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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{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
Only word needed to describe the thesis theme 1.6 – AWESOME !!
Yeah, it is great, especially for those who were afraid of FTP and CSS.
Nice intro to Thesis 1.6. I especially like the colour scheme you came up with in the video. Very 1990’s
heheheh thanks! I put a lot of thought behind that color scheme!
Sweet deal, thanks for sharing!
I’ll have to upgrade as soon as possible.
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.
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.
I think it is the nav menu only.
OK – thank you for replying.
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….
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.
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?
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.
Or maybe just a copy and paste of an image URL?
Great overview Marko! Gotta appreciate Chris Pearson for going the extra mile!
Thanks man! He definitely continues to move Thesis forward…
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!”
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.
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)?
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.
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.
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
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!
Thanks Eric. Good luck with your blog!
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
Hi Egon, I have the code you need to use in this article with tips on Thesis design.
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.
Use one of the image editors to resize the picture into the size you need.
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.
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.
Do I see it correctly that you have folded back to Thesis 1.5.1?
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…
Oh yes and my second question (I have always plenty) : did you fold back Disq as well?
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.
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.
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
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
It is Screenflow, I use a Mac.
Thanks Marco – I’ll check it out. I’m a Mac as well.
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.
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.
Thank you Marco! The color play was fun. I loved the video. You are so sincere. I am going to go play now
))!!!
No problem Farnoosh, glad you liked the video!
Thanks for the vid Marko.. great job in explaining everything! I do like that drop down effect on the nav menu.. cool.. huh..