Update on Suffusion Version 4.0.0

As alluded to earlier, I have been working quite furiously on version 4.0.0 the last few weeks. Broadly speaking this release doesn’t change too much of how the theme used to work, however there are a few major additions:

1. Mega-menus:
   I know that I have been dangling this carrot for a while, so hopefully the delivered functionality will be worth the wait. Suffusion will be the first free theme with this functionality, so no pressure.
2. Page layouts:
   I did mention this earlier – you will be able to associate a page template separate from a layout for your pages. This will let you utilize templates offered by plugins and bundle them together with a specific layout.
3. Custom Template Layouts: This is another biggie. You will be able to assign a “Custom Template” to a page. That will let you do some awesome layouts by utilizing widgets. E.g. if you want to create a product page, you will be able to define a specific layout that has one row with just one big featured slider, then two rows with 3 boxes each, with specific product features, then one row with 2 boxes, with testimonials and pricing options.
   If this feature isn’t good enough, you can create multiple pages with the custom template and either keep the same defaults across all of them, or create specific layouts for individual pages.
4. Since a very very long time I have had one particular feature request on my plate. Although this request is 2 years old, I have always had it in plan for different releases, but then pulled it when the releases became big. Even during the release of the Photonique skin I wanted to improve the look and feel for the Featured Content and I did make some changes for the same. Yet I chickened out at the last moment when it came to specific aspects of improving the look and feel. This time I bit the bullet and finally put it in place. The Featured Content now has options to do a whole lot of cool things in terms of look and feel.

In addition, the regular improvements to speed, performance and usability are included. I have finished coding all the major items and am hoping to wrap up development in a couple of weeks. As I mentioned, I will be pushing this release out for beta testing.