WordPress 2.5 RC1 is now available for those looking to test it. It’s very stable and should be bug free. Infact, I’m running it on this blog as we speak! 
However, there’s one “required” plugin for those upgrading — Remove Max Width. Even though I and other users protested, the main developers and designers felt a fixed width of the admin area would be best. However, on my 1600×1200 monitor (soon to be even wider at 1920×1200!), that results in TONS of whitespace. This plugin adds some CSS to make it full width again. Very handy.
WordPress 2.5 Sneak Peek Available…
This morning, Matt Mullenweg posted a preview of WordPress 2.5 and mentioned “software is basically done and stable, and could be released today”. They want to incorporate feedback from the people before making it public. Is the community …
I’m with you on the fixed vs variable width issue. I guess I don’t see the downside in using all of the desktop space that you have. I’ve got 2.5 on a test site of mine and I’m still trying to get used to the new admin UI. Not bad, just different.
The argument was wide inputs (textareas, input boxes, etc.) are hard to work with when really wide. Personally, I disagree and I can always resize my browser if I want it narrower.
And yeah, the new admin takes some getting used to, but I really love it. The colors are still quite odd (perhaps as I’m used to the old ones), but luckily it literally takes a few seconds to write a plugin to add a new set of colors to the profile style picker. ^_^