The scenario: You’re a have 20+ Thesis sites you maintain. Thesis 1.6 is out, should you upgrade? What will happen if I do? I’ll show you the horrific truth right now.
Let me preface here. I LOVE Thesis. The last year I have designed ONLY with Thesis. I contribute to the support forums, I’m a Certified Designer, etc… This is just too gory not to share.
On the left: Fresh install of WordPress/Thesis 1.5.1 and the Wasabi Skin
On the right: Upgrade to Thesis 1.6 and the Wasabi Skin
Oh Crap.
With the onset of the drop-down nav and cool shadow features in Thesis 1.6 you are left with the scenario above.
#tabs aren’t the Tabs anymore. They are now .menu
I’ll explain:
#tabs = .menu
#tabs a = .menu a
#tabs a:hover = .menu a:hover
#tabs .current_page_current = .menu .current
#tabs .current-cat = .menu .tab.current
ul#tabs li = .menu li ul
Oh the horror. Every Thesis customization you’ve ever done will require a fix.
Here is what was required for me to turn Wasabi back to normal:
/* ----- THESIS 1.6 UPDATES ---- */
.custom .full_width > .page {
background-color: transparent;
background-image: none;
background-repeat: repeat;
background-attachment: scroll;
background-position: 0% 0%;
}
.custom .menu {
background:#000;
padding:0.75em 0.5em;
-moz-border-radius:7px 7px 0 0;
-webkit-border-top-right-radius:7px;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius:7px;
border-top-width: 1px;
border-top-style: solid;
border-top-color: #610403;
border-right-color: #610403;
border-left-color: #610403;
border-right-width: 1px;
border-left-width: 1px;
border-right-style: solid;
border-bottom-style: none;
border-left-style: solid;
}
.custom .menu a {
background:none;
border:none;
}
.custom .menu a:hover {
color: #8E0521;
background:none;
}
.custom .menu .current {
color: #fff;
background-color: #8E0521;
}
.custom .menu .current:hover {
color: #fff;
background-color: #8E0521;
}
h1, h2, h2 a {
color: #fff;
}.menu a
This isn’t something that will fix itself with a mouse click. This is going to require ALL OF US, to re-visit all our pre-1.6 customized sites and do some work.
Given that I have a TON of client sites I maintain, this IS a bit horrifying. Thanks so much for the info though – I've been banging my head trying to figure out the “current” .menu corollary to the old stuff. It just means that when I upgrade my clients, I better be prepared to spend some time dealing with their stylesheets.
I do understand, however, that forever backwards-compatibility is difficult to maintain – it just bees what it bees.
Oh Crap indeed. The thing that worries me is that 1.6 was a simple update with only 1 new feature. When 2.0 comes along with x-billion new features there may be a bunch of upgrading needing done.
No doubt this will give the Thesis-haters something to toot their horns about…
Backwards compatibility is hurdle #1 when updating anything. Maybe @pearsonified can include a check-box to 'disable' new styles? Either way, time to put the CSS Hat back on and get to work converting.
Heh. Some us have only 10 Thesis installs to update. ;-) Oh, well. It's good to be reminded of what life outside of Thesis is like all the time.
Thanks very much for providing a guide to the nav changes. Looks like a project for the weekend.
Thanks for this. Do you think a simple find and replace across all themes of the above styles will be enough?
Yo homey..this theme is cut off on both sides of my 17″ screen. Have to scroll from side to side to read it.
Sup Trent!? You have a 17 inch monitor at 1024×768 resolution? You must be blind! ;)
Thanks so much for this. It IS horrifying. I have only a couple of sites but am not a designer, only a novice who struggled to learn Thesis 1.5. A primary claim of Thesis is exactly this – that updates will not affect customization. Fail!
A Twitter post to DIYThemes about documentation resulted in zero help but did get a couple of sarcastic responses. Thanks, Thesis! Unacceptable.
I'll follow your advice and look for other documentation before updating. Much appreciated
While those who charge their client by the fix will be happy, others clearly won't be. One may argue that this is a natural development as Thesis gets better thought out. I pity the repetative number of forum threads that will come from it – as I don't yet see any documentation (like yours) that explains the change(s).
Cheers for the article. I had heard Tabs changed to Menu but I see a couple of other things in your changes, think I may wait a bit and see how the community as a whole is getting on before upgrading, and Il be sure to read what benefits are going to be in 1.6 after its beta. merci :)
I'm not happy. I've never been unable to change back. I was hoping the change back to 1.5 would be simple. I have totally lost my background image and have no access to the options area so I can say use custom.css.
I can access the css in cpanel but how do I get 1.5 back? Pls don't say I can't. weep, sob..
Is there a trick to getting your background image to work. i use (images/nameoffile.jpg) as my call in css. Do I use the full url or other?
Thanx
I had a huge problem with this because the design options panel on the theme page had stopped working and it could only be accessed at the bottom of the page. As a new thesis user it took me ages!
I think that I will not upgrade sites from one version of thesis to another if the site is working as I and my clients want.
I do think thesis is absolutely amazing after only a few hours playing with it and doing a quick redesign of my company webdesign site in that time. I also changed my personal blog over to thesis 1.6 and at the moment it is just the standard design with the standard images but it still blows away the various predecessors.
Surely you can change back by just ftp'ing a copy of 1.5 to your wordpress themes folder. I am pretty sure you can still download 1.5. If not I have a copy saved which if you can prove to me that you are a registered user and the thesis folks don't tell me it's a bad idea I could happily email to anyone who needs it.
I had a huge problem with this because the design options panel on the theme page had stopped working and it could only be accessed at the bottom of the page. As a new thesis user it took me ages!
I think that I will not upgrade sites from one version of thesis to another if the site is working as I and my clients want.
I do think thesis is absolutely amazing after only a few hours playing with it and doing a quick redesign of my company webdesign site in that time. I also changed my personal blog over to thesis 1.6 and at the moment it is just the standard design with the standard images but it still blows away the various predecessors.
Surely you can change back by just ftp'ing a copy of 1.5 to your wordpress themes folder. I am pretty sure you can still download 1.5. If not I have a copy saved which if you can prove to me that you are a registered user and the thesis folks don't tell me it's a bad idea I could happily email to anyone who needs it.
Is this correct #tabs .current-cat = .menu .tab.current Someone has reported problem on forum
http://diythemes.com/forums/showthread.php?p=74…
I see no space between .tab.current so should it be .tab .current
Or should it be .menu .current-cat
I don't know the answer – what does current-cat mean anyway?.
Keith
Edit I presuming it is current category.
In Firebug I can see .menu .current-cat
Is this correct #tabs .current-cat = .menu .tab.current Someone has reported problem on forum
http://diythemes.com/forums/showthread.php?p=74…
I see no space between .tab.current so should it be .tab .current
Or should it be .menu .current-cat
I don't know the answer – what does current-cat mean anyway?.
Keith
Edit I presuming it is current category.
In Firebug I can see .menu .current-cat
One of the best theme but one of the most difficult to customize, well that’s as long as you get the right help from bloggers helping your cause. Geez, I love this theme but it’s scary sometimes on the right code, I’ve had many reinstalls of files because I’m always touchin stuff. Had to throwup a generic theme at my site just so I won’t break nothing. And all the while i’m customizing in the background on my home server. Keep the tutorials coming thanx.
Hi, how can I get back my gradient image on my menu tabs?
This is what I got in Thesis v. 1.5
.custom ul#tabs li {
background: #EFEFEF url(‘images/tab_custom.gif’) repeat-x scroll center top;
}
Everything else converted fine in v. 1.7 except the menu tabs even after changing ul#tabs li to .menu li ul.