We are starting 2017 with a taste of what’s about to come. The last period we have been working on significant updates for our themes, starting with Meth and Ink.
An update for our Ink theme is now available that adds a handy of features and seals the compatibility with newly released WordPress version 4.7 and the Restrict Content Pro plugin. There is a ton of improvements and changes overall, and you can see the full change log here. In short, here is what’s new:
– Compatibility with built-in Header media functionality. Now you can easily add a video or image section to the top of your homepage via the customiser. On top of that, you can use a custom message for your visitors to show over these two elements.
– Deeper integration support with Restrict Content Pro plugin. Updated form styling and code, for seamless performance and user experience. Your paid users will get a smooth and intuitive flow, with a crisp design. Restrict Content Pro is a paid plugin that requires additional purchase. You can find more details here.
– Customizer panels are re-organized. We are following structural best practices from our experience as WordPress.com theme authors and we group any theme-related options under a unified “theme options” panel, which has grouped all options intuitively.
– Overall styling changes. Buttons are now filled by default, all forms have been re-designed based to data-informed design decisions to make sure that Ink is a future proof theme that you can rely on. Widgets are also re-styled and tested for viewport responsiveness.
– Content of static pages is separated from cover. Until now, your page content would show above (overlaid) the featured image / cover of the page. From now on, page cover and content are two separate elements, as it is commonly practiced.
– Refined code, with a developer-friendly approach. We understand the importance of having a solid foundation of non-obtrusive code to build on. We all live in an industry filled with plugins that need to be conflict-free and require clean, WordPress compliant code to work. Our focus is to keep things simple and allow the user to progressively enhance as required.
– Refined custom widgets. The widgets have significant UX and performance enhancements as we are in the process of standarizing our widget-based approach for layout setup.
We are really excited about this update and we are sure that it will be embraced by new and existing users. As an existing user, you might need to go through the theme options under Appearance > Customize > Theme options and make sure that everything runs smoothly. Let us know what you think of it in the comments section or on Twitter.
We wish everyone a happy and creative new year. Thank you for your support. There are great things on the way.
Cheers
John / Codestag
6 Responses
Gorgeous. I’m an old Ink customer and user and somehow this update fixed a bunch of little quirks and bugs that had accumulated over the years. I am more a fan of the theme now than I have ever been before.My only question is: where did the buttons for sharing to Facebook and Twitter at the bottom of posts go (two buttons used to be right above the comment section)?
Thanks for your input! We are really glad this worked for you as we took a lot of effort so the update is deployed safely on every existing installation. Thanks again!
I would like to see this theme getting portfolio support. Any chance of this happening any time soon ?
Francois
Hi there. Thanks for writing in. Regarding ink you may need to rely on an external portfolio plugin, as we do not plan to add portfolio support any time soon. But we just released an update to one of our Portfolio themes today, you should check it out it it interests you: https://codest.ag/wpMeth
Thanks!
Hi there – Ive had some trouble with my custom changes after the update but managed to fix it. Im happy with how the update looks, go ahead and take a look if you want: http://www.somsookheimwee.be!
Wow, thanks a lot for sharing that! I feel you regarding the update and some custom changes. We worked hard to provide the solution with the less damage, and overall the transition was smooth to everyone, except those cases that one would have to re-set some options. Apologies for this, but thanks for sticking with it, it’s a great theme and as I see you are really showing some flexible ways of using it. Best, John/