If you’d tried to implement a static home page with Thesis since the 1.0 release, then you probably discovered that the navigation menu highlighting didn’t work properly under this setup. In my opinion, this issue was serious enough to warrant yet another intermediate release, so the latest and greatest version is now 1.0.2.
The only affected theme file is header_functions.php, and I’ve provided explicit instructions for a simple, painless upgrade over on the downloads page.
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Sweet - I noticed some double-highlighting action going on and was about to ask about it in the forums. Timely update - thanks Chris.
Chris, I noticed that you had said that to
upgrade to version 1.0.1 you only need to
replace the ‘options.php’ file with the new
version of it.
And to up grade to 1.0.2 you only need to replace
the ‘header_functions.php’ file with the new version
of it.
The problem is that the file for 1.0.1 is not available
as it has been replaced with 1.0.2. How can
I upgrade from 1.0.1 to 1.0.2 if I don’t have
the 1.o.1 upgrade file?
Since two different files have to be replaced
to be up to date with Thesis how is this possible
when there is only a link for ‘header_functions.php’,
but not ‘options.php’also?
chris — Heh, I knew that would come up today, and I should’ve done a better job explaining this on the downloads page. You can snag both of the necessary files –
options.phpandheader_functions.php– from the 1.0.2 download package, and simply overwrite both of those files on your server. Theoptions.phpfile is located here:/thesis/lib/classes/options.phpAnd the
header_functions.phpfile is located here:/thesis/lib/functions/header_functions.phpIf that’s still too confusing, simply overwrite the
/libfolder with the/libfolder from the full 1.0.2 download package.Thanks for clarifying this:)
Will it display correctly for users with 800X600 resolution?
Marco — Not unless you modify the total width of all columns to 776px or less. I designed for 800×600 until early 2007, but the move of huge sites like nytimes.com, cnn.com, and espn.go.com to 1000px-wide layouts pushed me over the edge. Less than 3% of my visitors use 800×600 these days, and there’s simply no reason to give up the potential on-screen real estate just to accommodate such a tiny minority.
Chris, Thesis is the first premium theme that I’m considering buying, but the visitors of the site I contribute with are about 20% 800 x 600, so I think I can’t ignore them. I don’t have lots of expertise in CSS, but I can do some things. Do you think that, if I reduce the width of Thesis by myself, will I “break” the overall design? Would it be too difficult to repair it? Thanks you’re awesome!
Marco — You could probably reduce the overall width without “breaking” anything, but you would run into some pretty serious issues with your font sizes and line heights. In my opinion, this arrangement would be so sub-optimal that I simply wouldn’t recommend it.
Despite that, a forthcoming version of Thesis (likely the next one) will be equipped with layout editing tools that will allow you to choose a 2-column layout, and that would be better suited to your 800×600 needs.
Finally, one last question—are you using Mint or Google Analytics to track your visitors’ monitor resolutions? If not, I’d be curious to know the source of your numbers, because 20% seems inordinately high for 2008.
Chris, I just checked this month stats with Google Analytics and 800 x 600 is used by 18,69% visitors. I guess this happens because it is a local educational site (I’m from Brazil) and most of the visitors come from the State University, where there is lots of old computers with old 15 inches CRT monitors.
Marco — That’s really interesting; I figured it was something along those lines. In other news, I think it’s clear that somebody needs a bigger technology budget!
Hey Chris, can’t seem to find a “contact me” link anywhere.
I am a public schoolteacher who uses the blog extensively with my kids in class, and was wondering whether you offer any sort of education pricing for your (absolutely gorgeous by the way) thesis theme??
Thanks much for your hard work!
Robin
I read about Thesis Theme at ProBlogger. I have been exploring the options and features it comes with. After reading Marco’s comments, my site has 6% of visitors using 800*600 screen resolution. That’s the only thing holding me from investing in this theme. I looked around a lot, but Thesis theme is very unique. Right now with my blog, I have about 350 articles, but most of the articles are not visible to visitors. But, I certainly think, moving to Thesis will increase the exposure.
