Suffusion Version 3.6.8

Posted on November 7, 2010
Categories Theme Releases

After what seems like ages, here is a new version of Suffusion. As already mentioned, this has been a very very code-intensive release because of the nature of the changes.

These are the main changes in this release:

  1. New Features
    The following were added in this release:
    1. Fluid Width – By far the biggest change in Suffusion since the inclusion of options in the very second release. This change required me to overhaul the HTML structure of the theme and always put the content before the sidebars, then do massive amounts of testing. While I put in every bit of effort required to get this working as per expectations, if you find something that is not working as you expect, please let me know. I will be very happy to fix it.
    2. Improved Menus – In any other release this would have been the prima donna. But as it stands, this has been relegated to second position. Now you have even better control of your navigation menus, in terms of the number of options you can pick from:
      1. Include all, ignoring next option
      2. Include selections from the next option
      3. Exclude all, ignoring next option (New)
      4. Exclude selections from the next option (New)

      The new options can be better understood in context of some major code reengineering. Earlier I had a very comprehensive menu-building code, that worked very intuitively. This behavior was different from WP’s default behavior. However the old code created an insane number of queries, particularly if your menu was big.
      In this release I have removed all my self-created code and resorted to using WP’s inbuilt functions – wp_list_pages, wp_list_categories, wp_list_bookmarks and wp_nav_menu. his significantly reduces the number of queries and the load on your server.
      As a tip, if you want to completely remove pages/categories/links from your menu, use the “Exclude all, ignoring next option” setting instead of “Include selections from the next option”. This is much more optimal in terms of code.

    3. You can now get rid of the HTML title that shows up when you hover over your navigation menu. Visit Blog Features → Main Navigation Bar Setup → “Title” attribute upon hovering over navigation bar.
    4. There was no styling available for the HTML elements legend and fieldset. CSS declarations have been added for them.
  2. Removed Features
    The following features have been removed:
    1. I have removed the “rolled-up” setting for WP 3.0 menus as it is redundant. If you want to create a rolled-up menu you can automatically create a base node in the menu and add the rest of your menu under it.
    2. I have also removed the option to not use body_class WP function to generate classes for your body. This removal was essential because the body_class function is essential to the style setup for the theme.
  3. Bug Fixes
    The following bugs were fixed:
    1. A fix has been included for a severe bug that was causing page templates to max out at a width of 600px. The bug was caused by incorrectly applying filters to the sidebars and templates.
    2. The following navigation menu-related bugs have been fixed:
      1. Selected navigation bar items (Pages, Categories and WP 3.0 menus) were not getting highlighted in the Minima skin.
      2. Selected navigation bar items for WP 3.0 menus were not getting highlighted across any skin.
      3. The values set for highlighting in Visual Effects → Theme Skinning were not being accurately reflected.
    3. The following BuddyPress-related bugs have been fixed:
      1. In various BP screens, if something was selected from a drop-down list (like filters, or sort criteria), nothing was happening. The correct AJAX calls for this have been included.
      2. The Create Profile and Edit Profile pages in BP were not rendering properly. This has been fixed.
      3. Messages in the inbox etc. were not being styled properly. This has been addressed.
    4. There was a bug in the List Layout style, which was offsetting the posts by 1 if all posts were not being displayed. In other words, the top post was not being displayed, and if there were  N+1 posts in all and each page was to display N posts, the second page was showing an error. This has been rectified.
    5. Links in featured content were not getting the right color. Again, this has been fixed.
    6. There was an error in the charset syntax in header.php, style.php and rounded-corners.php. This wasn’t impacting anything as such, but it has been rectified nonetheless.
    7. In the options pages if you put in 0 as a value for some dimensions it wasn’t being read correctly. I have changed the code to handle this.
  4. Changes
    1. The comments section has been revamped to look better and to facilitate better styling. There is now a custom callback function invoked from there.
    2. As per the theme review guidelines I had to change the credit link at the bottom. It now just links to the Suffusion home page and not my home page.
    3. Somewhat whimsically I have changed the default font from Arial to Trebuchet. You can however switch back to Trebuchet if you want, from the Visual Effects → Body Font Customization options.
    4. You now will not see any version tag appended to JS files included by the theme.
    5. The Spanish and French translations have been updated. Thanks to David for his modifications of the French translation!

