o2

o2 is the next evolution of P2. It is a plugin which super-charges your theme with tools to help groups of people collaborate online. The main features are:

  • Post right from the homepage. If you’re logged in, you’ll see a simple post box on your homepage, allowing you to post without ever visiting wp-admin.
  • Drag and drop uploads. Drag and drop supported files directly onto the editor to upload them and embed them quickly in your post (or comment).
  • View and reply to comments on the homepage. Inline threading is supported as well.
  • Live updates for posts and comments. If you leave a page open and new posts or comments come in, they’ll appear inline and you’ll get a notification in the corner of the page letting you know.
  • Edit posts and comments right in the page. Using the action menu (top-right of posts/comments), you can edit your content without leaving the page.
  • Simple task management. We’ve bundled a “To do” feature, which allows you to mark posts as “to do”, and then mark them off as “done” when you’re finished. There’s also a widget with some navigation filters to allow you to find things to do.
  • Supports one-line media embeds. If you drop a supported URL on a line of its own, we’ll embed the media you’re linking to, instead of just a boring URL.
  • Widget and Menu Support. Configure all your normal widgets (plus a few custom ones) in a sidebar. Add a top menu for global links/navigation.
  • Responsive. Use it on your phone or tablet. Optimized display for smaller screen-sizes means you can use o2 on the go.
  • Infinite Scroll. Keep scrolling, and we’ll keep loading your content. No need to navigate away from the homepage.

In developing o2, we sliced out all the functionality that made P2 unique, rolled it into a plugin, and added a bunch of new things on top. To make use of these new features, we’re also releasing a new version of P2 (the theme), which works hand-in-hand with o2 (the plugin).

On WordPress.com

If you’d like to try it out, you can now activate P2 on any site on WordPress.com, and it’ll come bundled with o2.

  • Create a new site on WordPress.com
  • Find P2 in the theme directory (and read more about the features it adds to WordPress)
  • Click Activate and pick the site you just created
  • Go and check out your shiny new o2-powered site!

On Self-hosted/WordPress.org

To use o2 on your own self-hosted WordPress site, you’ll want to install both o2 and P2 (instructions provided in the README of o2 below):

Download o2 the plugin from Github: https://github.com/Automattic/o2

Install P2 the theme via SVN, or download it here

If you’re wondering why these aren’t appearing in the WordPress.org plugin and theme repositories, it’s because these are very rough releases. We don’t suggest using o2 on a production website, unless you know what you’re doing, and you’re willing to get your hands dirty debugging, tweaking, and optimizing to your specific environment.