Suffusion Version 3.8.1

Version 3.8.1 went live today. This version addresses the issues reported with Version 3.8.0.

Truth be told I was a bit nervous about 3.8.0 because the change log for that version was almost 40 items long and since the development took over 4 months, I was concerned that what I had started developing in February might have been forgotten by June. Luckily nothing of that sort happened, and though there were bugs, they were nowhere as bad as 3.7.5/3.7.7.

So here is the list of changes:

  1. Bug Fixes
    1. In IE9, there was a stray closing comment tag (-->) appearing near the top of the page. This was due to the incorrect inclusion of a conditional script in IE for rounded corners.
    2. I had upgraded the JQuery Cycle scripts for featured content in the theme. This didn’t pose any problems in most cases, however some users reported that when the Featured Content Widget was being used with the “lite” version of the script, the script stopped cycling through images. I have rolled back the JQuery Cycle script, so hopefully there will be no issues.
    3. There was an undetected bug which would have caused JS errors in IE6 because I had forgotten to include a particular script. I have addressed this.
    4. Another “Featured Posts Widget” bug was causing the images to get squished when the widget was in the “Widget Area Below Header” or in the “Widget Area Above Footer”. I have addressed this. Props to “Kapusjon” on the support forum for helping me track this down!
  2. New Features
    1. I have enhanced the post_class() functionality in the theme. It now includes some classes for posts, such as category-xx-id (the id for the category), post-seq-x (the number of the post on a page), post-parity-odd (whether the post is in an odd location or even). You can take advantages of these classes for adding extra styles to your site.
  3. Code Changes
    1. I have removed output buffering where possible. This shouldn’t impact you as a user.
    2. I have replaced a query parameter in the Featured Content to ignore sticky posts – this is because the previous query parameter was deprecated.
    3. I have added a wp_reset_query() call to the Category Posts widget to account for any query changes to it.

I would also like to get your inputs on features that you liked or would like to see improved in the previous release. I added a lot of them, like column control for individual posts and the magazine layout, enhancements to the Twitter and Category Posts widgets and byline information handling for the magazine template, the tile layout and post formats.

31 Responses to “Suffusion Version 3.8.1”

  1. Hi Sayontan,

    First I would like to thank you for this theme – it is not less than a peice of art !

    I already started to use the columns in Magazine template (the site is still developed in my PC, so I can’t give a URI.

    In response to your announcement that there will be no major versions anymore, I would like to ask, whether it is possible to convert further devlopement of this theme, into an opensource project (e.g. in sourceforge) ?

    Thus conserving this monumental efforts you have invested and enabling further improvements.

    • I think you misunderstood the meaning of “major versions”. What I mean is that the theme has reached a level of maturity in terms of features and no big features will be added. There will be continued development in terms of stability improvements, minor features, compatibility updates etc. I will do big theme-agnostic additions via plugins (e.g. photo-blogging features). In any case the theme is open-source (GPL-licensed), so there is nothing preventing people from forking it wherever they please. Note, though, that such efforts will not be supported by me, and such forks might become very divergent from the core of the theme.

  2. Hi, Hope you enjoy the coffee.

    May I check with you how can I adjust Navigation bar drop down menu width? Some of my categories have long name and it not able to show up in full. Anyway to improve/edit? I went thru all option but no lucks. Thanks

  3. Just want to say that I love your theme witch made me to a web designer without any previous knowledge of web design. I will soon try to formulate a question on your excellent forum which is good help for someone like me to see possibilities of what is possible to do in web design:)

  4. Hi Sayontan,

    Your theme is brilliant and you are a rock star. I love your magazine template in particular and the tile layout, but I do have a request for future versions. I’d like to be able to have multiple ways to display the magazine template. Right now it has great customizability (is that a word?) but the settings are site-wide. If I wanted to show a home page with a featured content section and an excerpts setting, that’s fine. But what if, on a different page, I wanted to show the category blocks part from the magazine template? At the moment I can’t, because you can’t change the magazine settings for an individual page.

    My humble suggestion (and I am not a programmer) is to enable shortcodes to add magazine elements to a regular page or post! For instance, if at the bottom of my post I wanted to add the category blocks, allow a shortcode that lets the user specify parameters. i.e. [suffusion-mag-category id=9,12,13,15 cols=4 no=4] if I wanted to show categories 9, 12, 13, and 15 in a 4 column-wide category block showing the 4 most recent posts for each. (I probably did the multiple categories wrong though, sorry, not a programmer!).

