Greetings everyone. We’ve got yet another exciting release. We are currently in the midst of two major projects, the AI project being one we have already hinted at. Since we’re working to bring you the best products there, we decided we were at a good spot to release another version with a bunch of new additions and fixes. This is also a good time to talk future direction.
So download and activate the Beta plugin and get ready to test the future of website building.
Dynamic Content 2.0 : The Twig Tower
Our flagship feature of Cornerstone 7.5.0, is the Twig Template Engine integration into Dynamic Content. It’s something I started when I first got here to Themeco actually, but it wouldn’t be the feature you see here today without listening and seeing the challenges of your sites and for that we thank you for truly making our themes and Cornerstone something special. There’s so much to go over and we’re planning plenty of videos on this wonderful feature. For now I’ll leave you with some core points.
- The docs are here https://theme.co/docs/twig . Reach out to me during the beta and we’ll add more examples if you have questions.
- PHP 8.1+ is required. We are packaging the very latest version of Twig and a few twig extensions which require this.
- We plan on keeping the release of 7.5.0 as the beta of Twig. Much like the External REST API I think pushing the envelope in the page builder world is important and sometimes that can come with some bugs or issues.
- Dynamic Content as you know it is staying the same. This merely marks the new direction where data is handled by the Dynamic Content API and formatting, templating, and advanced content manipulation is handled by Twig.
Here is a fun thing I created with this the other day
Modals Reloaded
Easily one of our favorite elements are the Toggleables (Modal, Off Canvas, and Dropdown). And in this release we have some bug fixes, features, and new prefabs. There is a prefab for both Modal and Off canvas that puts the close button inside the container, in the Off Canvas case it lets you control the button with more granularity. You can also hide the close button, paired with the new “Toggleable Close Button” prefab you can easily convert your current Modals to this look and feel.
External REST API XML Change
Due to an oversight we’re changing how the XML return type works. To alleviate the change we’ve added a legacy mode so nobodies site will break in the upgrade. If you upgrade and have the External API enabled you will be put into XML legacy mode. We are going to put a message in your dashboard till you switch off legacy mode as we don’t want to maintain two different XML processors. If you are using the External API, but were not using XML anywhere you can safely turn off legacy mode. We’d love to get testing here so we don’t have any more changes like this.
The next steps for External API is to add authentication strategies like OAuth and when we release that we will be reaching feature completion and will be taking it out of Beta. You can be assured it’s not going anywhere though. The response around this feature has been phenomenal and for someone taking chance at something new it warmed my heart.
Doc here https://theme.co/docs/external-api-xml-change
Design Cloud Packs Resurrection
Design Cloud Packs have been brought back into the app. We’ve also updated them to utilize some new elements like Tabs and Accordions that have inner elements.
Image Gallery Prefabs
Also highly requested. We have two prefabs coming to the templates. The downloads are going to be below, but upon full release they will be going into the Themeco templates tab.
- Thumbnail Slider gallery https://theme.co/app/uploads/share/thumbnail-gallery-slider.tco
- Image Lightbox Gallery https://theme.co/app/uploads/share/image-lightbox-gallery.tco
Prolific Performance
Sometimes the fastest way to get something done is for your app to be, well, faster. We’ve added a bunch of new performance updates specifically with Theme Options and controls. What’s on the horizon is to change how the actual preview works in order to fix two things. WPML subdomains not working all on one site without redirecting the page and having a site that uses a subdomain for the backend and another domain for the actual WordPress site. Both issues stem from how we render the preview which needs to change. This will also make things faster.
Cornerstone Charts 1.2.0 - The Vector Arc
The galaxies most resilient charting plugin gets a major update with 2 new chart types and 2 new prefabs. Bubble, Scatter, and Combo Line + Bar chart enter the picture. Support for Time and Logarithmic charts has also been added. That’s not to mention all the dynamic charts that can be created with the introduction of Twig.
We also updated Max plugins to have a beta install system. You need to update Cornerstone Charts if you update the theme or Cornerstone, this is due to the bugfix around parameters. I don’t suspect this to happen all the time.
Misc
- Flex gap support as well as H Flex and V Flex prefabs
- Sticky bars have changed to support 1 pixel scroll shrinking better like it was in Pro 5. The sticky bar slide feature can also be turned off
- Attachment Srcset feature for Image and Background
tags
- Dropdowns flickering in a header can be eliminated with the introduction of the “Inline” control
We plan on making a few more changes in this beta around WooCommerce JS which will be one of the final steps to removing the need for jQuery and a fix around Yoast. And of course be sure to send your requests or bugs our way. The changelog will be posted below.
Have a great day.