Genesis is an SEO Optimized framework which comes with lots of unlimited and amazing options and that too with 40+ child themes & free future updates. Today, a new version of Genesis is released – Genesis 1.8. Genesis 1.8 adds more features and offers you to customize your site according to your taste. The best thing I like about this theme is that it is extremely flexible for the average user while at the same time remains developer friendly. Before updating Genesis 1.8 to latest version, remember to backup your site using BackupBuddy, even though if you mess up with any files you can easily backup your site with a single click. Below you can see the number of changes have been made to latest version of Genesis Theme Framework.
Front End Redesign
Genesis 1.8 ships with a hot new default style on the front end. And while we know that you would never activate Genesis directly, this new style can, and no doubt will server as the basis of many of the beautiful creations out users continue to push out. This modern new look takes a step into the realm of responsive design, adjusting to fit whatever device on which you happen to be reviewing the site, including smart phones and tablet computers.
New SEO Controls
One of the biggest weaknesses of the Genesis SEO controls was the fact that you couldn’t actually control the text displayed on category, tag and term archive pages. All you could do was decide whether or not you wanted the term title and description to display. With Genesis 1.8, this all changes. You now have the ability to control EXACTLY what gets displayed on your term archive pages.
New Extendable Classes of Creating Admin Menus
Considering how many Genesis-specific plugins there are out there, we imagine that more than a few developers are frustrated at how difficult it was to add new Genesis admin menus. In Genesis 1.8, it get about 100x easier.
Completely Disable a Navigation Menu, from functions.php
If you’ve every build a Genesis Child Theme for a client, and knew you’d have no use for the Primary or Secondary Navigation menu, you know how hard it can be to keep your client from messing with the Theme Settings and potentially ruining your beautiful design. So, with one line of code, you can now disable either menu. It works using the “theme support” method. By default, both menus are enabled. But, you can use this line of code to change which menus are supported via your child theme.
remove_theme_support( 'genesis-menus' );
This line will remove both menus. But let’s say you just want to remove the secondary nav menu, and leave the primary menu intact. Easy.
add_theme_support( 'genesis-menus', array( 'primary' => 'Primary Navigation Menu' ) );
This line indicates that you ONLY want the primary nav menu to be enabled.
Color Style Options
If you’re building a child theme and want to give users the ability to choose a color scheme from the Theme Settings page, this option is for you.
add_theme_support( 'genesis-style-selector', array( 'theme-blue' => 'Blue', 'theme-green' => 'Green', 'theme-orange' => 'Orange', 'theme-red' => 'Red' ) );
Just add this to your child theme’s functions.php file and Genesis will handle the rest. A new box will appear in Theme Settings and users can choose the color scheme for their site. Genesis handles the body class and all you have to do is build the CSS. Less coding. More designing. You know you love it!
Code Standards and Inline Documentation
One of the core values of the Genesis coding style is that we want you to be able to find what you need without using a Genesis dictionary. Clarity is king. But how awesome would be if each of the function in Genesis ha an explanation of what it did right above it? Done!
In addition, Genesis has been trying to move towards the WordPress coding standards for a few versions now. As of 1.8. I think we’re pretty much all the way there. Code now has room to breath, with plenty of whitespace for readability.
The Rest
Since WordPress 3.3.1 was recently released, Genesis 1.8 does require this latest version of WordPress. It’s always good to stay up to date anyway, so go ahead and upgrade with confidence knowing that Genesis is fully compatible.
Note: Users of WordPress 3.2.1 or older will not be prompted to upgrade to Genesis 1.8 via their dashboard. Please upgrade to WordPress 3.3.1. first, then our update servers will prompt you to update within 24 hours.
So what are you waiting for? Go upgrade, already! Remember to backup your site first, even though if you mess up with any files you can easily back it up in no time. For backing WordPress site, I Recommend to use BackupBuddy.
If you have any query let me know via comments and do not forget to check out Free WordPress Installation Service which comes with lots of unlimited and amazing features.
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