We’re moving directly to 0.5.7. Flint 0.5.6 was an internal release only.
This is another fairly large update that will disrupt your current installation. This update introduces a completely new color picker and big changes to the way background colors and images are managed in the administration pages. For this reason, any background colors or images you had set previously, will likely be wiped out with this update.
Menus got some significant updates as well. You can now add background images to menu items and the handling of borders is much better, but let me just say this about styling menus: It’s not easy to keep straight. You really have to know something about CSS style inheritance to understand how and why these options work the way they do. Some of it is intuitive and some of it is not. It is just plain not easy to make an interface that lets you style things like menus. So with that said, please give yourself a lot of time and patience if you attempt to do crazy things with your menus. Please ask for some guidance if necessary. I’m happy to help.
Upgrade Procedure
Backup Current Copy First
If you have custom files in your Flint theme folder, back up the entire folder so you can copy your custom files into the new version you’ll get with the update.
Update
To update, just visit the Updates page or the Themes page to initiate the auto-update. Note: This version of Flint requires WordPress 3.8.
New Features
- Tabbed Pages
All Flint admin screens were broken into tabs. Most sections are still just one page and a new Help page for the section, but the Menus section now has four tabs ( Primary, Secondary, Header, and Help ) and the Content section has four tabs ( Sections, General, Entries and Help ). For Content, the Sections tab covers the main sections within the content area: .site-inner, .content, .breadcrumb and .author-box. The General tab covers any kind of content you’d use in your pages or posts, things like general headings, images, forms, pre-formatted text, code, and blockquotes. The Entries tab covers anything related to the entries, HTML articles with a class of .entry. - New Color Picker
I switched Flint to use the Spectrum color picker. I wanted to use this one originally, but it did not have the ability to clear a color so I had to stick with the built-in WP color picker (which is sluggish in comparison). However, my inquiries about Spectrum’s features actually spurred the completion of the feature I wanted so I delayed the update to get it installed and configured. This color picker allows you to do some amazing things and I think you’ll love it for this reason alone: transparent colors. - Header
I added options for .site-header .wrap because there are a number of situations where you might need to apply the background image to the .wrap and not .site-header itself. - Comments
Comment text can now be colorized. Not sure why that option was there earlier but it is now. Child comments got padding and background controls. - Setup » Site Type
I added the “Header on the left” site type option. This mimics the StudioPress Sixteen Nine theme that affixes the header to the left side of the screen, only scrolling the content. This solution supports the primary and secondary menus after the header only. You can independently set the header width and the width of everything else so you’re not stuck with the widths I choose. When this site type is chosen, I also hide many options within Flint that do not apply, such as, the centering of header content. I do that for you automatically and remove the option to alleviate confusion.
Updates and Enhancements
- Gradients
Yes you read that right – Flint now lets you create gradients for many areas of the site including the header, menus, menu items, buttons and more. These are pure CSS gradients that work in all major browsers including back as far as IE8. Just pick gradient for the color type and you’ll get two color pickers to set the colors. You can also set the direction of the gradient. Future releases may support more than two colors and radial gradients. - Background Color/Image layering and Faux Tinted Images
I’ve also included an option for background images that lets you place the image above or below the background color. This is interesting in that it allows you to place a semi-transparent color above the image, essentially tinting it. It’ll be interesting to see what some of you do with that.
Usability and General Housekeeping
- Admin
Clicking the Reset Settings button on any Flint admin page will now require you to confirm the action. - Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs got some usability updates to ensure you don’t see options that don’t apply when you position the crumbs after the header. - Captions
To avoid confusion , I’ve added 8px of padding for image captions. This produces the box-like effect around the image and the caption text which is more of what you’d expect to see at first.
Bug Fixes
- Header » Site Title Image
Fixed a bug that prevented the site title image from showing. That should work again. - Comment Form
Fixed a bug that prevented the background of the section to be transparent when the default color was removed. - Comment Form
Fixed the filter that changes the heading text and the button text. - Archives
Fixed the left margin value for featured images. - Comments
Child comment header padding was not hooked up. It is now. - Footer Widgets
Ooops, forgot to test those when I moved the function last release. They’re working again. - Archives
Fixed the H2 entry title border styles. - There were numerous other little things I found along the way as well.
On The Radar
- Post format support ( post formats are already enabled, but Flint does not include styles for them)
- Translation
- Remove Single Post Navigation and making that a real plugin as it should be
- Borders for headings
- Maybe consider gap control for footer widgets
- Always, more efficiency, more quality, more security… every day one more thing. It all adds up to something good.
