Chris Pearson announced that Thesis 1.4 is now available for download. I actually found out by following Chris on Twitter. Thesis 1.4 adds some really nice new features:
- A new multiple-instance sidebar widget – The widget ads the ability to display posts from any category. The widget ads the ability to choose whether to only show posts from a certain category, select how many posts to list, and select whether or not to display how many comments the post has. Multiple-instance means you can ad as many of these as you want (read: one for each category if you would like).
- Say good-bye to painful custom fields – Thesis 1.4 ads new post editing options that replace the need for custom fields.
- Post images and thumbnail features – These new features add a number of options and features to increase the visual flexibility of your site. Chris is going to announce more on this in the official announcement post coming later today.
- Improved Options pages – Not only are there more options, the pages have been reorganized to make them more usable. There are also lots of new options to customize the new features.
- Feature box – I’m looking forward into digging into this one. Right now, it’s just a hookable element that you can position in various places around your site. Chris teases us though and says “Expect this box to gain a healthy set of customization options in future release of Thesis“. Great, 1.4 just came out and I already can’t wait for 1.5!
- Features and Teasers – This is the most exciting feature for me. Features are displayed just like normal blog posts (but customizable via the custom CSS file). Teasers are a new and customizable way to display your posts. Teasers have lots of various options that allow you to customize how they are displayed. No more having to use plugins and I can’t wait to dig in and start playing around with teasers. You can even change the fonts!
Upgrading to Thesis 1.4
Upgrading is painless. The only big restriction is that Thesis 1.4 now works only on WordPress 2.7. To upgrade, just download the Thesis 1.4 files and upload them to the thesis directory on your site. Login to your WordPress admin console, head over to the Thesis Options page, click on the Big A## Save Button, then visit the Design options page, do the same and you’re ready to rock! Saving adds in the new features for Thesis 1.4.
It literally took me less than 3 minutes to upgrade this site. That to me is hands down the best feature of Thesis, the theme is completely seperate from your customizations. I’ve been playing around with the new feature set for the past hour, and no bugs at all. The release seems very stable and all of the new abilities work as expected. Looking forward to digging into some of the new customization features. Look forward to some articles coming soon!
Whether you are buying Thesis for the first time or just upgrading, you can download Thesis 1.4 on the DIYThemes site.