and so far the experience has (with one notable exception) been great. I feel dirty without Perl running the show (reliance on all this PHP code seems so… messy :-)

I’ve been a happy MovableType user since January 2005 (Blogger/Pyra before that, and hand-rolled HTML before then) but methinks it’s time for a change.

Favourite WP features:

  1. Great admin console (especially when Google Gears integration is enabled – even better in Chrome – for blazing speed). Last time I looked at WP the admin console was terrible, but huge improvements have obviously been made and it is now generally faster/easier to navigate than MovableType’s equivalent.
  2. Plugins galore. This highlights the power of a large and active community for the platform – you can quickly and easily find a plugin for almost every need (and installation is trivial, no need for FTP etc). The fact that MovableType still doesn’t include (or have a _free_ plugin) to allow commenters to subscribe to replies via email blows my mind.
  3. Complete integration with Windows Live Writer, my favourite post writing tool for Windows (on a Linux box the admin console is perfectly acceptable). Live Writer could be used for MovableType, but support wasn’t complete (you couldn’t edit tags, upload images without configuring FTP, and a few other niggles)
  4. WordPress for BlackBerry. Happiness.
  5. Tons of themes. I’m don’t care too much about visuals, but they are important – and MT themes (at least free ones) are scarce.

My gripes:

  1. The release of WordPress 2.9 (my first impression) seems to have been rushed for Christmas, and includes 3 potentially nasty bugs (main one for me was curl transport being broken which breaks WP cron, future posting, pings, plugins like LifeStream etc). Easily fixed (again, thumbs up to an active and proactive community), but caused me some frustration tracking down why my LifeStream wouldn’t update automatically for example.
  2. Consistency is a pain at times – plugin writers can add menus in a variety of places, plugin quality varies, and even the admin console has some usability issues in places. I suppose I’ve been spoilt by MT’s attention to detail and consistency.
  3. I don’t like condescending installers :-)

WordPress was also slightly easier to install locally for experimentation via XAMPP.

I’ll wait for the (twice postponed) release of MovableType 5 on Jan 5th and compare them then.

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