Thesis Theme 1.6 Video Review – See what Thesis can do now

Thesis Theme 1.6 for WordPress blogs

Thesis Theme 1.6 has just been released to all Thesis users.

For bloggers who are new to design, new to FTP, new to CSS and coding, this version is going to be of great help.

Thesis  theme has always been blogger-friendly and featured a lot of customization options without the need for coding, such as:

  • Selection between one or two sidebars
  • Position of sidebars vs content area
  • Width of sidebars and content area
  • Selection of fonts and font sizes for different sections of the blog
  • Magazine style blog front page
  • Selection, order, labeling of pages for navigation menu
  • Display of full posts vs post excerpts

Thesis Theme 1.6 – Make changes without CSS and coding

Thesis Theme 1.6 features all of the above, but also takes it to another level in terms of styling of the navigation menu and styling of  the fonts and content area. See my video review of the new features:

  • Thesis Theme now has its own home in the WordPress menu called Thesis Options
  • Custom File Editor lets you edit custom.css and custom_functions.php from Wordpress interface
  • No need to login to your hosting account via FTP anymore
  • Thesis Theme now features automatic drop down navigation menu
  • Background color control – Select content area background color, multimedia box background
  • Text color control – Select text / link colors for different parts of the blog
  • Navigation menu color styling – Link color, link hover color, background color, hover background color
  • Navigation menu border styling – Select border width, border color
  • Remove all borders – One click to remove all borders

Blogging on another level

All in all, version 1.6 takes the Thesis Theme to another level. If you were afraid of logging onto your server to edit the files and do some CSS and coding, this version will be a great way to make your blog unique through the Thesis interface.

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If you liked this article, you may also like:

  • How to create a sales letter landing page with WordPress Thesis Theme
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  • How to get magazine style WordPress blog with Thesis Theme teasers
  • Improved blog look after upgrade to Thesis 1.4
  • 6 simple but cool Thesis theme WordPress design tips
  • Post written by Marko Saric on September 14, 2009 in Thesis Theme

    { 44 comments… read them below or add one }

    1 Roseli A. Bakar September 14, 2009 at 1:07 am

    Only word needed to describe the thesis theme 1.6 – AWESOME !!

    Reply

    2 Marko Saric September 14, 2009 at 8:47 am

    Yeah, it is great, especially for those who were afraid of FTP and CSS.

    Reply

    3 Dave September 14, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Nice intro to Thesis 1.6. I especially like the colour scheme you came up with in the video. Very 1990’s ;)

    Reply

    4 Marko Saric September 14, 2009 at 8:48 am

    heheheh thanks! I put a lot of thought behind that color scheme!

    Reply

    5 Miguel Wickert September 14, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    Sweet deal, thanks for sharing! :) I’ll have to upgrade as soon as possible.

    Reply

    6 Marko Saric September 15, 2009 at 5:56 pm

    When you have customized your navigation bar, you will lose that customization and would have to customize it again via these new options in Thesis interface. Otherwise everything else should work.

    Reply

    7 SonDan December 10, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    Hi Mark,

    Other than my Navigation Bar customization are there any other things that will go away and have to be redone that were done through custom css & php?, etc?

    It has taken me months to get my blog CLOSE to the way I want it and I still have a problem with the ad in my header that keeps “moving around” so I am a bit hesitant to upgrade — but the features are truly great.

    Thanks in advance for your time.

    Reply

    8 Marko Saric December 10, 2009 at 11:05 pm

    I think it is the nav menu only.

    Reply

    9 SonDan December 10, 2009 at 11:27 pm

    OK – thank you for replying.

    Reply

    10 Bill September 15, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Hello I just bought Thesis the other day because it looked so easy to use. Are there any videos available to show me how to load it onto my blog? I’m really bad at this technical stuff; to a point that it is embarrassing!!

    Thank you,
    Bill
    PS Does Thesis work with wordpress.com or just wordpress? Probably a dumb question and again I’m embarrassed….

    Reply

    11 Marko Saric September 15, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    You have a step-by-step instruction on the Thesis site (it is basically done the same way any theme was uploaded before the latest WP – via FTP in Theme folder). And yeah it is only for self-hosted WordPress.org.

