This article is deprecated! Any technical information refers to software versions that are now obsolete. Please visit the DIYthemes Blog for current updates, or check out the old Thesis Blog for a treasure trove of website marketing insights.
This is the release that was never supposed to happen. Back in June, I began working on what I eventually dubbed Thesis 2.0, so I had no reason to believe we would ever see a Thesis 1.6. But then, a funny thing happened…
I dove into the 1.5.1 core files to solve a little problem with post image and thumbnail frames, and I got a little carried away. Next thing you know, I’m tweaking nav menu colors directly from the Design Options and dropping teaser images on Twitter.
Who knew image framing was so complex? 😀
Anyway, now that you know how we got here, let’s see what we’ve got here. New hotness you’ll find in Thesis 1.6:
- Oodles of design and color options! Control font colors all over the theme. Experiment with your background color. Customize the daylights out of your nav menu. Tweak all freakin day.
- Custom file editor in your WordPress dashboard: Sick of dealing with an external file editor and an FTP client every time you need to update that damned
custom.cssfile? Not anymore, ’cause now you’ve got a custom file editor inside your WordPress dashboard that totally solves this problem! WIN. - New options placement in the WordPress dashboard: Instead of existing inside the Appearances section, the Thesis Options now have their own dedicated module in the WordPress dashboard menu. Sadly, the options are relegated to the bottom because the native WordPress function used to hook them into place doesn’t do all of the things it purports to do (like positioning the new module). Meh.
- IE-only styles are now cache-friendly: Version 1.5 included a CSS-based method of serving IE-specific styles, but this method proved to have one fatal flaw—it didn’t play nicely with caching techniques (and especially the WP Super Cache plugin). Because of this, I reverted back to using conditional HTML in the document
<head>, and now caching is money. - Fixed post image and thumbnail frames: These actually work now. Special.
- Suppressed warnings on all
getimagesizefunction calls: This PHP function has been known to trigger warnings on certain server configurations, and suppressing warnings will radically reduce the annoyance factor in these situations. - Moved the
/rotatorfolder into the/customfolder: Can somebody tell me why the/rotatorfolder, whose very existence suggests customization, was not located inside the/customfolder from the very beginning? Sigh. Fixed.
Bold prediction: You will use the new Design Options in Thesis 1.6 more than you’ve ever used any other Thesis options to date. In fact, it’s quite likely that you’ll find them to be highly addictive, so proceed with caution (and bring your creativity)!
