Quick and Easy Way to Check Your Theme and Plugins Before Upgrading to WordPress 2.3

Upgrading your WordPress installation can be a scary thing. Especially if it’s a major upgrade and you are not intimately familiar with how the new changes will impact your blog. However, with the release of Doug Smith’s Wordpress Upgrade Preflight Check plugin, upgrading just got a little less scary.

What is the Wordpress Upgrade Preflight Check plugin?

The Upgrade Preflight Check is a WordPress plugin that scans your themes and plugins and reports any errors or problems that may occur when upgrading to WordPress 2.3. The purpose of this plugin is to let you know ahead of time what compatibility problems may be hiding under the surface before going through the upgrade process.

How It Works

The Upgrade Preflight Check plugin works by scanning plugins and themes for the appearance of text within that may indicate compatibility problems with WordPress 2.3.

The plugin currently looks for these compatibility issues:

Use of the old category tables that are now gone.

Use of wp-admin/upgrade-functions.php, which has been moved and renamed.

Use of the get_the_title function, which works a little differently.

Use of deprecated permalink functions, which still work for now but should be replaced.

Installation and Use

As with most WordPress plugins installation is a snap. Just upload the file to your plugins directory and activate it. Once it’s successfully activated, navigate to “Options” -> “Upgrade Preflight”. Within a few seconds your results will be displayed, notifying you of any possible incompatibilities.

Note: While this is an excellent plugin to help you prepare for upgrading to WordPress 2.3, it is by no means a guarantee or replacement for a proper backup routine.