    Reply

    12 John Haydon September 15, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    Thesis has clearly gone in the right direction here, obviously responding to those who hate doing a lot of coding. Do you still have to upload am image into your custom image file and and use CSS to create a clickable header?

    Reply

    13 Marko Saric September 15, 2009 at 9:31 pm

    Yeah, you still have to use CSS for headerl. I would guess that must be the next on the list. Nice and simple upload of a header instead of the CSS stuff.

    Reply

    14 John Haydon September 16, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Or maybe just a copy and paste of an image URL?

    Reply

    15 Matt Langford September 15, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    Great overview Marko! Gotta appreciate Chris Pearson for going the extra mile!

    Reply

    16 Marko Saric September 15, 2009 at 9:56 pm

    Thanks man! He definitely continues to move Thesis forward…

    Reply

    17 Mariano September 16, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    Nice review Marko. I’ve been considering trying out Thesis for a while, and the latest version is definitely the most tempting yet.

    Also congratulations on your recent Google ranking…awesome that you’re on the top of “how to make a blog!”

    Reply

    18 Marko Saric September 16, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    Thanks man! Thesis is definitely thinking of making it as easy as possible to get a pretty customized blog… soon everyone would be able to have a great blog.

    Reply

    19 James Mangosteen Dean September 19, 2009 at 10:01 am

    Hi Marko, thanks for that informative video! I’ve just got Thesis working out of the box while I have a header made but 1.6 looks like its going to save me some designer costs.

    However, I was wondering if Thesis 1.6 enables you to:

    1 change the background color of the sidebars &
    2 put a border around the latest post (or a chosen “sticky” page)?

    Reply

    20 Marko Saric September 19, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Not through the Thesis interface directly. You would need to add some lines of code into your custom_functions.php and custom.css files to get that effect. I have sidebar background color code in one of my earlier Thesis design posts.

    Reply

    21 James Mangosteen Dean September 19, 2009 at 11:50 am

    Thanks for the quick reply, Marko.

    Yes, it was that post that made me wonder if Thesis 1.6 could do it. Shame! Still, I’ll give it a go in the next few days.

    Reply

    22 Mike McEvoy September 20, 2009 at 7:32 am

    Hey Marko,
    Cool video. Thanks for the info on 1.6 – it rocks. I’m looking forward to the final “official” release of 1.6 and the additional power and flexibility it provides. I think I will stay away from the pink and green color combination though. ;-)

    Thesis just keeps getting better and better!
    –Mike

    Reply

    23 Eric September 27, 2009 at 10:26 pm

    Nice! I have been thinking about using Thesis for a while now. I thought about Thesis a while back, but I closed down my site for a while. I just re-launched my blog – and my theme is terrible, so I think I might try Thesis out.

    Very cool site by the way! Thanks!

    Reply

    24 Marko Saric September 28, 2009 at 12:21 am

    Thanks Eric. Good luck with your blog!

    Reply

    25 Egon September 29, 2009 at 4:21 am

    Hi Marko,
    I know you need to know this css stuff (which I don’t) to put a picture or image for the header. How hard is it to do & do you do that sort of stuff for someone to pay to have done.

    Egon

    Reply

    26 Marko Saric September 29, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Hi Egon, I have the code you need to use in this article with tips on Thesis design.

    Reply

    27 Egon October 26, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    Hey Marko,

    Got your reply on changing the header code to add an image for a header.

    Where do you find header images to fit, I found one that’s 1205×398 but would like it about 960x 250. If I go to internet explorer paint & re crop it, the best part of the image is gone. Any other way to just shrink it a little.

    Reply

    28 Marko Saric October 26, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    Use one of the image editors to resize the picture into the size you need.

    Reply

    29 Harsh Agrawal October 4, 2009 at 12:45 am

    I have been using Thesis from 4 months and I highly recommend this theme to all.
    It’s SEO and typography is amazing, more over Customization of Thesis might feel little
    tricky at the beginning but once you get kick of it, you will enjoy editing and modifying this theme.

    Reply

    30 Tracy Young October 17, 2009 at 2:27 am

    WOW. This looks amazing and addresses a TON of my issues. Sounds perfect for those of us who simply like to blog and aren’t big on programming. I can’t wait to try it out on the standard version. Bravo.

