1. New Features
   1. Mega Menus
      This is the first big-ticket addition for this release. Suffusion is now officially the first free theme to include Mega Menu support. To get them working:
      1. Go to Appearance → Menus.
      2. For any top-level menu item in a menu, under “Pick a widget area for a Mega Menu” pick a widget area, and set up the number of columns in the widget area.
      3. Then go to Appearance → Widgets and add widgets to the Widget Area you just selected.

      There are 10 widget areas dedicated to mega menus, which can additionally be used in combination with Widget Logic to give you absolute control over your mega menus.

   2. Custom Layouts
      This is the second big-ticket addition, with benefits outreaching the mega menus. You can now assign a “Custom Layout” template to your pages. This template offers you 5 dedicated widget areas, each of which can be configured to have its own number of columns. You can then add widgets into the widget areas and use Widget Logic to mix and match the widgets. Here is how you make this work:
      1. Go to Templates → Custom Layout template.
      2. Assign the number of columns you require in each widget area, and set up other aspects as appropriate.
      3. Go to Pages → Add New, put in the title, assign it the template “Custom Layout” and then “Save Draft”. In the Additional Options for Suffusion below you will see a new tab called “Custom Layout”.
      4. You can go to Additional Options for Suffusion → Custom Layout and set a different number of columns if you wish for a particular widget area to override the defaults. If you don’t do anything, this will pick up the defaults from Templates → Custom Layout template.
      5. You can also go to Additional Options for Suffusion → Layout, and pick a different sidebar layout if you wish.
      6. Go to Appearance → Widgets, and add widgets to Custom Layout Widget Areas 1-5.
      7. Go back to edit the page you created and publish it.
      8. For additional pages, create a page in the same manner, but to display different widgets use something like the Widget Logic plugin.

      I am working on redesigning the theme page – once done, I will publish an article on how I did it.

   3. Layouts for Pages
      This is the third big feature, but not in the league of the first two. So far if you had to get a different sidebar layout for a page, you would select the appropriate template. E.g. If your blog had one right sidebar and you wanted a static page with no sidebars, you could do this using the “No Sidebars” template. While this will still work, it is being deprecated in favour of the more flexible page layouts. With effect from this version you can go to Additional Options for Suffusion → Layout, and pick an appropriate sidebar layout for pages.
      What is the advantage? It is quite simple: let’s say you want a login page without any sidebars, while your blog has sidebars. In the previous versions you could only select the Login template or the No Sidebars template, not both. But now you can assign the login template and pick the 0 sidebars layout and get your desired results.
   4. Additions to Featured Content
      A host of options were added to the Featured Content (both static and the widget). You can now position the numbered index and the Previous / Pause / Next controls in different places. You can also use icons instead of textual representations etc.
   5. Additions to Query Posts
      The Query Posts widget has some additions that might seem insignificant but are of paramount value. Firstly, you can now use them to display just the thumbnails, or the full contents. Secondly, you have the option to split the widget into its individual posts! Think about it – if you select the option to split, and you use this in a Custom Layout, you can essentially mimic the Magazine layout.
   6. Several Small Additions
      There are several small additions in the code:
      1. I have received some requests in the past to disable the “Additional Options for Suffusion” box in the post editor. I never had a good solution for this earlier, however now you can do it by adding this in your child theme’s setup function:

         remove_theme_support('suffusion-additional-options');

