Web Strategy and Development Blog

Blog updates 2018.10.0 released

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General

Changed

  • Changelog to break out to discrete changelogs per plugin/theme; repo changelog notes repo-specific changes and plugin/theme version updates
  • Version numbers on plugins/themes to no longer directly follow the project version number

Themes

MSU Magazine Pro (1.4.6)

Added

Changed

  • Masthead and footer logos to use circle-R versions

Feature details

Social footer settings

If you use the MSU Magazine Pro theme, you now have the ability to easily customize your social footer. To add your social footer to your blog, do the following:

  1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
  2. In the sidebar, hover over “Appearance” and click on “Customize”.
  3. In the settings sidebar, click on “Social Footer”.
  4. Fill in settings that apply to your unit and blog (delete any text you don’t want to have display).
  5. You can check your progress in real-time in the preview window.
Social footer settings
Field Description
Display the social footer? Toggles on and off the social footer
Unit name Typically the name of the unit/department that hosts the blog
Hashtag A hashtag that is typically associated with your unit/department or blog; be sure and include the hashtag (#) symbol in the text; refer to the university’s guidelines on social media content and official hashtags for additional information
Hashtag URL Supply a valid URL that may be associated with your hashtag such as a link to a Tagboard site
Facebook profile URL A valid Facebook profile URL
Twitter profile URL A valid Twitter profile URL
Instagram profile URL A valid Instagram profile URL
YouTube profile URL A valid YouTube profile URL
Pinterest profile URL A valid Pinterest profile URL
LinkedIn profile URL A valid LinkedIn profile URL
Flickr profile URL A valid Flickr profile URL

Currently, the social footer is limited to the platforms listed in the settings table, and the platforms cannot be reordered.

Blog updates version 2018.6.0 released

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Themes

MSU Magazine Pro

Changed

  • Global masthead and footer from externally maintained <iframe> content to PHP includes within the theme

Deprecated

The following files are marked for removal on Oct. 1, 2018:

  • MSUHeaderFooter files
    • FontLoader.js
    • HeaderFooterscripts.js
    • MSUFooter.html
    • MSUFooterWP.html
    • MSUHeader.html
    • MSUHeaderWP.html

Fixed

  • West Plains theme styles from inheriting random maroon links
  • Widget items from unnecessarily indenting

Plugins

Web Widgets

Fixed

  • PHP error with calendar widget

Blog theme redesign

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Over the past few weeks we have been converting all Missouri State blogs to our new redesigned theme, which is designed to utilize all of the new features offered in WordPress 3.x and better coordinates with the 2010 web templates. Now that the conversion process is completed, I wanted to share more detailed information about the new theme and all of the options now available to blog users.

Here are some of the key features of the new Missouri State Blog theme:

Various color options

There are now seven color options for your blog; these colors coordinate with the new skins in Web Press. You can now choose a color layout of Maroon, Grey, Orange, Blue, Tan, Green or Lime.

Updates to header images

The new header images utilize a larger size of 960×198 pixels. We have also created a set of default header images that blog administrators can choose from, and the option of creating and uploading a custom header image is still in effect. The process for uploading header images has also been updated, and is documented on the Header Images tutorial within our blog support pages.

Now that the process for uploading header images is integrated into your blog Dashboard, we will be phasing out the NextGEN Gallery plugin in the near future. We suggest using either the built-in photo gallery for WordPress or the Inline Media Tool plugin in combination with Flickr for any future slideshows or galleries that need to be embedded in your blog posts.

Drop-down menus

The Missouri State 2010 theme neatly organizes your pages into a menu in your blog’s header, and includes drop-down menus for multiple levels of nested sub-pages.

Author box

An box containing information about a blog post’s author is now default on all blogs (you can see an example at the bottom of this post). To have the box appear on your blog, the author must have some information entered on their profile within WordPress. You can enter this information by visiting your profile page.

Multiple sidebars

The new blog theme supports up to two sidebars on the right side of the blog and up to four sidebars above the footer. The layout of the theme will change dynamically depending on how many sidebars you utilize.