We are very happy to announce that the Church 4.0 theme is now available. This theme is the fourth to be professionally optimized by Joost de Valk, who is on our development team. Because of the amount of optimizations/changes to the theme files, it will require you to load the new version.
For those of you who have already purchased the Church theme package, you can download the latest copy in the Theme Download thread in the support forums. All others can purchase the Church theme package here.
New Theme Options
We are also very happy to announce that a new options page has been built for the Church theme which is more efficient and includes additional options.
Auto-Sized Thumbnails
Another awesome feature with this version of Church is the ability to now display automatically generated thumbnails on the homepage. You can see that the sizes of your thumbnails can be configured on the options page.
Support For Localization
Another awesome feature that is included with the Church theme is support for localization. We have been asked numerous times if our themes can be localized, and we are going to make sure that all of them can be internationalized into different languages.
Sidebar eNews & Updates
In previous versions of the Church theme, we required the use of a text widget to display the Google/Feedburner eNews & Updates section. We felt that was a bit clunky, so we’ve now included the ability to enable/disable that section from within the dashboard, and provide a box for you to place your Feed ID.
Here’s a screenshot of how the new Church theme options looks:
About StudioPress
Great. Been waiting for this one. I think you may have forgot to do a find and replace on your copy and paste though.
Glad to hear it, and yes I did a bad copy/paste job – just fixed that!
You have based this on the LifeStyle theme. I can tell because the colours are messed up. If the content loads before the images, the colours from the LifeStyle theme show up. I think you should change that back to the way the old theme worked where it had matching colours underneath the images.
Ack, thanks – missed that when doing the updates. I believe the download file now has the proper hexcodes.
Brian, the bg color in the header is still that of Lifestyles. Just an FYI.
Thanks, fixed.
Excellent news Brian!
I think this is my favorite (and most used) Studiopress theme, so it looks like I’ve got some upgrading to do.
Thanks Kyle, have fun upgrading!
please consider to add free updates to those who have this theme prior to exclusive membership.
Yippee – my fav theme, and most used too.
Joost – Is this version more SEO friendly?
Nice!
I believe this version is much more SEO friendly.
Yes, it is.
Sweet – my favorite of the bunch
Thanks guys!
You bet Chris – glad we can update it for you then!
Can I just purchase the theme by itself? How do I do that? I don’t want to get even the Basic Package because I know how to set up my own WP installation. Thanks.
Are you looking for the theme without support and tutorials?
Nevermind. I think I’ve found the info. $59.95 is the cheapest package for a theme, right? I thought I had to pay a minimum fo $195 for a theme.
If there is a cheaper package (theme only, no support and tutorials), do let me know. I’m a programmer so I know how to figure out stuff; I’m just not much of a designer. Otherwise $59.95 is still a good price.
You’ve probably already seen this, but for $199.95 you can get all of the themes, plus additional StudioPress releases – it includes support, but even if you never use that, you’re only paying $16.67 a theme. That’s an even better deal
http://www.studiopress.com/themes/pro-plus
Brian, since you have mentioned it, do you do an option to just purchase the theme, without support or tutorials?
you can purchase the theme by itself here: http://www.studiopress.com/themes/lifestyle It includes access to support and tutorials, but no other installation/configuration.
Will my styles.css modified for the previous version still work, or will I have to redo the changes? I guess upgrading to an existing site is a little risky?
unfortunately, because so many files have changed, it will be necessary to replace all of the files. You should be able to import your existing style sheet, but all other files will change. I’d suggest setting up the new version in a subfolder and making changes there to see if it will work for you.
1. If I purchase just the Church theme, will I be able to download future revisions/versions of this same theme at no additional cost?
2. Is it possible for me to set up the website so that only certain users can edit a certain part of the website – let’s say, this page or that category? We’re looking at using this for a number of youth ministries and giving each youth ministry a category or page so that they can then log in using their own username/password and author their own section.
Carson, yes – you’ll certainly be able to download future versions at no additional cost. I don’t think you’ll be able to have that much control over who can edit specific pages, it’s more on a global level.
Thanks Brian.
How do you get the featured content to stream across the page? Mine doesn’t do that
there’s a tutorial for using the Featured Content Gallery in the support forum – feel free to ask questions/review the tutorials, and we’ll do what we can to help!
Hi Brian. Can you tell me how can i add one more “Homepage Featured Left” and “Homepage Featured Right” widget in my Church Theme Options. I’ll appreciate it.
We have several posts in the Support Forum that show how.