    I have two more suggestions for the magazine template: one is to allow custom-post-types to be included in the template, and the other is to enable filtering by tag (you already have filtering by category).

    Anyways, please do not think of these as demands. I think your theme is the best thing since sliced bread and even if you disappeared off the face of the earth and Suffusion was left as-is for eternity, it would be a wonderful legacy.

    Hope you have a fabulous day!

    -Ali

    • There are certain workarounds. You can use an “Ad Hoc Widget area”, then use a “Category Posts” widget in that. There is a short-code for the widget area.

      • That was just an example. I have an events section of my website, and I’d love to be able to put the headlines section at the top of each post, saying “check out my other upcoming events.” I already have that on the front page, so if I was going to include that on a regular post or page, I’d like to have it be displayed the same way.

        A different site I’m working on I’d like to have excerpts show up at the bottom of certain posts – the excerpts being “testimonials” for work that the client has done, related to the content of the page. So it would be sort of like a related posts feature, except that again, I’d like it to display the same way it shows up on the front page.

  5. This theme is great. I dont think i will update at the moment though because everything is working fine 🙂

    • Do be mindful, though, that if you upgrade WP to 3.2 you might have issues with the back-end of Suffusion.

      • Hi Sayontan, since I’ve upgraded to WP 3.2.1 my Suffusion blog has became a blank page. I’ve tried to deactivate all the plugins, but nothing happens. Can you tell me if there are some compatibility issues?

        • There are no compatibility issues. Try manually reinstalling the theme using FTP or cpanel.

  6. Updated! definitely liked the fact now the Save and Reset button is fixed/static to the page, always was a pain in the butt the old way. Thanks.

  7. Oh, brilliant! Thank you so much!

  8. Would it be possible to make the custom post types independent of the theme? As it is now, the custom post types created in Suffusion don’t show up in other plugins (e.g. Custom post Type UI), and vice versa.

  9. Hi Ali,

    Thanks for creating a great theme. I’m still getting my head around trying to edit the theme and there are a some issues I am having with setting the page width. I want the page content to remain inline with the header width. Different screen sizes still compress the page and the move the main menu and images around. Is there a way to resolve this issue already – if so could you please direct me?

    I would also like to add an additional sub-banner (to contain a background and heading text) but cannot figure out the best way to do this either.

    Any help appreciated!

    Thanks,

    Claire

    Thanks

  10. Thank for your update!

    I love your theme because it’s support me very much. I dont know about html, css, web .. just plug and play…

    I also found some limit of previous version but 3.8.0 already improve it. I will be with you for developing this great themes to support more and more end users 🙂

  11. It is indeed an excellent theme. please tell, when you activate(introduce) the photo-blogging feature? Will you be displaying pictures in a gallery style pages?

  12. […] options. Suffusion also has a support forum and is so popular that you will find an answer to your Suffusion Theme questions should you search effectively enough. Suffusion is not alone in being free and leading in […]

  13. This is not a theme any longer, it’s a masterpiece of an framework 😀

  14. Hi How Can I make site like yours. I mean how to make blue space between columns. I downloaded your background image and inserted. But white spaces are still there. Look at right from comment it’s blue but mine is white. Did you get me? Good luck

  15. Issues with the right sidebar need to be addressed, clearing W3 cache didn’t seem to work as per a couple of users suggestions. But I absolutely love the theme

    • There is no issue with the right sidebar, reported or otherwise. If you have found one, please report it using the Support Forum.

  16. I love this theme. But there is one bug, which has ALWAYS annoyed me. Can you please fix the tables bug? You know the one, border=0 – and yet the border still shows up. The bordercolor tag, doesn’t even work.

    • There is no bug of this sort. Not sure what you are referring to. If you define the CSS for your tables appropriately they will work perfectly.

      • The best example I can explain, is to show a recent post, where border=0, yet the border still shows. If I need to edit the CSS, then that affects all tables, even those where I do want to show the border.

        Table Border=0 example

        • The link you have provided is dead. And CSS application doesn’t have to be global. You can use inline CSS by specifying the “style” attribute for a table.

  17. Issues with the right sidebar need to be addressed, clearing W3 cache didn’t seem to work as per a couple of users suggestions. But I absolutely love the theme

    • There are absolutely no issues with the right sidebar that I am aware of. So I have no idea what you are asking.

  18. Hello sayontan,
    great theme that I am using in my luthier site.
    I would but not understand how I can leave a empty space between tiles on a colum, just to make any post excerpt more visible. I mean the distance between tile in vertical, because the horizontal distance is good in my opinion.
    Where can I find the solution?
    Thank you very much,
    Antonello