Thesis 1.8 Has Arrived and it is Awesome

Thesis 1.8 has arrived with more awesome features to make our lives even easier to create a unique Thesis site.  Updates include easier header images, more fonts, support for WordPress 3.0 nav menus, favicons and custom pages.

What’s New in Thesis 1.8

My favorite updates are the Favicon Uploader and the Header Image Uploader.

Here’s a quick video I made, showing…

Video: How to use the Thesis Favicon and Header Uploaders

Click the full screen button …

Favicon Uploader – say goodbye to favicon plugins, generators and slow-loading root folder ico files. Upload an image using the Thesis favicon uploader and your work is done.

Header Image Uploader - add a clickable header image without worrying about tweaking the code.

Take a look at my site before and after using the Header Image Uploader. Plain text headers are okay, image headers POP!

More changes to Thesis 1.8

Google Fonts - 28 new and exciting web-fonts loaded directly from Google servers. No more need to load unique fonts to your server – unless you want to. Check out the selection of Google fonts.

SEO character counters - Thesis guides you to make sure your meta data descriptions like your title for example don’t exceed the recommended number of characters.

• If you go over the recommended number of characters – they won’t appear. So, make sure you control what is appearing by sticking to the character count – use the counters. They are in real time as you type.

Google Fonts - 28 new and exciting web-fonts loaded directly from Google servers. No more need to load unique fonts to your server – unless you want to. Check out the selection of Google fonts.

WordPress 3.0 navigation - Thesis now supports the new navigation menu builder with the extra power of Thesis nav menu design controls.

• I actually prefer the Thesis nav menu because it is:
  • easy to add page links, category links and other links (both internal and external to your site)
  • control in what order they appear
  • edit the words/text that appears on the tab).
• Thesis supports drop down menus - just as WordPress does.
• But, if you prefer to use the WordPress menu – it is as easy as a click away. You can also revert back to the Thesis nav menu at any time.

Category/tag/taxonomy page options - Thesis 1.8 has re-arranged and optimized how you can manage and modify these options.

You don’t need an SEO plugin for Thesis. You just scroll down to below your post edit screen and populate the SEO fields. Your options include:

custom title tag - can be the same or different to your actual post headline. Type what you want to appear in the search engine pages listing. Your SEo characters counter will remind you to only use a maximum of 70 characters for the title.

custom meta description - add an informative and concise description of your post/page contents, up to a recommended maximum of 150 characters.

meta keywords - add a few keywords, don’t go crazy. There are urban Internet rumours that Google isn’t putting much weight to meta keywords; but other search engines exist and they still might!

robots meta tags - if you want to prevent robots (search engines) from indexing a page simply check a tick-box below the post.

• Do you have a post with lots of links to other sites draining your search engine ranking?
• You can check a tick-box and make the page ‘no-follow’ and you get to keep all the link-juice to yourself. This is particularly good if you write a post with links that have little to do with your primary reason for being.

CSS class - want  a page to be unique. Add a few lines of code to your custom.css file (for example, add a background image that floats top right) and call the class ‘flower’. Add the word ‘flower’ to the class field and that page, and every other page with that class will have the same styling applied to it. Change the styling in the custom.css file and all of those pages will be instantly changed as well.

Read more text - Thesis lets you edit the words that appear at the end of excerpts and teasers site-wide. Thesis 1.8 also lets you change it for each and every post. The site-wide choice will be used unless you specifiy a custom ‘read more text’.

Custom Loop API - You can now target and modify the content area of every type of WordPress page. This is the ultimate custom template system.

• For an in-depth look and some examples, check out the Custom Loop API documentation.
• BEWARE - This is technical and not for newbies and novices.
• Like myself, I recommend we wait for some Thesis Pros to throw us a bone in the form of some Custom Loop for Dummies tutorials.

Get Thesis Theme for WordPress

• If you don’t have Thesis yet and would like to learn more you’re welcome to read our story.

• If you want to get Thesis now…visit DIY Themes – the home of Thesis Theme.

• If you already use Thesis and are ready to download the latest version, head on over to DIYThemes and grab Thesis 1.8.