I will soon update the Suffusion BP Pack so that you can make use of the new changes to the core theme. I will keep you posted.

38 Responses to “Suffusion Version 3.6.8”

  1. factotum
    November 8, 2010

    Hi Sayontan!
    Good to hear about the new version, really like the new feature “Fluid Width”
    I have a question, I do not know how relevant here:
    I need to integrate this feature: http://www.highcharts.com/
    Can anyone help with this?

  2. 王3峰
    November 8, 2010

    HI！it’good. I’m using 3.6.6,but I want to updata to 3.6.8 after reading this post

    Thank you! Suufuion is a very good theme. I want to translate the control panel to Chinese.But I cant creat the PO files. Can you help me ?

    • Sayontan
      November 8, 2010

      Wang,
      The control panel for Suffusion is not translation-capable, because it is very large and difficult to translate.

      Sayontan.

      • 王3峰
        November 9, 2010

        Suffusion is a excellent theme. I want to introduce it to my friends whose English my not be so well .
        I’ve translated the control panel for 3.6.6 to Chinese by modifying the PHP files directly.

        • Sayontan
          November 9, 2010
          I’ve translated the control panel for 3.6.6 to Chinese by modifying the PHP files directly.

          Wow. That is a HUGE task! There are more than 5000 lines to translate, I am sure!

          • 王3峰
            November 10, 2010

            I’ve spent a lot of time on the translation. I,ll translate the php files again after the releasing of 3.6.8 . Can you show me a way to creat .PO files. It can make the translation easy to maintenance .

          • Sayontan
            November 11, 2010

            This is an almost impossible task. To create a PO file you first have to make all the back-end files translation-capable.

            That will require you to first go through each of the options files – theme-options-intro.php, theme-options-visual-effects.php, theme-options-blog-features.php, theme-options-sidebars-and-widgets.php and theme-options-templates.php.

            You then have to encase each string over there in a translator function. E.g. consider this line:
            "name" => "How Many Sidebars?"
            You have to change it to:
            "name" => __("How Many Sidebars?", 'suf_admin')

            This has to be done for each and every string in all these files. Then you have to create a zip of all files in Suffusion, then upload it to http://www.icanlocalize.com/tools/php_scanner. It will generate the PO file for you.

            Be warned that the task of making all strings translatable will drive you mad – it is a very very big task.

          • 王3峰
            November 11, 2010

            Tankyou ! I’ve made almost string translatable,excepting the suffusion-options-page.php.

          • 王3峰
            November 11, 2010

            HI !
            I’ve created the po files .Then I rename it to zh_CN.po and put it in the translation folder. But it dosen’t work . It seems that the theme use the PO file in the wp-contentlanguages folder. Can you tell me why?

  3. Ted Eubanks
    November 8, 2010

    Sayontan, I updated this morning and the formatting is askew. The blog is http://www.birdspert.org. The formatting appears correct in IE, but is faulty when seen in Chrome.

    Love the new version, though.

    Ted

    • Sayontan
      November 8, 2010

      Ted,
      I am seeing the site fine in all browsers. Try clearing your cache and refreshing. Use the support forum for additional queries.

      Sayontan.

  4. dd
    November 8, 2010

    awesome I’m about to try it out. thanks for your efforts!

  5. Alex
    November 8, 2010

    Hello!!
    The sidebar has been moved to the bottom of the website
    http://melodeando.es

    • Sayontan
      November 8, 2010

      Alex,
      There is an issue with the layout using the tabbed sidebar. If you temporarily disable the tabbed sidebar you should be fine. I will try to release a fix for this by tonight.

      Sayontan.

  6. John
    November 8, 2010

    Hey Sayontan,

    Great theme as always, one of the best I’ve worked with by far. I have one question, I had a few custom menus setup and with the update Suffusion isn’t liking them. How do I create a base node in the menu and add the rest of your menu under it? I’d like to have 2 or 3 different menus. Thanks for your help.