Hi Chris,
is it possible to have the thesis theme with a pull-down navigation ?
Because I want to use the theme also as a homepage and need include several static pages in the navigation.
All the best,
Michael
By the way, what does a static homepage look like on Thesis, without us touching the code stuff? Could anyone, esp. Chris, share with me a screenshot or two?
Thanks.
Raghu — Both the New York Times and CNN have a higher percentage of visitors than you at 800×600, yet both media giants use Web layouts that are 1000px wide. If you feel that you must accommodate 800×600, you can modify the relative widths of the Thesis theme with 5 lines of custom CSS.
The next version of the theme will introduce design options that will allow you to select the widths of your theme from within the options panel. You won’t have to deal with any code at all, so playing with (and testing) different layouts will be a breeze.
Michael — A lot of Thesis users have opted to use the Suckerfish drop-down plugin to achieve that type of navigational structure. Ultimately, I think a pull-down navigation menu will be an option in Thesis, but likely not a standard due to IE’s inability to handle a simple, standardized markup structure for this kind of menu.
There are a lot of different navigational structures that I think make a lot of sense to include in a great theme, so expect to see more navigation options in future releases of Thesis.
Phy — Any page can serve as a static home page, so in that regard, a static homepage can be anything you want. To illustrate, consider that I could have used any of the following pages as a static home page here on this site (and each page would look just as it does now):
Each of those pages uses the default page template, but the Showcase and Testimonials pages have unique styles applied to them. If you wanted, you could create a special page template for your static homepage. In theory, you could design that page however you wanted—it wouldn’t have to look like Thesis at all, even though it would technically be part of the theme.
Chris,
you wrote: I think a pull-down navigation menu will be an option in Thesis, but likely not a standard due to IE’s inability to handle a simple, standardized markup structure for this kind of menu.
Does that mean, that if I use a pull down navigation with this plugin, it does not work with IE, or not?
All the best,
Michael
Michael — I wouldn’t even consider releasing something that didn’t work in IE, so that’s not the issue. All this means is that in the future, if you use a Thesis-native pull down navigation menu, then your resulting markup is going to have some IE-specific conditional code.
Hi Chris,
I’ve seem to hit an unexpected problem with Thesis being displayed in IE. My website seems to have been sheared in half when viewed in IE. None of my sidebars are displayed, nor my posts are displayed on the homepage.
But, it works wonderfully in FireFox. I’ve tried removing my plugins to see if that was causing the problem, but none of them triggered the problem. I can’t put my finger on it.
I wouldn’t be bothered with it if none of my visitors use IE, but a good percentage of them still do and they’ve told me they can’t view my site on IE.
I know if anyone could solve this problem, it would be you. Could you please help me resolve this issue? If you need access to my WordPress dashboard, I’d be more than happy to email you my login information.
Thanks, Chris.
Nevermind Chris, I think I’ve solved the problem. It was some orphan codes that were left behind after saving and publishing some posts. I deleted them and apparently, it seems to have brought some sanity back to those using IE.
I guess merely sending you a SOS is enough to solve the problem!
Hi Chris I need help!
First I lost my password/login that I set up when I downloaded the theme, so I can’t access the forum. I tried the “forget your password” link but nothing comes to my email address. (:
My question is - I have all the pages I want set up in my Nav… but when I actually post something and click on the category it should be in, it publishes but it does not appear in the relevant Nav Menu page. What am I missing? I’d appreciate any help! Thanks
Lily — Do you know the email address you used to sign up with DIYthemes? Alternatively, if you know the username you originally specified, I can look you up that way, too. Just let me know, and I’ll shoot you an email with your login details!
Hi Chris!
I think it was lilylilyshop@yahoo.com OR info@lilylilyshop.com
One of the two… thanks so much! I’m really loving my site!
Also can you help me figure out why my posts don’t show up under the Menu categories I placed on the main bar up top? I had to take the menu titles down b/c the posts weren’t showing up… I must be missing a step?
Thanks a bunch