I'm probably going to do this more often (keep a log of an update) simply because I tend to forget later what it was that I did to make something work. That, and the "Tutorials" subcategory, looked a bit lonely this morning.

Installation a bit of a chore
I downloaded the file from the WordPress server as soon as my Dashboard announced the release. I read quickly over what few release notes there were, and went right to it. Unzipped the file, copied over everything, uploaded it to the server, and ran the upgrade script.

Nope. Went down in flames, or lack thereof.

My server has PHP's show_errors turned off, so I get the "White Screen of Death" instead of any usefull information that might be needed to fix this mess. So, I go back to the drawing board and actually follow the directions.

  1. BACKUP your database
  2. Download 1.5.1. Unzip it.
  3. Open the unzipped folder, and DELETE wp-images. (You have no need for these in an upgrade)
  4. Now open your ftp program and go to your blog directories
  5. On the server, delete the directories wp-admin and wp-includes. Note: If you have "languages" directory in your wp-includes folder (with .mo files) you may want to save/backup those before deleting the wp-includes directory. Upload the new ones.
  6. The Classic and Default themes have been changed slightly so if you wish to, you can upload those to your wp-content folder.
  7. On the server and at blog root, delete the old Wordpress files and upload new ones. I recommend you do this one by one if you are not sure. Do not delete wp-config.php.
  8. Now run "www.example.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php"

Apparently that Step 5 was kind of important. So I go back, delete everything, and start all over again. In the process I managed to lose my plugins folder (a major headache) but kept the theme intact. A few of my plugins quit working after the upgrade, and they all were left in the "Activated" state. Things didn't go well when the site came back online, and couldn't find half the crap that I had installed. A few database edits (clearing out the field in wp_options that has the list of activated plugins) later and I was back up and running. I reinstalled the Headline Images plugin and reconfigured the fonts, a 30 minute project. My option page for the Geo plugin that used to not function if the Headline Images plugin finally worked. Other than that, there's no other noticable difference in operation.

Update: There is one other fix needed to get your syndication feeds to work. It is detailed at here at Fernando_Graphicos. I did it, and I'm still operational.


Hack: Sprucing up the wp-rss2.php file
When I upgraded to 1.5.1, I noticed that one of my old hacks to 1.2 was lost when I went to subsequent versions. Ah well. I figured I'd share this little one I did in case anyone else is an RSS junkie. Not for the faint of heart (make backups) but very, very easy.

  1. Open your wp-rss2.php file in your WordPress folder.
  2. Go down to about line 30, right after the language declaration and right before the "loop" for each individual item.
  3. Add the following lines of code ... 
    <image>
<url><?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/feed_logo.png</url>
<title><?php bloginfo_rss('name'); ?></title>
<link><?php bloginfo_rss('url') ?></link>
<height>88</height>
<width>31</width>
<description><?php bloginfo_rss("description") ?></description>
</image>
  4. Create a 88x31 pixel image (a standard size for this) called feed_logo.png and upload it to the images in your theme folder. If you'd rather put it elsewhere in the theme folder, modify the code above accordingly.
  5. Save/publish your changes.

That should be it. I hope a future version of WordPress allows you to configure these options rather than having to hard-code it.


Hack 2: Making the Geo plugin work with GoogleMaps
Ok, so nothing to do with WordPress 1.5.1, but since I'm already on the subject ...

I've sent this one to Owen at Asymptomatic a few days ago, but I figured I'd share my quick fix for making the "GoogleMaps" option work in his plugin. Google, for whatever reason changed the scheme for using their system to locate a place using GPS coordinates. When the plugin was written (I saw it work myself), the default method was to access http://maps.google.com/maps?ll={lat}%2C{lon}.

  1. Open geo.php in your plugin directory
  2. In Geo ver. 1.0α, go to around line 542
  3. Change: 
    'GoogleMaps' => array("http://maps.google.com/maps?ll={$lat}%2C{$lon}", __('Google Maps', 'Geo')),

    to ...

    'GoogleMaps' => array("http://maps.google.com/?sll={$lat}%2C{$lon}", __('Google Maps', 'Geo')),
  4. Save/publish your changes.


A few final thoughts
On the surface, this seemed like a waste of an afternoon. Had it not been for the "security fixes," I would probably be kicking myself for not waiting until another release. All the same, I'm rather satisfied with myself that it's been done.

For the non-nerds out there who read all of this, my apologies.