Updating WordPress Plugins
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Updating WordPress plugins used to be a hit or miss deal.
You had to go to the plugins page to check if there was an update available.
Not anymore.
With the latest versions of WordPress all you need to do is go to the Plugin page
of your blog and you can see right there which plugins have an update available.
(click on the thumbnail to see what I mean)
This feature not only makes it easier to see what plugins have an update, but also make it easy to go to the download page for the plugin and get the update.
Now you have the update what do you you do with it?
Well of course you have to upload it to your plugin folder of your blog.
Sometimes I delete the old version first and sometimes I don’t, for me it depends on the mood I’m in at the time.
Usually I’ll delete the old plugin first and I haven’t found a problem doing it that way.
For the few seconds it takes to upload the new version of the plugin it hasn’t effected anything negatively with the plugin not working.
Also sometimes the old version of a plugin may be a single php file while the new version may have more features that require multiple php files and requires the uploading of a folder instead of a single file. When you run into that you should delete the old version first.
Sometimes the version of a plugin you are using may not be compatible with the version of WordPress you are currently using. You wil see that happen when you upgrade WordPress from say 2.2.* to 2.3.*. In that case it is almost always better to delete the old version of the plugin and then upload the newer version.
An example of that would be with the Google Sitemaps plugin. Originally it was a single php file and now it is a folder of files. Of course there are alot more features to the plugin also.
But if you are using the older version and upgrade wordpress when you write and publish a post you will get a whole boat load of error messages.
So in closing let me say to make it a habit to check out your plugin page every day you wite a post. The little bit of extra time it takes is well worth it.