      2. You can now toggle the breadcrumb display for individual pages from the Additional Options for Suffusion section.
      3. You can force excerpts to always show a “Read More” link. See Layouts → Layout: Excerpt / List / Tile / Mosaic / Full for the new option.
      4. The <!--more--> tag now gets an “excerpt-more” class added to it for customization.
      5. There was earlier an issue with Widget Logic, which didn’t treat conditionally empty widget areas as empty (the ones below the header and above the footer). I have added some script to automatically remove such widget areas.
2. Changed Capabilities
   1. Code Housekeeping
      Lots of tiny things have been changed to enhance code efficiency and flexibility:
      1. I made some fundamental changes with respect to code structuring, by separating admin functionality from front-end functionality and putting things in different files. This will further reduce page load times.
      2. I have optimized the custom-generated CSS for the widths of the widgets in the Widget Area Below Header and the Widget Area Above Footer.
      3. I have taken out the browser-specific CSS settings to a large extent (e.g. rounded corners and shadows). Further, navigation bar CSS has been trimmed down.
      4. The tile layout and the magazine template have been converted to use divs instead of tables. This now lets you position the “Full Story” button at the bottom of the containers.
      5. I have also fully dropped support for versions older than WP 3.1.
      6. The “Custom Types” functionality has been abstracted out to its own plugin.
      7. Earlier for the Magazine template you had to set the sidebar layout from Templates → Magazine. Now you have to do it from the Edit Page screen, in the Additional Options for Suffusion.
      8. I had to disable the help text display in versions 3.9.4-3.9.6 because WP had deprecated the APIs. I have added the capability back.
   2. Better Option Organization
      Some options have been moved around a bit in the back-end:
      1. New Layouts tab in Suffusion Options
         Settings for “No Sidebars”, “Single Left Sidebar”, “Single Right Sidebar” etc. have been moved to the new Layouts section from the Templates section. Also, other layout related settings such Sidebar 1 and Sidebar 2 positioning options have been moved to this section under “Default Sidebar Layout”, including “Sizes and Margins” from Other Graphical Elements. The last new section here is “Layout: Excerpt / List / Tile / Mosaic / Full”, which has been moved from Other Graphical Elements.
      2. New Typography tab in Suffusion Options
         Some people had reported issues saving options under Skinning → Typography. I have moved all the typography options to a new section to help resolve these issues.
      3. Rearranged Additional Options for Suffusion in the Edit screen
         What was one big section that used to show up under the editor as “Additional Options for Suffusion” has been split into tabs that show up as appropriate for posts and pages.
3. Bug Fixes
   Version 3.9.6 was very stable and hardly had any bugs. The following minor niggles have been fixed:
   1. The “Continue Reading” string was not showing up for translation.
   2. The CSS class corresponding to the correct colour scheme was not being assigned to the body element.

Do bear in mind that this is a very big release. Suffusion’s beta testers have been thorough with what they have tested, however with great options come scary combinations and scarier layouts. It is possible that in spite of our combined efforts some issues have slipped through the cracks. If so, do let me know in the forum and I will work on resolving them immediately.

If you like this release, please take a moment to thank Mark van Jaarsveld, Miguel Koscianski Vidal, Colin Spencer and several other testers (Reza, Greg, Bob Schecter etc.) for their diligence and continued bug reporting. You folks rock!

And that led to the birth of the Custom Layouts. I built the new theme page of Suffusion solely with widgets. Here are the basic steps:

1. I first went to Suffusion Options → Templates → Custom Layout Template, then set the first widget area to have 2 columns and the second to have 3 columns.
2. Next I created a dummy page and saved it as a draft, assigning the “Custom Layout” to it and setting it to follow the “0 sidebars” page layout. The reason I created a new page is because I was going to work on it during this process and I didn’t want the landing page of Suffusion to look wonky. I saved it as a draft because I didn’t want it published.
3. I then went to Appearance → Widgets:
   1. I added a Featured Content widget and a text widget to the Custom Layout Widget Area 1.
   2. I added a handful of text widgets to the Custom Layout Widget Area 2.
4. Now, I wanted to make a few changes to the defaults:
1. I wanted the Featured Content to be about 650px wide and the text widget beside it had to be about 330px to allow some gap in between them. So I put this in the Custom Includes:

   #suf-featured-posts-3 { width: 650px; }

2. I also wanted a patterned background for the text widget in Widget Area 1, and I wanted a nice “Call to Action” button. So I added this:

   #text-9 { width: 330px;
   	background: url(http://aquoid.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/tan-1.png);
   }
   a.call-to-action {
   	font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
   	text-transform: uppercase;
   	font-size: 16px;
   	color: #fff;
   	text-decoration: none;
   	background: #a90707;
   	padding: 0.5em 2em;
   	margin-top: 2em;
   	display: inline-block;
   	border-radius: 7px;
   	font-weight: bold;
   }

3. I didn’t want the text widgets in the Widget Area 2 to have Arial bold headers. So I went to Suffusion Options → Typography → Content Headers, and picked “Quattrocento” for the H6 font. I also left the overall selection to use the theme defaults: this ensured that Quattrocento was loaded, but that it didn’t affect the H6 fonts. The next step was to apply this font to the widget headers and set appropriate margins:

   .cl-widget h3 {
   	font-family: Quattrocento, serif;
   	font-weight: normal;
   	font-size: 20px;
   	margin-bottom: 20px;
   } 

