One of the deficiencies I noted in WordPress 2.5 was that the dashboard interface no longer showed the ID numbers for Posts, Pages or Categories.

Although this might not be much of a problem for the casual user of WordPress, those of us who write custom WordPress applications have come to rely on these ID numbers to add custom features to our projects. In fact, WordPress itself instructs end users to utilize these ID numbers in a variety of the WordPress template tags, such as in_category().

I have come to rely on these ID numbers in many of my applications, having used them in various template tags and in creating category page templates. As a result, I was frustrated with the new interface and the lack of information regarding these ID numbers.

I was discussing this issue with my friend Deborah over at Lireo Designs. Deborah is also developing sites using WordPress, and she is not one who lets a problem like this get in her way. After doing some research on this problem, Deborah discovered a neat little plugin that once again displays the ID numbers in the WordPress 2.5 dashboard.

Thanks for the help, Deborah! It’s a very useful plugin that makes my life a bit simpler.

April 30th, 2008 | WordPress