Is WordPress Thesis Theme so Good

Thesis Great When Released

The Thesis theme for WordPress self hosted blogs has been very successful since being released in the previous decade. Online reviewers rave about Thesis. This author asks the question, “are these rave reviews justified?”

When the theme was released it may have been a masterpiece of simplistic styling and compact code. When compared to many other WordPress themes of the time, it may have offered superior performance, and several well developed built in standard features.

Is this wonderful rating still justified in 2012. If we look at the way WordPress has developed since the mid to late 2000′s, becoming a fully fledged CMS system for web sites, instead of just an easy to use blogging platform, I think not!

In response to all these reviews, many of which date back to circa 2008, I published a new review today titled Thesis WordPress Framework Theme Debunked on my company website concentrating on the more technical aspects. This article continues with commentary and my personal opinions.

The main points discussed in the article are summarised next.

WordPress Widget Headings

A Basic WordPress Widget Heading Error

WordPress is mostly a SEO friendly system, yet there is one critical error that will reduce the optimisation of a WordPress blog or website: WordPress encloses Widget Titles within <h3> header markup. WordPress is not the only system theme developers make this basic error – I’ve also seen Drupal themes using h3 and worse still h2

This is one of the things I would really like to see changed in the next version of WordPress (WordPress.org) as well as WordPress.com.

The three primary heading markup tags really should only ever be used in content.

• <h1> markup should only be used for page or post TITLES
• <h2> should be the introduction content heading, with occasional use to separate really important sections of articles.
• <h3> should be used to separate subsections included under <h2> markup tags…

Widget Titles in Lower Priority Heading Markup

Ideally, Widget Titles and the widget content that follows should use the lowest possible heading tag markup; preferably <h5> or <h6>

For WordPress self hosted sites (WordPress.org) we have the option to change the default header tags by modifying the theme or core files. For WordPress.com blogs this option is not available.

The only way to get round this issue is to remove all the provided widgets, and only use text widgets (without a Title). Not an ideal situation at all, as many of the widget functions are impossible to recreate using a text widget. This is also a way round the problem for self hosted WordPress sites whose owners don’t want to hack into the theme or core files (not a good idea unless one really knows what they are doing)

Mystique Theme Update

Mystique 3.2.9 Update Released

Digital Nature recently released several updates to their Mystique theme for WordPress.org self hosted websites, starting with version 3.2 in December 2011. Since then several more updates follwed, the most recent being version 3.2.9.1

Invariably a version update to a theme is a cause for concern: Will the theme work with the site after installation? Will it break anything? Will I have to spend time re-configuring any settings or customisations?

It is always a good idea to read the release notes, as well as user comments first, and look for issues before continuing with an upgrade. This should be standard practice anyway for plugins, WordPress updates and themes.  There were a few comments left on the them page already mentioning some problems, so the update was first tested on a development site before installing on the live site Graphicline PC Shop.

Child Theme Prevents Problems with Update

The automatic update worked without a hitch on both the development and live sites. Best of all, no settings or customisations were lost! And that applies to version 3.2 and the minor upgrade 3.2.2 – I missed the 3.2.1. In fact I was downloading v3.2.1 when the later version downloaded instead…

Project – Mystique Template Look-Alike

Our Latest In-House Project is a Look-Alike HTML/CSS Website Template Matching WordPress “Mystique”

We require a page on our website to be similar in appearance to this WordPress Blog which uses the Mystique template.

The template we are working on is not a port of the WordPress template, rather a new write based on one of our existing pages. The aim is to produce a page that is very similar in appearance, yet is purely HTML and CSS based. We have called this ‘Project Mystiquated’.

The page in progress can be viewed here. This page/template uses CSS2 layout, and CSS3 Main Navigation Menu, with graphics matching this blog. HTML Doctype is ’4, strict’

Please note the template and page are not yet complete, and are a live ‘page in progress’

Disqus commenting has been integrated for our use. It will be up to users to decide whether or not to use this system or another.

Once completed, the template will be released licence free to use, with header and background images matching “Mystique”. The release will be for Developers, to adapt and modify for their own requirements. Working knowledge of CSS2/3 will be required.

Browser Support:

Later browsers that can render CSS3: The Template is being tested for full compatibility in Firefox 3.6 and later,  and Chrome 12. IE 8 does not render the full CSS3 styles, but is otherwise supported.

Development of Mystiquated Ended.

Graphicline’s development of Mystiquated has ceased apart from updates to the pages used on our own website. We have not yet however made a download package available.

The template is only available as a beta version for skilled web builders to adapt and modify. Please contact us if you wish to make use of this template. However we urge anyone wanting to use an HTML version of Mystique, to download it from Digitalnature’s Website.

Official Mystique HTML Template Available

Digitalnature, developers of the Mystique Template for WordPress have now released an official HTML version. Download Mystique HTML version. The official Mystique HTML theme template closely matches the WordPress theme in appearance.