Suffusion Version 3.7.4 Update

I have finally managed to make all the changes that I needed to do except a couple for version 3.7.4, and I have managed to test almost all the scenarios. However, given that this has been a very tough release to do thanks to my having to adapt to multiple changes in the WP theme review requirements, I would like to push this out as a beta release before I submit it for review.

In brief, the changes have been multitudinous:

1. Complete removal of support for WP 2.9 and older. Let’s face it – version 3.0 of WP came out in mid-June 2010. 8 months should have been more than enough for folks to upgrade.
2. Migration to standard APIs of WordPress. This was a very very big task with high risk:
1. Change of admin panel to use WP’s Settings API. Getting this wrong can mean that you will lose all your options, so I had to be very sure I wasn’t breaking anything.
2. Complete replacement of TimThumb using native WP image resizing functionality. I have been particularly jittery about this one because if I mess this one up, you will be in image resizing hell.
3. Removal of all file open / CURL calls to switch to native WP calls.

There were several other changes (my change log stands at 40+ items). I will post instructions for how to obtain the beta and what to test for in my next post later today. Stay tuned.