4. Most text widgets in Widget Area 2 were to have a widget icon. Here is where I optimized and built a sprite with a bunch of images. Then I defined a “widget-icon” class:

   .widget-icon {
   	float: left;
   	margin-right: 1em;
   	width: 64px;
   	height: 64px;
   	background: url(http://aquoid.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Suffusion-sprite.png) no-repeat;
   	text-decoration: none;
   }
   .widget-icon:hover {
   	text-decoration: none;
   }

5. The last piece of style setting again applied to the featured content. I wanted to get small boxes with Quattrocento headings, slightly separated from the edges:

   .sliderImage div {
   	background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75) !important;
   	color: #ddd !important;
   	width: 250px !important;
   }
   .sliderImage ins a {
   	font-family: Quattrocento, serif;
   	font-weight: normal !important;
   	font-size: 16px;
   }
   .sliderImage .right {
   	right: 10px;
   	bottom: 10px;
   	border-radius: 5px;
   }

5. I then put the text that I wanted to in each widget, and linked up the appropriate icons, and that was it.
6. When I was satisfied with how my page looked, I went to the page editor and pulled up the page for Suffusion. I assigned the “Custom Layout” template to it, and set it to follow 0 sidebars. I also toggled the breadcrumb display for the page and saved it. Since I have only one page using the Custom Layout template I didn’t have to do much in terms of putting conditions around widgets etc.

The end result is there for you to see. Hopefully you will be able to use this approach to make your own custom layouts.

Now, back to waiting for 4.0.0 to go live!

I have embedded instructions in it and have created a dummy folder structure for your use. Feel free to use this as a starting point for your Suffusion customizations requiring the use of a child theme.

Also, if you have some more lingo to add to the witty side, do let me know.

1. Sometimes a “Page of Posts” template was not showing skewed sidebars. This should be working now.
2. In some cases the Magazine layout with 3 excerpts per row was pushing one excerpt to the row below.
3. There was an issue with uploading images via Suffusion’s back-end, where after uploading only a “0” was showing up in the field.
4. Some incompatibilities with NextGen have been addressed.
5. The Widget Area Below Header and Widget Area Above Footer were disappearing if a “flattened” display style had been selected for them.

I am hoping this is the last beta. Of course, that is subject to your input.

1. Strictly speaking, this was functionality for a plugin.
2. By splitting this code, I am letting users keep their custom post types and custom taxonomies while moving to other themes.

The plugin can be downloaded from WordPress, and you can see details on the plugin page.

What if you are running a Suffusion version older than 4.0.0?

You don’t need the plugin to manage your post types. You just need it if you are going to move to another theme.

What if you are running a Suffusion version 4.0.0 and beyond?

If you have already defined Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies using Suffusion in a prior version, you will continue to see your content for them on your site. You will also be able to add new objects for pre-defined post types. The only thing you will need this plugin for is to allow the creation of new post types and taxonomies.

E.g. If you have set up your site with a new Custom Post Type called “Book”, you will be able to add new books without this plugin. But if you wanted to create a new Custom Post Type called “Movie” you will need this plugin (or any other plugin, for that matter).

Regardless, this plugin will help you if you are moving from Suffusion to another theme. This is the first of several “transition plugins”, which will help move to and from Suffusion. Others will be released in the near future.

Please note the following:

1. I had mentioned of a change in a prior post about killing an option on the Magazine template. I had forgotten to include it in the previous beta. This one removes the option.
2. Following a rather interesting and misguided rant on the WP forums, I decided to get rid of the “Custom Types” functionality from the theme. But before you hit the panic button, note that any post types you have defined through this interface will continue to work – you just won’t see the options to add new custom types. I have already applied for space for a plugin where I will be releasing this separated feature as a plugin.
3. I have, hopefully fixed the issues reported with the first beta. This includes some problems with the Mega Menus and some others with the translations.

Let me know how this goes.

Suffusion Beta Testers, please provide your feedback on the beta version!! I have only received one person’s response regarding it.

