There is no doubt that, slowly but surely, JavaScript is eating the world. The latest example is WordPress.com that embraced JavaScript to give its admin interface a facelift. Given that a significant portion of the Web is now being powered by JavaScript, Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, recently launched Calypso - a new JavaScript-based admin interface that lets you manage all of your WordPress sites from one place.
So, What Is WordPress Calypso?
To put it simply, Calypso is a new admin interface that helps you manage all your WordPress powered sites from a single place. Unlike the traditional PHP and MySQL powered WP Admin interface, it has been written purely in JavaScript and utilizes the power of WordPress.com REST API to deliver you a richer, faster and smoother WordPress admin experience. With Calypso, you can manage both WordPress.com blogs and self-hosted Jetpack-enabled WordPress installations.
What’s even more interesting is that Calypso is also available as an application to download for OSX, Windows and Linux platforms. However, you still need a WordPress.com account in order to use it. Where Calypso makes use of the popular server-side JavaScript environment Node.js for the backend code, on the other hand, it leverages Facebook’s React library and Flux framework to render in-house developed SPAs on the client side. In a nutshell, Calypso is WordPress’ move from PHP to JavaScript.
So, What Is WordPress Calypso?
To put it simply, Calypso is a new admin interface that helps you manage all your WordPress powered sites from a single place. Unlike the traditional PHP and MySQL powered WP Admin interface, it has been written purely in JavaScript and utilizes the power of WordPress.com REST API to deliver you a richer, faster and smoother WordPress admin experience. With Calypso, you can manage both WordPress.com blogs and self-hosted Jetpack-enabled WordPress installations.
What’s even more interesting is that Calypso is also available as an application to download for OSX, Windows and Linux platforms. However, you still need a WordPress.com account in order to use it. Where Calypso makes use of the popular server-side JavaScript environment Node.js for the backend code, on the other hand, it leverages Facebook’s React library and Flux framework to render in-house developed SPAs on the client side. In a nutshell, Calypso is WordPress’ move from PHP to JavaScript.
Key Features of Calypso
So what’s different and new in the Calypso version of WordPress? Let’s take a look:
Completely Open Source:
Like everything else in WordPress, Calypso is 100% open source and available to download on GitHub. That means you can see, copy, fork or contribute to the code to make it even better. The main purpose behind opening Calypso up to the world is getting as much community input as possible.
Written Purely in JavaScript:
As mentioned above, Calypso makes use of JavaScript instead of PHP. Harnessing the power of third-party libraries like Node, React and Flux, it brings your old WP-admin dashboard to life with a new look, feel and functionality.
100% API-powered:
Calypso is powered by the WordPress.com REST API, which is open-source and different from the REST API for self-hosted sites. The Calypso interface utilizes the REST API to interact with your WordPress.com site. In other words, Calypso is a single JavaScript application that relies on the REST API to communicate with WordPress.com.
Completely Open Source:
Like everything else in WordPress, Calypso is 100% open source and available to download on GitHub. That means you can see, copy, fork or contribute to the code to make it even better. The main purpose behind opening Calypso up to the world is getting as much community input as possible.
Written Purely in JavaScript:
As mentioned above, Calypso makes use of JavaScript instead of PHP. Harnessing the power of third-party libraries like Node, React and Flux, it brings your old WP-admin dashboard to life with a new look, feel and functionality.
100% API-powered:
Calypso is powered by the WordPress.com REST API, which is open-source and different from the REST API for self-hosted sites. The Calypso interface utilizes the REST API to interact with your WordPress.com site. In other words, Calypso is a single JavaScript application that relies on the REST API to communicate with WordPress.com.
Social Integration:
Calypso is much more social in comparison of the old WP-admin dashboard. With a single click of mouse, now you can connect with your social accounts and choose to share posts automatically or at specific times. Also, you can see stats, likes, and notifications right from your Dashboard.
Multi-site Support:
Calypso is built with advanced users in mind and therefore brings the management of multiple WordPress sites under one roof. With Calypso, you now can toggle between your WordPress sites using the drop-down menu given at the top-right corner of the editor. This lets you focus more on content than administration.
Incredibly Fast:
Calypso is blazing fast and fun to work with, in both a web browser and as a desktop app. As the platform makes use of JavaScript and REST API, it drastically increases the speed at which you do anything in WordPress. Even, the desktop app bundles your entire WordPress site as a local copy so that you could get near-instant page-loads and a snappy working experience.
Real-time Interactions:
Unlike the old WP-admin dashboard, where you were required to reload each page to see changes reflected, Calypso reflects any changes you make to your WordPress sites in real time without the need of reloading pages. This is due to the power of Node.js.
Fully Responsive:
Calypso is not one size fits all kind of solution. That means it is truly responsive and can scale to any device of any screen size. Regardless of you need a small window in your sidebar to track your notifications or want to go full-screen for a Zen writing experience, Calypso works perfect in every situation.
New Content Editor:
Calypso brings a new, cleaner WordPress editor that is really fun to write in. With the new content editor, now you can drag and drop images or a group of images into the text instead of messing with the media library. As well, the instant loading of previews would prove quite beneficial for content creators.
Improved Reader:
With Calypso, reading the blogs and sites you follow is now much simpler, smoother and faster than ever. The improved version of Reader takes less time to load and scrolls smoothly. What’s more interesting is that the new Reader is powered with Discover – a new way to discover the best pieces of content published across the platform, both online and in the app.
If you want to know more about the differences between the old PHP-based WP-Admin WordPress and the new JavaScript-powered Calypso, go through the chart below:
How to use WordPress Calypso
Now that you have understood what has been improved in Calypso, let’s learn how to use it:
For WordPress.com Users:
If your blog/site is being hosted on WordPress.com, then you might have noticed a new look and feel in your Dashboard. That means you’re already using the new version of WordPress.com, which is Calypso. To use the new WordPress.com on your PC, download desktop app from here.
For Self-hosted WordPress Users:
And if you have a self-hosted WordPress site/blog, you can enjoy all the features of Calypso using a WordPress.com account and Jetpack. You’ll need to install and activate the Jetpack plug-in on your self-hosted WordPress site. Once the plug-in is activated, don’t forget to activate the Manage module under Jetpack Settings.
After activating Manage module, log in to your WordPress.com account and you’ll see your site there. You can now do almost everything that you do in your WordPress.org Dashboard. In case you have the wrong site displayed, use the Switch Site link given at the top of the admin menu.
What Does Calypso Mean for WordPress.org?
Will the Calypso become part of core WordPress in future? This question is in every WordPress user’s mind after the launch of Calypso. Although in his announcement, Matt Mullenweg (the founder of Automattic) didn’t talk about the inclusion of Calypso in core WordPress but the official page of Calypso notes that the decision whether the new admin interface will become a part of the main WordPress project is up to the WordPress community. That means Calypso could be included in core WordPress only if the community wants.
However, PHP developers (especially theme authors) will need to become proficient in JavaScript and the REST API to create their own admin interfaces. That’s because the JavaScript and API-driven interfaces are the future of the web, according to Matt. Even, a new community of JavaScript and other front-end developers may step into WordPress theme development and take the CMS to the next level. Needless to say, the future of WordPress is bright with Calypso!
