We are very pleased to announce that Genesis 1.8 Beta is now available for users to test. Please remember that with all beta versions, we suggest that you do not use it on production sites. This update isn’t packed with features, but does have a few cool things to mention. (read the full list)
New Look for Genesis
As you can see, the default look for Genesis has been updated. We’ve also added 2 media queries to the style sheet, which makes it mobile responsive for devices such as the iPad and iPhone.
Click to view the updated Genesis demo.
We’ve also consolidated some of the CSS required for menus, which you can read about here.
New Features with Genesis 1.8
Check out the Genesis 1.8 changelog and you’ll see that a number of things were fixed, added and modified. One of the biggest features that we’ve added is the Color Styles function.
Many of our child themes have color styles, which are currently being made available by code that’s included in the child theme’s function file as well as an additional file found within a ‘lib’ folder.
The new code that is required in the child themes would look like this:
/** Create additional color style options */ add_theme_support( 'genesis-style-selector', array( 'agentpress-gray' => 'Gray', 'agentpress-green' => 'Green', 'agentpress-red' => 'Red', 'agentpress-tan' => 'Tan' ) );
As with all functions that end up being placed into a number of child themes (custom header, footer widgets, etc) we’ve extracted that code out of them and placed it in to Genesis core.
How to Upgrade to Genesis 1.8 Beta
One of the very cool features that we’ve included in Genesis 1.8 is the ability to automatically update to Beta versions of Genesis. This is similar to the WordPress Beta Tester plugin that exists – the only difference is that users won’t have access to the bleeding version of Genesis.
Because the Genesis Beta Tester plugin relies on code that’s in Genesis 1.8, users will have to force the auto update script by replacing code. (This will only be required this time around.)
Inside the lib/functions/upgrade.php file, on line 29 you’ll see this:
'genesis_version' => PARENT_THEME_VERSION,
Replace that with this:
'genesis_version' => '0.1.3.3.7',
Once you have that uploaded the file to your server, click on the Appearance link in your WordPress dashboard, then head to the Dashboard main page and you should see a notification to update to Genesis 1.8 Beta.
Moving forward, once users have Genesis 1.8 any beta versions that are released will prompt an auto update notice for those who have the Genesis Beta Tester plugin active.
Reporting Bugs with Genesis 1.8 Beta
If you are testing Genesis 1.8 Beta and would like to report a bug, please reply to this thread on our forums. Please do not use that for feature requests, as we are done adding those into Genesis 1.8.
Special Thanks to Our Community
We’d like to thank the following developers for their contributions with the update to Genesis v1.8: Jared Atchison, Charles Clarkson, Chris Cochran, Nick Croft, David Decker, Remkus de Vries, Bill Erickson, Gary Jones, Travis Smith and Ade Walker.
About Brian Gardner
What happens to the child theme when such an update comes along? Can I risk breaking everything or will it just pull what is not overwritten by the child theme? I am not done, but have hacked the child them Scribble extensively and while I do want responsiveness I do not want to have to start over
This update is to the Genesis parent stylesheet only. All of the other parts aside from Design (functions, features, etc) should not break your child theme. Of course it’s best to use the beta version in a test environment alongside your child theme, but our intent is to never have a Genesis update break a child theme.
Please Update default sample child theme too ? .
We will update the sample child theme once we officially release Genesis 1.8.
So how can i test this 1.8 version ? do i need to activate genesis parent theme and test it ?
Yes – we’ve instructions in this post that walk you through how to upgrade to the 1.8 Beta version.
Thanks a lot for your reply .
To clarify, you don’t need to *activate* the Genesis theme itself. You keep your child theme activated, but use the beta tester plugin to update the Genesis theme that powers the bits underneath the child theme.
I assume there is more to adding color styles to a custom child theme than just adding the theme support line. I have a couple of custom themes with their own color styles. Should I look for some info on the Developer site in the near future? Thanks.
Actually – there shouldn’t be anything more. (assuming you have defined your own color style CSS). The function that we’ve put into Genesis 1.8 basically replicates what we had in child themes. It will add body class that you pass through the array and also place the drop down menu with labels into the Theme Settings page.
Very cool. So just put your images into images/colorstyle, add the code to your style.css and put the add_theme_support call into functions.php. Slick.
Also, is there an option or could there be an option available to Network admins to enable the Header and Footer Scripts metabox on specific sites in a Network installation? I think now this metabox is only visible to super admins, but there are some sites where the site admins are responsible and could be trusted with access to this metabox. Thanks.
Loving these updates. Keep up the good work genesis devs.
Nice.
Great stuff Brian
(ps. small typo under ‘New Look for Genesis’ section – “mobile responive”)
Eeek, thanks for pointing that out. Updated.
Thanks for the updates. Keep em coming!
