One of our favorite aspects of building and maintaining a WordPress theme like Standard Theme is that we have an amazing community. It’s rewarding to see you guys run this theme, customize this theme, and blog with this theme, all while engaging with us and one another in the forums and via Twitter.
Over the past few months, we’ve continued to see more and more people migrating their blog over to Standard Theme with amazing success and tangible results. The influx of new members to the Standard family, who continue to use Standard Theme in new and (*ahem*) unanticipated ways, has given us the privilege to see some areas that needed improvement in the codebase, the user experience, or both.
The great news is that we’ve been working hard behind the scenes and today we’re releasing Standard Theme 2.5 in which we’ve introduced over 40 fixes, improvements, and features! Check ‘em out…
Bug Fixes
- Custom.css can now override css3.css.
- Modified the Standard Theme link in the footer to default to StandardTheme.com when not configured for affiliate usage.
- Updated the WordPress 3.0 custom menu functionality so that it doesn’t display home link for each menu.
- “Continue Reading…” persists through the Search and Archive pages.
- Removed PHP short tags for increased web host compatibility.
- Added CSS3 styling to the trackback / pingback container.
- Updated the framework functions to properly register jQuery if it isn’t already included.
- Changed entry list items to use bullets instead of letters.
Improvements
- Removed the Flickr widget as it slowed down performance and can be installed as a plugin.
- Author box now links Twitter, Facebook, and Blog URL to the information specified in the user’s WordPress profile.
- Breadcrumbs now contained in an unordered list for easier styling.
- Removed TweetMeme and added the new Twitter sharer.
- Removed self-hosted jQuery Option.
- Localization improvements.
- Advertisements now open in a blank window.
- Page Navigation localization.
- Added ID’s to the footer and header elements.
- Equally spaced copyright, pipe, and “Powered by” in footer.
- Added spaces after commas in post_meta for easier readability.
- Added break-word to entry content and comments.
- Removed superfish.js and pngfix.js for improved page load performance.
- Added a meta description to pages and posts. Pages get the blog subtitle, posts get the excerpt.
- Removed links to header tags in the single and post pages.
- Using our own “no conflict” version of jQuery to combat compatibility issues with other plugins.
- Changed “Personal Blog” to “Website” in author box.
- Updated the Theme Version detection for those whose server’s don’t handle it.
- Advertisements have no link if no default link is specified.
- Updated custom.css and style.css to note updating the custom.css, not copying the entire stylesheet.
- Admin panel links to open targets in new window.
New Features
- Added a framework option for hiding the navigation in the footer.
- Added support for three WordPress custom menus.
- Added body_class() to the opening body tag.
- Added post_class() to the post tag.
- Upgraded to jQuery 1.4.4.
- Gave content a span tag with an id for easy Evernote clipping.
- Added “Display Website Link?” option to Author Box Settings.
- Updated the Follower Count widget to a new version. Now includes the ability to reset the cache.
- Localized the comment “Reply” link.
- Added a link to the new documentation in the admin panel.
Standard Theme is constantly under development and we want to say thanks to everyone that’s contacted us via email and the forums with feedback and general questions about the theme. Many of these fixes are based on what we’ve heard from you guys.
If you’re a Support License holder, you can grab the theme in the forums; otherwise, head over to the Standard Theme site and grab a copy.
#win. Good stuff.
Great work guys, once again.
Thanks Kyle!
holla!
:hollas:
I can’t wait to try this out! But I’m loath to discover how much I hacked apart the standardtheme.php file in some of my customizations….
There’s definitely room for improvement in Standard. Especially at the level that you’re talking about.
Perhaps the next version will mitigate that
.
Ha, I’m just worried I won’t remember what I did to all my ST sites that will disappear once I upgrade them
I’m sure the code is perfect.
For now, at the level of detail you’re making changes at, creating a child theme of Standard Theme is certainly the way to go!
This is good stuff. Looking forward to looking under the hood. I love this —>
“Added a meta description to pages and posts. Pages get the blog subtitle, posts get the excerpt.”
Good for SEO
.
I don’t see the turn off the footer nav option.
I would have posted this in the forum, but the download thread is closed.
Check out the last option in the “Framework Options.” Should be good to go.
hello. duh. thanks.
Also… open a new thread
! Michael loves you guys.
#fact
Chris
I do love all of you! Hugs for everyone!
Can I make a request to have the “notify me of follow up comments via email” plugin BUILT IN to the theme? I think that’s one everyone wants and it would save us a plugin install.
Absolutely, Kevin. Noted. Appreciate it!
Kevin:
You speak to my heart man. We love love love sparing everyone from plugin installs! Also, we will be upgrading our support area soon to better enable the gathering and promoting of feature requests.
Thanks for this one!
Chris
FTW!
sweeeet.
was just about to buy it, so glad i procrastinated until after this update! haha
Is the upgrade free?
Hey Karl.
The update is no additional charge if you have the Support License but not if you purchased the Standard License.
We keep the most recent version of Standard available in our support forums. So anyone who purchases the Support License (which is a one-time purchase) gets updates for life.
You can upgrade here: http://standardtheme.com/upgrade
Chris
Nice.
Now to convince the wife that I need to upgrade….
Erik:
Upgrade once and you’ll never have to ask again! You’ll have lifetime version updates and access to our support area.
Chris
Chris,
I’m planning on it. I just purchased a Standard License at the beginning of the year and I love it so far. I just need to space out my spending.
Of course, I’d love to pay for the upgrade through income on the blog. I just need to sit down and come up with a plan to make it happen!
Erik
Great! Headed to the Forum!!
Just installed it on my site and did a little re-design! Thanks guys! You all rock my world.
Is it possible to get a CHANGES documentation to this, so we know which files have been updated?
As I have already customized version 2.0 this would be extremely useful.
Mike,
Unfortunately, the current changes are strewn across the entire theme and we made some significant under the hood changes such that if you were even just to update a few files, other customizations would likely break.
As such, updating the entire theme is highly recommended.
That said, this is arguably our highest priority for the next version of Standard Theme and we will be adopting it starting with our next major release.
Thanks!
Tom