The World’s Most User-Friendly WordPress Theme Just Got Friendlier

by Rick Beckman on October 2, 2008 · 12 comments

in Journal

I am proud to announce the release of version 1.2 of the incomparable WordPress theme Thesis!

Version 1.2 has been dubbed by Chris the “user-friendly version.” I prefer to think of it as Thesis 1.2, the “KingdomGeek got to dip his finger into the code” edition.

In addition to my work supporting Thesis, Chris has allowed me to grow in my role by contributing custom code to the core itself. I won’t point out which things I did — most of them are minor and may only be appreciated by me, actually — but I am very pleased to announce that 1.2 resolves issues with using custom images in the multimedia box on Dreamhost and other hosts which limit upon which images getimagesize() works.

What’s new in 1.2?

I wrote this announcement based on 2 or 3 day old code. In that brief time, several features sneaked into the release: customize avatar size, optionally display comment number, ability to specify links on rotator images, ability to make author names link to author archives, ability to add “nofollow” to the aforementioned author archive links, and likely several more I may have missed!

In no particular order, here are some of the new features! Many of these were added as a direct result of feedback from users on the support forums, and I can attest that these new features will fulfill a lot of user desire.

Note that all of these features are handled via Thesis’ control panel — no code mongering required!

  • Ability to show Comments # in post/page bylines.
  • Ability to show post categories.
  • Ability to disable comments on all pages — comments on pages are no longer decided by using specific template files!
  • Optional older/newer post navigation on single post views.
  • Control over whether archive views show post titles, post contents, or post excerpts.
  • Ability to add a “nofollow” attribute not only to tag links but also to tag archives.
  • Ability to show edit links on posts and comments (for site admins, not for commenters).
  • Ability to show tags on individual pages or on index/archive pages or both.
  • Ability to show an admin link in the footer of your page all the time, only for logged in users, or never.

In addition to all those new options, there is a new custom field which you can use to set custom descriptions on posts and pages, which will be output in the meta section of your header!

There are numerous other changes under the hood — consolidation of certain theme content, better search engine optimization, and more!

What are you waiting for? Get it!

Thesis WordPress Theme

Disclosure: Links to Thesis and DIYthemes in this post are affiliate links; I also work for DIYthemes.

Enhance Your Blog with Thesis

What do you look for in a WordPress theme? Loads of options? Unsurpassed support? A beautiful base style?

Look no further than Thesis, the premier WordPress theme framework from the one and only Chris Pearson.

Rock solid semantics. Bulletproof search engine optimization. Crystal clear typography. And more options than you can shake a stick at. What are you waiting for? Get Thesis today!

2 linkbacks

Thesis Theme v1.2 | Mathew Packer
October 2, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Blog Roundup for the 2nd of October 2008 :: Christopher Ross
October 26, 2008 at 7:52 pm

10 responses in this conversation. Join in!

1 Jay Thompson October 2, 2008 at 9:19 pm

Rick, you and Chris are my hero’s. Thesis just keeps getting better and better….

2 Satish Talim October 2, 2008 at 10:54 pm

Great news! Now back to changing my blog to the new version.

3 dinu October 2, 2008 at 11:20 pm

awesome !!! so you are part of thesis team… :) good good .. and to work with someone like Chris, is simple awesome !!

I am playing with his themes and trying to learn : hmm I edited copyblogger theme lately, have a look and give some feedback :)

4 Birdfreak October 3, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Awesome job! I will install this as soon as I can get off work!

5 Patrick K. O'Brien October 3, 2008 at 1:06 pm

Thanks for the announcement, Rick. It’s good to see that Chris let you get your feet wet working on the code. Watch out, though – it can be addicting. Next thing you know, you’ll be spending all your time coding. :-)

6 Rick Beckman October 3, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Patrick K. O’Brien: I already spend a good deal of my time supporting the product. Having a (small) part in coding it will make the support side all the easier — after all, I’ll know the product *that* much better! :)

Everyone: Thanks for your comments. :)

7 Bill Ward October 7, 2008 at 6:51 am

Just downloaded and updated — still have a lot to learn about all of thesis’ capabilities, but it’s been worth every penny so far. Really impressed.

And now I have my edit button!

8 Chris October 8, 2008 at 7:10 am

Hey,

Does thesis although custom php in the sidebar like the multimedia box?

9 Rick Beckman October 8, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Chris: Using the hooks, you can use PHP to output content before or after the sidebars, actually. If you’re more specific with what you want to do, I’ll let you know more of the details.

10 Donace October 12, 2008 at 4:51 pm

wow I hadn’t been on your site for a while and wow big change (*goes and subscribes*)

Nice new theme! Like the new name and all!

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