It has been a while since I provided a Suffusion update, with Photonic having consumed most of my development time. However, with the first version of Photonic out of the gates I can now get back to Suffusion.
Contrary to my promise earlier, this release of Suffusion is not small in terms of a change log:
- The bulk of the changes deal with performance. On the admin page side of things I have cut down memory usage a fair bit and now the back-end is a lot more responsive. On the front-end things were tougher to optimize because already a lot of things were quite heavily optimized.
- I have also isolated several bits and pieces into separate files – breadcrumbs, menus, site footer, individual post header and footer etc. This will help you override things much easier in a child theme.
- I have built in some rather nice breadcrumb functionality which is a lot broader than something that just applies to pages. Stay tuned.
- There are some other small changes to facilitate ease of use/migration.
- One of the key things mentioned to me in the previous release by a reviewer is that since I am offering the capability to use custom headers and custom backgrounds, I should use the native WP functionality. While custom backgrounds were rather easy to provide, the custom header piece is proving to be a major headache. WP requires you to define a header width upfront, which is not possible in Suffusion thanks to the fact that your page width is fully customizable. I believe this feature can be overridden with a hook, but I have, at this point, decided to give it a rest and revisit it when I have had a good rest. Once I am done with this feature I should be able to release this version.
A full change log will be published once I release the theme, and that will happen as soon as I am done with the native Custom Header Image functionality.
Once I am done with this release it will be back to focusing on Photonic and a new font management plugin that I have visualized. Also, the release after 3.8.3 of Suffusion should have a new skin. I do want to build one that is more conducive for photo-blogging, but I am in two minds whether I should release it as a part of Suffusion’s core or as a separate child theme. Right now the child theme route is looking very tempting, because that way I don’t have to burden Suffusion’s core.
Hi Sayontan, Your Suffusion is listed as theme that has TimThumb (see: http://blog.sucuri.net/2011/08/timthumb-security-vulnerability-list-of-themes-including-it.html). This was posted in August. I’ve seen that you don’t use it yet, but Suffusion is on the list. Maybe they refer to older versions, of course, but my point is this: It’s very hard to find on your site the info that Suffusion is TimThumb-free since version X.
Because you do so many updates, I’ve stopped updating because it was impossible to manage on clients’ sites. I’m guessing many others did that too… May I suggest a clear post about TimThumb with a clear mention of the versions that are safe and those that aren’t?
Thanks
Marie-Andree
Marie-Andree,
If you see the list of comments for that blog post, I have very clearly disputed the use of TimThumb on that site (see http://blog.sucuri.net/2011/08/timthumb-security-vulnerability-list-of-themes-including-it.html#comment-278026560).
I did that too, a month back, shortly after the article you linked came out. See here: https://aquoid.com/news/2011/08/recent-timthumb-exploit-and-its-impact-on-you/.
Apart from this I don’t know what more to do – I have disputed the original article through its comments, and I posted a prominent message on my own site. A Google search for “Suffusion TimThumb” will show you my post at the top of the search results, searching for “TimThumb” on this site will give you my post at the top, and at the time of your writing this, the post regarding TimThumb is on the first page.