    • Sayontan
      November 8, 2010

      John,
      While creating a menu you can add a Custom Link as a menu item, pass “#” as the URL, then nest every other menu item under it. That way you will have created a base node.

      Sayontan.

  7. DarkprinceArmon
    November 8, 2010

    In making all of the fixes to your wonderful theme I think you may have broken one thing. The widget above the footer collides with the side bar widgets when using the magazine theme, IF the main body posting area does not match the length sizes of the sidebars. Take a look at http://www.darkprincearmon.com /ver006.0/journal/ to see what I mean.

    • Sayontan
      November 8, 2010

      Yes, I am aware of the issue. I have already fixed it and I will submit a new version in the evening.

  8. Jon
    November 8, 2010

    Hey sayontan, i think there is a little bug with the main menu. it keep on appearing on the top right of my browser. my site is http://universalexcuses.com
    love all new changes, thank you very much for all your hard work.

  9. Chensong
    November 8, 2010

    Nice theme. Have been using it for a while. But this version gives a repeated menu on the main navigation bar. The main page and subpages are all displayed and repeated several times.

    See http://multigrid.org/

  10. suffusion3.6.8 ,看上去很美 « 调侃MAC
    November 9, 2010

    […] suffusion3.6.8 发布了，看起来还是挺美的。作者对它的这一版作品非常的满意。看看他的博客的文章就能看出来。而且它还列出了3.6.8的几大进步。不过在我看来，就关注两条，一是他把一些他自己造的函数换成了wordpress建的，能提高运行效率。二是评论部分改得更漂亮一点了。其它他骄傲的东西，在我看来都是浮云。 […]

  11. Lee Daniels
    November 9, 2010

    Great step forward with this version!
    Thanks for all your work and understanding.

  12. Mitch
    November 9, 2010

    I upgraded to 3.6.8, but have lost the tag and posted by features at the bottom of each post. The settings were checked, and are correct. Can you help? Thanks.

  13. Jon
    November 9, 2010

    I change the function.php file like you have said on this post. https://aquoid.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3104#p13795

    i got the following error when i tried to access my wp-admin page
    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in/ home/xxxxx/public_html/mydomainname.com/wp-content/themes/suffusion/functions.php on line 788.

  14. Ravi
    November 10, 2010

    Dear Sayontan,

    My tagline in the header runs into two lines (see http://ravisophocure.com) and the second line is partly hidden by the menu. Is there any way to increase the header size or make it fluid?

    Thanks for the version 3.6.8. Now, the featured content on my site is looking good.

    Best regards.

  15. Echo
    November 10, 2010

    Hi there,

    I updated the theme yesterday and I had 2 issues :
    1. The menu appears twice (fixed by rebuilding it)
    2. The “Widget Area Above Footer” is floating under the sidebar1(I reinitialized all the widgets but still…)
    Any idea ?

    New topic : can I help you by providing a french translation ? Don’t know how to do that but curious and motivated.

    • Sayontan
      November 11, 2010

      This should have been fixed in 3.6.9.
      Thanks for the offer of a French translation, but as stated in this post, a French translation already exists for the theme.

  16. jim
    November 10, 2010

    Hi and great theme

    I did the upgrade and now the menu bar is inconsistent across the body and there is now no distance between it and the header.

    Your thoughts

    • Sayontan
      November 11, 2010

      Not sure if I understand you well. Also, can you please use the support forum for support queries?

  17. Tim Helmer
    May 31, 2013

    Sayontan:
    Thanks for your very excellent theme. I have a problem.
    I’m trying to have a combination of regular and strong text in the site tagline (description)
    I found this.
    http://tinyurl.com/kwatnom
    I look at the header of your child theme suffu-scion and there is no code for the tagline so I guess I need to use a hook.
    I’m not a big fan of hooks as in the tiny url above. It just seems like trying to shoot a slingshot and aiming with a mirror.
    This is more straight forward.
    http://css-tricks.com/forums/discussion/10803/allowing-html-tags-in-the-site-description-in-wordpress/p1
    but again this is not in the header.php file.
    Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance.
    Tim