    Reply

    31 Happy Hotelier October 24, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    Do I see it correctly that you have folded back to Thesis 1.5.1?

    Reply

    32 Marko Saric October 25, 2009 at 10:40 am

    Thesis 1.6 on the video was a test blog I created, this blog has not been upgraded yet. Had some problems with DIsqus plugin and my RSS feed so had to remove it at the moment. Still waiting to see what to do…

    Reply

    33 Happy Hotelier October 24, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    Oh yes and my second question (I have always plenty) : did you fold back Disq as well?

    Reply

    34 SonDan November 4, 2009 at 4:17 am

    Hello – Just been getting somewhat comfortable with Thesis (partially due to your great site sir) but am still a relatively newbie. Wanted to clarify that when I upgrade — I install the new theme over the old and then copy over my custom. css and php folders? Is this correct?

    Thanks for reading and thanks for the great service your blog provides.

    Reply

    35 Betty November 16, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    For some reason on your site as well as many other Thesis sites I am viewing there appears to be a problem with the resizing of the headers and featured box – look here is a screenshot of your page I am seeing: http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7329/page1yuj.jpg

    Here is another one: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/8707/page2j.jpg

    Almost every Thesis run site I view has this sort of problem…is there a display issue or what is going on…I can replicate this on different computers as well.

    Reply

    36 Egon November 17, 2009 at 12:02 am

    Have the same problem with mine, and that is why I’m switching to Headway Themes tomorrow. I’ve pulled my hair out trying to figure out why my header goes off the page when I open it in Internet Explorer 7 or different size monitors. But looks great in Firefox http://www.luxurybeachresorts360.com

    With Headway you can upload an image to your header without any custom css. Talked with a few people who have Headway & they have had no such problems. The new Headway 1.5 is out

    Egon

    Reply

    37 Jonathan December 5, 2009 at 12:22 am

    Hi, Marco – Nice work. I am curious what software you used to capture the video of your demo – and of your talking head in the lower right corner.

    Thanks!

    Jonathan

    Reply

    38 Marko Saric December 5, 2009 at 9:48 am

    It is Screenflow, I use a Mac.

    Reply

    39 Jonathan December 5, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    Thanks Marco – I’ll check it out. I’m a Mac as well. :)

    Reply

    40 Rajul December 10, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    Marko, I feel indebted to you for the time and hassle you’ve saved me with your blog design tips, not to mention your great Twitter ebook.

    So I hope you don’t mind me asking why you speak so enthusiastically about Thesis 1.6 if you still haven’t upgraded to it for your own blog?

    I tried myself to upgrade the other day, but when I “previewed” my site via the WP dashboard it was a mess. There are many comments in the Thesis forums from people who have also found that 1.6 changes their custom style significantly (e.g. it seems to get rid of custom header images).

    As a non-programmer with no spare time to hunt for fixes, I’m taking a business decision to hold off on the upgrade and stay with Thesis 1.5.1.
    Especially because when you upgrade it doesn’t let you reverse back.

    I’d really value your perspective on whether you think it’s worth upgrading given how much time it takes to get your old look back under 1.6.

    Thank you.

    Reply

    41 Marko Saric December 10, 2009 at 5:36 pm

    My reviews are mostly for people new to Thesis and 1.6 is a huge improvement compared to 1.5.1 as it makes it so much easier to add colors and customize nav bar etc without having to login to FTP and use CSS. I’m an advanced user of FTP / CSS and have done all the customization I need manually, so didn’t upgrade because I would have to start from scratch and do changes via Thesis interface instead of FTP and I am too lazy to do that.

    Reply

    42 Farnoosh January 26, 2010 at 2:13 am

    Thank you Marco! The color play was fun. I loved the video. You are so sincere. I am going to go play now :) ))!!!

    Reply

    43 Marko Saric January 26, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    No problem Farnoosh, glad you liked the video!

    Reply

    44 Dennis March 17, 2010 at 1:50 am

    Thanks for the vid Marko.. great job in explaining everything! I do like that drop down effect on the nav menu.. cool.. huh..

    Reply

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