Great news, thanks!
I’ve been waiting for this new Genesis Framework for a while… Very excited to see what it can do!
This is a great news. Great Genesis guys.
What is the best way for me to get started and learn about how to create my own blog and WordPress? Can someone help me get started?
We recommend this guide for learning Genesis: http://www.studiopress.com/news/genesis-for-beginners.htm
For learning WordPress, the book WordPress for Dummies is a great resource. Some videos here: http://ca.dummies.com/how-to/internet/Blogging-Social-Networking/Blogging/WordPress.html
Guys, how come no HTML 5?
HTML5 support is on the roadmap for Genesis 1.9. (like at the very top of that list)
Cheers, Brian. The obvious question – How far off is 1.9?
That should be a few months away – not sure how many, though!
Great new default layout!
Great news, I love the responsive design feature. I’m wondering if it is something that can be easily disabled (just commenting a few lines in the CSS), because I’m planning to offer it as a “premium” feature for my customers (at least at the moment).
Great job!
This is something we’re still working through as it might simply be an option that we make available. (to turn on/off the responsive CSS)
Hi Brian,
It would be perfect for my purposes. It will make really easy to offer it as a premium feature for web designers.
Thanks for your answer,
Daniel.
To follow up on this, there won’t be an option to disable the responsive stuff, so it’s a Good Thing to have generally. If you have your own clients, then you can comment out or delete the responsive styles until they’ve paid for the premium.
I loved the re-innovated Genesis Framework But I have a really serious doubt about Flexible design. Does flexibility violate the Google Adsense policy. Since it may automatically changes width I have doubt if it is compatible with Adsense.
Can you point to a specific point in the terms and conditions which mentions this?
What I’d REALLY LOVE to see in Genesis is a button with all available shortcodes when I write a new article. Other plugins do have that and sometimes even show visually what any given shortcode puts out. So I’d love to have something like that in Genesis so I don’t have to remember shortcodes at all. Every time I look at a theme demo I see again ‘aha, I can have different columns, but how do I use them?’. So a button for that would be nice. And then you could say in all your demos: ‘don’t know how to add that beautiful 3 part column? Well, there’s a button for that.’ Thanks.
Yeah. I agree, Sebastian. It would really be helpful.
Shortcodes aren’t overly useful, as they tie you in to using that theme or plugin, and your content shouldn’t be tied in. However, what I have proposed, and what might well appear as a plugin, is a way to easily get the markup (element + class attribute) appearing in a style dropdown, much like you’d use to style a h1, or as seen in MS Word. Still a UI like you’d want, but keeps the content from being populated with shortcodes.
Genesis has changed my way of producing websites. Each update is something new, something useful, something profitable for us. Thank you Brian.
Just updated! Everything looks fine so far. Will keep you updated if something explodes.
What timeline do you have for the stable release of 1.8 to be ready.
I would also be interested in a rough release estimate. I would prefer to start developing my current project with the responsive theme from the very start, so I can see how the responsive layout will affect the design.
We are releasing it this morning.
good timing
cheers!
This is great news! I have been holding off from starting a couple of projects. I look forward to getting them started this weekend. Can’t wait. Thanks for all you do. It’s a great product.
Does the responsive design work on all child themes or only the default Genesis theme?
It will only be the Genesis theme (since it’s part of the theme’s style.css), but other child themes may well be updated to incorporate versions of it.
Ugggg When I updated to 1.8 the lifestyle color scheme picker disappeared! I put back the old Genesis and it came back and then upgraded again and it disappeared again What gives?
You must be using a style.php file that was using older cold, and was using a hook that was deprecated. Which theme was it?
Lifestyle Child Theme 2.0 I just downloaded it probably less then 30 days ago from your studiopress.
BUG in Genesis 1.8.0
FYI. Since a “wp_reset_query()” function has been written into “genesis_site_layout()” (line 299 lib\functions\layout.php) any custom query applied in “functions.php” is being erased at the last moment. This means that any function in “functions.php” relying on information set into $wp_query is now broken.
For example: a custom SQL query that uses a “meta_value” to narrow results down within a particular author’s archive would normally return the number of just those narrowed results in “$wp_query->found_posts”. Now however, the same query returns the number of posts for the entire author’s archive (ignoring the “meta_value” qualifier).
These kinds of custom queries were not affected in previous versions of Genesis. Commenting out the aforementioned line solves this problem.
Thanks for reporting this Justin, I’ve created a ticket in the Genesis Trac for this, and we’ll have our team review it.
How are you modifying your query? You should be making your modifications to the main query before it is run using the pre_get_posts hook like this. That way wp_reset_query() will include your query customizations because they were included in main query (which it restores).
More information: http://www.billerickson.net/customize-the-wordpress-query/