To reiterate, here are the highlights:

1. Mega-Menus:
   To see what the fuss is, go to Appearance → Menus. Then create a menu. For the root level items in your menu you can pick a Mega Menu Widget Area. Pick one, assign it a number of columns and do the other settings as required. Make sure you assign this menu to a menu location.
   Then go to Appearance → Widgets and add widgets to the Mega Menu area that you have selected. Now check it out on the front page.
   Typical things to test would be:
   1. The menu shouldn’t overflow the wrapper’s borders if the menu width is less than the wrapper width.
   2. Check with the different widget height settings, such as “Auto-arrange” or “Equal height for the same row” etc.
   3. Vary the number of columns and see the effect.
   4. If you have picked an empty widget area, you shouldn’t see the tab in the navigation bar.
2. Custom Layouts:
   Go to Templates → Custom Layout Template. Save the settings as you wish. Then create a page and assign the “Custom Layout” template to it. Upon “Save Draft” or “Publish”, in the “Additional Options for Suffusion” box you will see a new tab for “Custom Layout”. You should be able to save the settings. Add the widgets to the widget areas and then visit the page in the front end. Your new page should conform to your selections.
   Typical things to test would be:
   1. You should be able to create different pages with this template.
   2. For each page you should be able to control the number of columns in each Custom Layout widget area.
   3. Each page should respect the corresponding selections.
   4. Try the different widget height settings.
   5. Use this capability in conjunction with Widget Logic and see the effects.
3. Page Layouts:
   Instead of picking a “Single Left Sidebar” page template, you can now pick a “1 Left Sidebar” layout for a page / post. This gives you the advantage of combining third-party templates with Suffusion layouts. With this, the regular page templates with sidebar options are deprecated. You can still continue using them, but using a layout is going to be much easier.
   Things to test would be:
   1. If you have a page template such as “1 Left Sidebar” assigned, then you assign “2 Left Sidebars” layout, your page template will get the preference.
   2. Pick any other page template and assign a layout to it – you will be able to get the combination of both.
4. Featured Content:
   I added a lot of new options to the static Featured Content and widget. You will now have options to display icons, position the slider index and the controls differently etc.
5. Magazine Template / Tiles Layout:
   I have changed the markup here to use div instead of tables. This will now prevent the unbalanced column widths that you currently see. Do give this a thorough test with all your layout combinations.
6. General Checks:
   Try the following general checks (not a complete list, but it should give you some idea):
   1. There were issues with the latest version of the NGG plugin – that should be gone.
   2. Activate another theme, then come back and activate Suffusion – you shouldn’t see any errors of any sort in this process.
   3. Check if the menus are working correctly in terms of custom colours, rightly showing a downward or sideward arrow etc.
   4. Try sharing posts with this release – you shouldn’t see any fatal errors reported when you do this.
   5. You should see some “pointers” with tips in the back-end if you are using WP 3.3.x.

Note that this is a beta release. So please don’t use it on a live site! Feel free to post your comments and bugs here.

1. Mega-menus:
   I know that I have been dangling this carrot for a while, so hopefully the delivered functionality will be worth the wait. Suffusion will be the first free theme with this functionality, so no pressure.
2. Page layouts:
   I did mention this earlier – you will be able to associate a page template separate from a layout for your pages. This will let you utilize templates offered by plugins and bundle them together with a specific layout.
3. Custom Template Layouts: This is another biggie. You will be able to assign a “Custom Template” to a page. That will let you do some awesome layouts by utilizing widgets. E.g. if you want to create a product page, you will be able to define a specific layout that has one row with just one big featured slider, then two rows with 3 boxes each, with specific product features, then one row with 2 boxes, with testimonials and pricing options.
   If this feature isn’t good enough, you can create multiple pages with the custom template and either keep the same defaults across all of them, or create specific layouts for individual pages.
4. Since a very very long time I have had one particular feature request on my plate. Although this request is 2 years old, I have always had it in plan for different releases, but then pulled it when the releases became big. Even during the release of the Photonique skin I wanted to improve the look and feel for the Featured Content and I did make some changes for the same. Yet I chickened out at the last moment when it came to specific aspects of improving the look and feel. This time I bit the bullet and finally put it in place. The Featured Content now has options to do a whole lot of cool things in terms of look and feel.

In addition, the regular improvements to speed, performance and usability are included. I have finished coding all the major items and am hoping to wrap up development in a couple of weeks. As I mentioned, I will be pushing this release out for beta testing.

1. The Flickr shortcode was not able to display photos if only a group_id was specified. This has been fixed.
2. Another fix was for a very specific use case: the album / photoset title in a popup panel was resulting in a JS error when hovered over.
3. The Picasa shortcode inserter was not showing any option to specify the album name. I have added one.

Now, I have to get back to Suffusion version 4.0.0. Cheers.