Genesis 1.9.0 is a small but important release. It gives you a fresh new look, some new features, and starts the process of preparing for Genesis 2.0!
Need WordPress 3.5!
Now we are seriously hoping that you’ve all made the jump to WordPress 3.5 by now.
If not, you’ll need to do this before hitting the 1.9 upgrade….
(and anyway get on with it for security sake!)
The Specifics
The following are specific changes made in this branch.
Genesis 1.9.0
- Updated design and wider layout
- New security audit
- Google Author highlighting
- Removed Page and Category menu widgets
- Begin deprecating Latest Tweets and eNews widgets
- Hardened and improved lots of technical things
- Started laying the groundwork for Genesis 2.0
Updated Design and Wider Layout
You may notice that the default Genesis style sheet is a bit shorter, and on the front end looks different.
They’ve updated the default design and extended the width of the layout to 1152px. Now you’ve got more real estate to showcase your content.
Updated Security Audit
Studiopress hired WordPress Lead Developer Mark Jaquith to perform a full review of code for security.
Google Author Highlights
Genesis now offers support for author highlighting.
This allows Google to associate your content with your Google+ content.
Just edit your profile, find the field where you can enter your Google+ account URL, and save. Genesis does the rest.
And if you want to associate an author with the homepage, you can do that in SEO Settings.
Deprecating Widgets
Genesis has always included some useful widgets to help you build your sites faster and easier.
However some of these widgets should really be plugins, so authors can push out updates more frequently, and you get more up to date code.
So, the “eNews & Updates” and “Latest Tweets” widgets are being ported to plugins, and will eventually be removed from Genesis.
Genesis Category/Page Menu Widgets Removed
They have also deprecated the Category and Page menu widgets a few releases ago, and as of this release, they’ve completely removed them from the framework.
If you were still using either of these widgets, you will notice that your menu is no longer showing.
You will need to build a custom menu and add the custom menu widget to the Header Right widget area.
Really Geeky Stuff
They also fixed a lot of little bugs, improved some things, and generally made the framework a more solid foundation for you to use.
Upgrading
NOTE: If you have made any changes directly to files in the /genesis/ folder, upgrading will overwrite these changes. Therefore, we recommend that you NEVER make changes this way.
Alternatively, use the CSS in the child theme folder to make stylistic modifications, and use the proper PHP files in the child theme folder, along with the Genesis Hook system, to make functional/output modifications.
We DO make changes to the Theme functions.php for security reasons therefore we always need to back these up! (however saying that, we do it to the Child Theme, not the Genesis folder!)
Using the Automatic Upgrader
- Click the “upgrade now” link in the update notification at the top your your dashboard page.
- Confirm the upgrade.
- After the new version is installed, click the link to complete the upgrade.
- All done!
Upgrading Manually
- Before you upgrade anything, make sure you have backup copies of your child theme.
- Delete the old
genesisfolder from yourwp-content/themesdirectory - Unzip and upload the new
genesisfolder to yourwp-content/themesdirectory - Log into the dashboard to complete the upgrade process.
System Requirements
- WordPress 3.5 or higher
- The same minimum system requirements as WordPress
This site runs on: Midnight Theme – $79.95
Retail Price: $89.95
You Save: $10.00
from: StudioPress by Copyblogger Media
