Theme Updates: March 2011

By team on March 9, 2011

Please be sure to read through this entire post before updating your theme (especially Shelf and Traction!). There have been key changes that require you to follow specific update instructions.

Today we released some exciting new updates for all of our themes. Some notable improvements include:

A faster and lighter logo uploader for all themes.
Shelf 2.0: A revamped codebase and support for Post Formats.
IE9 Beta compatibility fixes for Photography and Paperpunch.
Updated slider for Traction and Linen.

Head over to the downloads page to grab the new theme packages. WordPress 3.1 is required, so please be sure you are running WordPress 3.1 before you try to update your theme(s). Also, be sure to read the upgrade instructions and the important notes on the new logo uploader, Shelf 2.0, and Traction Updates.

New logo uploader

We have replaced the old logo uploader with a faster and lighter version that uses the WordPress core media uploader. The new version will require you to re-upload your logo after you update your theme. Before you upgrade the theme be sure to download a fresh copy of your logo. After upgrading navigate to Appearance → Theme Options and re-upload your logo. Click the Insert into Post button after the upload is complete. If you used the old FTP method you will have to specify the absolute URL of your logo image.

Shelf 2.0

We have completely revamped how Shelf works to take full advantage of the new WordPress 3.1 post formats. So much so, you will need to follow specific instructions and use a special migration plugin to update to Shelf 2.0. These instructions must be followed to the letter or they will not work. Do not upgrade to Shelf 2.0 until you have finished with the migration.

Important Note: Any posts with Audio or Image files hosted outside of your WordPress installation will need to be updated manually.

Back up you database. This is the most important step. Do not skip this!
Update WordPress to version 3.1 or higher.
If you are using a custom menu, navigate to Appearance → Menus and remove any and all “Tumblog” menu items you added to your active custom menu.
Download, install, and activate the Shelf Migrate Plugin.
Verify that you are running Shelf 1.1.4 (or earlier) and WordPress 3.1.
Navigate to Settings → Shelf Migrate.
Click Migrate Shelf.
Update to Shelf 2.0.
Install, activate, and run the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.

You should now be running Shelf 2.0. The posting procedure has changed significantly with this new version (Shelf no longer uses custom fields), so please read through the Shelf Documentation carefully.

Traction Updates

Some notable changes to Traction:

We have removed the sidebar Twitter stream option from the theme. This functionality should be handled through a plugin and our version couldn’t be controlled through Appearance → Widgets. To quickly replace this functionality download and install the Wickett Twitter Widget plugin. This is an “official” WordPress.com plugin that has been battle tested across millions of sites.
The featured slider now uses the excerpt instead of a custom field for the featured slider button descriptions. First, make sure the Excerpt box is checked in the Screen Options tab. Next, copy any descriptions you have in custom fields into the Excerpt box. Remember to keep them short and sweet.
The footer widgets have been re-organized and the About section has been removed from the Theme Options. If you are using the old About section (found under Theme Options → Footer), please make a copy of the text before updating. Copy the text into a new Text widget under Appearance → Widgets and drag it into the Footer Left sidebar. After you update please double check your footer widgets are in the right location. You will probably have to re-organize them, so be sure to take a snapshot before you update Traction. Remember, all your widget settings are saved in the In-active Widgets section, you simply have to drag the widget back to the appropriate sidebar.

Changelog now included

We are now officially including a changelog inside the /docs folder of your theme. This file will be updated with each release and have a list of the changes for that version. For this reason, we will no longer be posting a changelog on the blog. Instead, we will post only the most notable changes at the beginning of the post.

Problems?

If you run into any trouble please head straight to the support forums and we will help you out 🙂