Suffusion Version 3.7.4 Update 2: Beta Release 1 Available

Finally, after months of effort I have been able to give reasonable shape to the first Beta release of version 3.7.4. Please excuse the weird numbering for this release – I was trying to come up with a numbering scheme that would enable some notification functionality.

In my previous post I highlighted some of the key changes in this version. I will not elaborate on that list here. Instead I will try to enumerate how to go about doing Beta testing.

One thing, though: due to a change of rules established by the WP Theme Review Team I had to again move back to providing a single link for the options of the theme. So instead of a separate menu for Suffusion at the bottom of the left side in the admin section, you again have something like this: Appearance → Suffusion Options. On the positive side, I hopefully managed to make the back-end look a lot better than a high-school web-design project.

Warning: Please don’t install this on a live site! Since this is a Beta release not all functionality is iron-clad.

How to Set it Up

1. You can download the beta version here. Save the downloaded file locally.
2. Unzip it. The zip file has a folder called suffusion.
3. If you do not have an online test environment read through the following steps. Otherwise see point #4.
   1. Export your current live blog. You don’t have to take a copy of the database – you simply need to go into Tools → Export in your admin panel (this is different from Suffusion’s Import/Export settings). After making the appropriate selections click on “Download Export File”. Save the XML file.
   2. You can set up a new WP installation through your host’s control panel.
   3. Once you have set up the installation, go to Tools → Import in your new installation. Use the WordPress importer and import the XML file you just downloaded.
   4. Go to Settings → Privacy and block out search engines.
4. Go to the folder wp-content/themes/ in your WP installation and upload the suffusion folder you unzipped locally. If you have an existing folder called suffusion already there, either rename the old folder to suffusion-old or  the new folder to suffusion-new.
5. Activate the theme.

What to Test

The following is a list of items you should look out for:

1. Setup
   On the back-end:
   1. You shouldn’t see any “white screens of death” when you activate the theme. This should be true for installations where this is your second installation of Suffusion, as well as those where this is your first.
   2. You should see a single menu item under “Appearance” as stated above.
   3. Saving options on a particular screen, as well as under a whole section should both work. Correspondingly you should be able to reset options and delete the entire option set.
   4. Importing/Exporting of options and migrating options from older versions should work.
2. Layouts
   Check for the following:
   1. Pullout/corner style bylines.
   2. Individual templates (No Sidebar, Single Left, Single Right, Double Left etc., Page of Posts, Magazine).
   3. Different types of sidebar arrangements on your regular site without using templates – single left, single right, single left single right, double left, double right.
   4. Conditional sidebars – on your blog page you can have a different number of sidebars from say, a single post page.
   5. Wide sidebars and static tabbed sidebars should work.
   6. Header inside wrapper, outside wrapper etc.
   7. Navigation bar inside wrapper, outside wrapper etc.
   8. Footer inside wrapper, outside wrapper etc.
3. Skinning
   Check if the following are getting saved and appropriately picked up.
   1. Font changes
   2. Borders
   3. Backgrounds
   4. Setting of colors – a new library is being used (Farbtastic) instead of the old one (JSColor)
4. Images
   Since I have removed TimThumb, this will need special care:
1. Static Featured Content: Test for both, full size and custom size
2. Featured Content Widget: Test for both, full size and custom size
3. Excerpts: Custom thumbnail size and standard thumbnail/medium/large size should be tested
4. Magazine headlines: Custom size, or inherited from excerpt
5. Magazine excerpts: Custom size, or inherited from excerpt
6. Preference of picking up images should work (native WP featured image vs. custom field vs. embedded URL vs. attachment).
7. Test for Zoom-crop (proportional resizing) for all cases of resizing. This should work for everything except native WP featured images and attachments (that is a WP limitation).
8. The quality setting should be picked up.
9. On the back-end test the new image uploader. You no longer need to explicitly enter the URL – using the uploader will automatically populate the URL for you. Clicking “Reset” should remove the URL.
10. Test resizing on a multi-site installation.
5. Miscellaneous
1. Test for social networks setup under Suffusion Options → Back-end Settings → User Profiles. You should be able to manage the selected networks from Users → Your Profile.
2. Verify that WP 3.0 menus are working

This is a very long list, and trust me, the checks I put the theme through while developing are even more (which is why I request for more volunteers to do the support – this is too much work for one person). If you are doing the beta test you don’t have test everything out unless you want to. Instead you can pick a scenario that you want and run the tests for that. For example, if you are in the habit of playing with images on your site, the Images tests are what should be of greatest benefit.

I am going to break my rule here about posting on the forum. For the beta tests alone, you can put in comments about any bugs that you encounter over here.

Thanks for helping out!