DiyThemes released an update for Thesis Theme to overcome some issues with the latest WordPress 3.4 release, some of these issues was reported by Thesis users last week, most of it has been covered in 1.8.5 and it’s now playing nicely with the new Live Theme Previews in WP 3.4, plus some other cool modifications. So, I will be busy working today on upgrading all my Thesis Skins to the latest version to keep it updated.
Also, a side from this, StudioPress also has begin Genesis Theme development to drop 1.9 soon.
So, back to Thesis, the new 1.8.5 was officially announced today on the blog and it’s ready for download.
Thesis 1.8.5 Update includes:
Front modifications
- Fixed theme preview in WordPress 3.4 for normal and multisite installations.
- Improved multisite post thumbnail handling on a wider variety of server setups.
- Resolved
layout.csserror message in multisite that appeared (wrongly) due to certain user permissions.
SEO modifications
- Updated the
authormicroformat in post bylines so it passes the Google Rich Snippet Tool without warnings. - Basic HTML tags are now allowed inside widget titles, so you have more presentational flexibility in those areas.
- In previous versions, if you added a nav menu via a widget, it would display horizontally like the default nav menu. Now, menus added via widgets will display just like a normal vertical list of links, so you won’t have to waste time undoing undesirable styles.
Some other updates reported in the DiyThemes forum
- Updated JS libraries included in Thesis Design Options → JavaScript to their latest versions
- Prevented the
<!--more-->tag from appearing in meta descriptions in situations where the description is pulled automatically - Prevented an empty #comments div from appearing on pages with comments
- Fixed a minor HTML error in the Killer Recent Entries widget that occurred under certain circumstances
- Minor fixes to prevent string offset errors in PHP 5.4 and WP debug mode
Thesis 2.0 news
Chris Pearson -the creator of the Thesis Theme Framework– announced: (source)
We’ve got about 120 hours of development and testing left before the alpha (only available to DIYthemes staffers) will be ready. Based on experience, I think we’ll probably have another 60 hours of development on top of that plus a couple of weeks out in the wild before the beta is ready for release.
With that information in mind, I think Thesis 2 will probably make its world debut in August.
I hope to see Thesis 2.0 soon!
Should I upgrade to Thesis 1.8.5 ?
Ok, I know that I will get this question from ThesisAwesome members, so I will just answer it here.
There is nothing that I see stopping you from upgrading to the latest 1.8.5, I’ve done some upgrades on my test sites, and all went good so far. However, I thought I will be able to finally develop without the annoying notices allover my blog, but after upgrading to 1.8.5 I still see some notices on the front and back ends while Debug mode is enabled (this shouldn’t be a problem for Thesis users), it’s a pain for developers.
This is what I get when Debug is enabled:
[box type=”yellow”]Notice: get_theme_data is deprecated since version 3.4! Use wp_get_theme() instead[/box]
It shows in all Thesis options pages.
[box type=”yellow”]Notice: Undefined property: thesis_comments::$comments[/box]
It shows on the front-end of the blog, above the comment section, only when a post has not comments (comments count zero).
I remember when 1.8.4 was released, Thesis team said all warning notices was solved, I was so excited about it, but that wasn’t true. So, even now.. in 1.8.5, things are not yet clean, this turn me off, and to make it clear, I don’t develop while Thesis Theme is enabled on my dev blog, I prefer Twenty Eleven or Genesis Theme as they both provide a lovely development atmosphere.
Also, something else to put in mind, if your blog has heavy theme customization, then don’t do it right away, please give it another thought! Think of what customization could conflict with the new modification, at least start with a test site, then do the less important sites, and when things looks good, make the final move and upgrade your live site.
So, OK! My answer is… It depends.
Update: If you are using any of our skins or using Thesis Theme in general, then follow these steps to upgrade to the latest version 1.8.5: