Following my 2-year hiatus and the post last night, I was mentally prepared to go back and forth with the theme review team a few times on the approval of the latest version of Suffusion. Surprisingly, though, version 4.4.8 of Suffusion got approved within a few hours of submission!
Here is the gist of changes:
- Removed Features:
- Removed inbuilt custom post types functionality (multiple plugins exist in this area).
- Removed inbuilt shortcodes – The Suffusion Shortcodes plugin, with the exact same functionality has existed for a while now.
- Removed call to deprecated constructor WP_Widget
- Removed OpenID support (external plugins exist)
- Removed SEO plugin-like features from theme. This is what I alluded to in my previous post.
- Added Features:
- This is the only true addition: The
gallerypost format has been improved to consider scenarios that I hadn’t considered earlier. This is, in part, due to the enhancements that WP has made over the years to thegalleryshortcode. - A couple of zero-impact additions: I added a required CSS class for accessibility, and theme support for
title-tag. This was necessary to get the theme to pass the checks.
- This is the only true addition: The
- Changes and Fixes:
- Updated the theme to use latest WP features.
- One of the guidelines that was preventing me from changing the theme was how I used to save options (upon activation). So this time I bit the bullet and changed the functionality such that changes are saved only when you explicitly save options.
- I sanitized the call to echo($_GET[…]) in the backend.
- There was an issue and its fix outlined by Drake here. I put this in the theme.
I did notice some questions on the forums inquiring about script vulnerabilities, so I wanted to spend some time talking about it. The WordPress team takes security and vulnerabilities very seriously, and they have methods to track down themes with security holes. Now, Suffusion itself doesn’t use any third-party PHP scripts. Around 5 years back I had TimThumb, which I replaced with WP’s native resizer. Incidentally, several months after my making the switch, a severe issue was detected in TimThumb, and every theme on the theme repository that used TimThumb was suspended till the author changed it. Suffusion escaped the axe, because I had already taken care of this earlier. Then later, WP found an issue in one of its own functions. So it went after every theme that was using that function on a page facing the public. This was pretty recently, and again, Suffusion escaped the axe.
The point of saying the above is, Suffusion is in a pretty stable state, and the only cases when I have to change the theme are when a vulnerability has been discovered in it (which, touching a lot of wood, hasn’t happened), or if some new WP functionality has broken Suffusion code (which caused me to release version 4.4.7). In either of these cases, I am very quick to respond, since the theme’s massive user-base gets affected if I don’t.
WP also has a policy of removing themes older than 2 years from the search results. This doesn’t mean the theme has vulnerabilities – it only means that the theme has functionality that might not now be compatible with WordPress. You can always still get to the theme directly from WP through the theme’s URL (it is only eliminated from the search results). WP truly removes a theme only if it has security vulnerabilities, violates GPL or copyright laws, or has its developer put in a request to kill the theme.
Hope you have no issues with working the theme!
Great news that it was approved so quickly.
I have already started to receive Wordfence notifications to update Suffusion!
I started to build a new site today and so have updated that already and will use it for ‘testing’ but given the details in your post I don’t expect any issues.
It is great that it is back easily available on WordPress.org.
Thanks for 4.4.8
I’m a little embarrassed for funds at present, but when I can, I’ll send you enough for a pot of coffee! A many thanks for the upgrade! I’ve been tempted to change themes over the years, but Suffusion just looks so good… đŸ™‚
I thought I was riding a dead horse. It’s good to know there’s still life in it yet!
Great to see the new version of Suffusion…man we have missed you! Can’t wait to test it.
Sayontan, thank you very much for the time and effort you continue to devote to Suffusion!
Thanks, no problem with latest version.
Well, with 1 million downloads, it’s good to know there is still movement. I’ll already be happy if it gets updated just to be compatible with WordPress updates, even without any new stuff đŸ™‚
Great news, Sayontan. Well done. đŸ™‚
Hi Sayontan,
Hope you are keeping well. When I say thank you, it’s from a spirit filled heart. So ‘thank you’ and blessings your way. You are still one of the top out there. Say hi to Drake.
Hi Sayontan, Hope you’re keeping well. When I say thank you, it’s from a spirit filled heart. So ‘thank you’ and blessings your way. You are still one of the top out there. Say hi to Drake. One coffee coming up.
Forgot it was my wife,s author link. :-/ So now it’s from Cari & Moz
Just upgraded to Suffusion 4.4.8 and Woo Commerce product pages have been changed from full page to narrow middle column only. Any advice would be appreciated.
added url buckscountybiscotti.com
Doesn’t seem like you are using Suffusion Commerce Pack. Can you activate this plugin and let me know if you are still seeing issues?
Sayontan, thank you. Reactivated Commerce Pack as you suggested & that was the issue. On another issue, our Woo Commerce Checkout page is failing intermittently. They have instructed me to deactivate all plugins and reactivate them one at a time to find the possible culprit causing this problem. Are you aware of any conflicts between Suffusion theme and Woo Commerce? Your assistance is appreciated.
Sayontan, it was not a conflict with Suffusion, as I believe you already know. Of all things, Woo and the WordPress Firewall 2 plugins were misbehaving. Now searching for a non-conflicting firewall plugin. Tnx for your help.
Sayontan, I am very happy to see you coming back. I never lose my hope for a new release of Suffusion.
As you started to upgrade also the plugins from repository, maybe can take a look to Suffusion Custom Post Types – http://www.drafie-design.nl/suffusion-custom-post-types-and-wordpress-3-6/
Also, maybe Suffusion Commerce Pack need to be updated: (http://www.drafie-design.nl/themed-jigoshop-1-8/)
Thank you for being again with us đŸ™‚
Thanks, Drake. As you have probably seen, I patched Suffusion Commerce Pack. Regarding Suffusion Custom Post Types, I don’t intend to keep maintaining it. There are multiple plugins that do the job very well for custom post types, and the only reason I had this plugin was to help assist people who were going to change themes.
I have also been on a mission to update my other plugins. FontMeister went in today, and Photonic will follow soon. Truth be told, Photonic was my only WP project that I was able to keep updated, mainly because it was a lot easier to fix things there.
Yes, Sayontan, I saw that you’ve updated everything. And it is a great relief to see you back, working on WordPress stuffs.
Thank you very much.
Thank you Sayontan
Sayontan, great to see you back with 4.4.8! I must confess I reluctantly moved off Suffusion earlier in the year but I am looking forward to checking out your new release this weekend with relish. Will send you a coffee or two later. Keep up the great work.
having upgraded, we now have a problem displaying the content of posts. individual posts display header but no content. all other pages render correctly.
Here are some links:
Front page:
http://www.rspbgravesend.org.uk works ok
Topic page:
http://www.rspbgravesend.org.uk/topics/members-posts/
work ok
but an individual post like:
http://www.rspbgravesend.org.uk/2015/11/more-ring-necked-parakeets/
does not.
any thoughts greatly appreciated.
My guess is, something is wrong with the single.php in your child theme. When I view your source code, I see that the content gets cut off right after printing the header. That would be indicative of a call to a missing function.
thanks Sayontan
My colleague has had a look and has partly resolved the problem. He has told me the following…
I added the debug statements in wp-config.php file.
This showed the following:
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /home/rspbgrav/public_html/wp/wp-content/themes/suffusion/post-formats/content-gallery.php on line 36
This is used by ‘gallery’ type posts. Unfortunately, for us, this is (was) our default.
The line is question is:
if (!is_single()) {
if (has_post_thumbnail()) {
// use the thumbnail (“featured image”)
$thumb_id = get_post_thumbnail_id();
}
else {
$attachments = get_children(
array(
‘post_parent’ => get_the_ID(),
‘post_status’ => ‘inherit’,
‘post_type’ => ‘attachment’,
‘post_mime_type’ => ‘image’,
‘order’ => ‘ASC’,
‘orderby’ => ‘menu_order ID’,
‘numberposts’ => 1,
)
);
if (!empty($attachments)) {
$thumb_id = array_keys($attachments)[0];
}
}
So – thinking it might be due to thumbnails I kicked off a thumbnail re-generation. This will take several hours, but early results suggests does NOT cure the problem.
I therefore tried changing the post type to standard. This DID work! It has some artefacts – such as extra image in the top left, but I think we can live with that until this is resolved.
I have therefore updated the forthcoming and most recent posts to be ‘standard’ format. And I have changed the default post type to ‘standard’ as well.
… as he says, this has fixed our problem, but we cannot use Gallery format posts at the moment.
Is there something we are doing wrong or are missing, or could we have unearthed a problem in the changes you made to the Gallery format?
thank you for looking at this for us.
regards
Alan
That is weird. Which version of PHP are you on? What I have put in is very standard code. One thing you might want to try is, splitting that line into this:
See if that works.
hi Sayontan
We are using PHP version 5.2.17
We can ask if it is possible to have this upgraded.
We did the amendment that you suggested.
This does stop the parsing error and results in the page being displayed.
However, it is not quite behaving as it used to – previously selecting the gallery format meant that the featured image was NOT displayed. Now it is displayed full width at the top of the content.
The result is quite pleasing, however, other that the picture could be repeated further down the article as the author would not have been expecting it to have displayed ‘automatically’ previously.
See for example the post:
http://www.rspbgravesend.org.uk/2015/05/stodmarsh-may-trip-report-2/
It is odd that we are always executing that piece of code – is that the ‘normal’ route if a featured image is selected?
thanks once again for your help.
Alan
Great to see an update, all our sites have worked great. Still the best!
I think I have made good use of the theme on this site, so feel free to add to your links.
Starting to integrate Woocommerce and trying to turn off the image zoom. Any tips on where this file is hidden? If it was straight woocommerce I’d be looking for “woocommerce/templates/single-product/product-image.php”
I have sorted my issue – the file I want hasn’t moved đŸ™‚
Greetings and thank you, as always, for creating this wonderful theme. It has helped me a great deal.
As of the latest update, the author information is not displaying. Instead, of seeing the name of the author and the author’s bio, the shortcodes are displayed.
[suffusion-the-author]
[suffusion-the-author display=’description’]
Whatever I’m doing wrong, I’m sure it is easy to fix. I am using the latest versions of WP and Suffusion. Any suggestions to correct this would be greatly appreciated.
The simplest reason I can think of is that you are not using the Suffusion Shortcodes plugin.
Yes, sir! That was exactly the issue. I didn’t think to look for that plugin since the codes were working before the update. After installing the plugin, everything is working just fine.
Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!
Many thanks for updating Suffusion! I was a little worried that you didn’t have enough time for this… I’m a librarian, not a professional website developer, and I managed to put together a website using your theme: wyckofflibrary.org
Didn’t want to start all over (although it was fun, it took a long time) and our new director loves the website.
I am wholeheartedly delighted to see you “back,” and to learn that Suffusion lives on. Thank you for the updates!