2.1 Release

May 20, 2008 by Benedict Eastaugh | 30 comments

Tarski 2.1 includes a number of enhancements, including a fully widget-based footer area, avatar support, and a reworked options page in line with the new WordPress admin interface. Details are in the changelog as always.

Upgrade guide

  1. Back up any custom stylesheets, sidebars etc.
  2. Switch to the default theme
  3. Update your Tarski files
  4. Put your custom files back
  5. Switch back to Tarski

Changing themes ensures that Tarski isn’t running while you update your files, and triggers the upgrade routine (visiting the Tarski options page is another way to do this, if you’re just running svn up for example).

Recently I’ve been contributing the odd patch to the WordPress core, and coupled with the many other huge improvements in WordPress 2.5, the result has been that I’ve been able to remove a few things from Tarski. The ability to choose which feed type is linked to by default, for example, has been added to WordPress, and so it’s been dropped from Tarski.

Widgets

I also decided to finally give in to the inevitable, and drop Tarski’s native sidebar implementation in favour of the widgets it’s had since version 1.1.2. If you’re using the Tarski sidebar, don’t worry: your settings will be automatically converted into widgets. If you’re using a custom sidebar file, that will be picked up too: if it’s there it’ll be used, overriding the widget sidebar, and if it isn’t, it won’t.

The main footer area is now a widget field, too, and Tarski’s recent articles code has been rewritten as a widget, so you can either keep things as they are, or start customising madly. Tarski’s hooks system has received a number of additions, so anyone building their website on top of Tarski should find it that much easier to make adjustments. Some 2.1 developer notes will be forthcoming once I find the time to finish writing them up.

Avatars & icons

After being absent for a few versions, avatars are now back, courtesy of the native WordPress implementation in 2.5. You’ll be able to see them in action by commenting on this post.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to freshen up the theme with some new icons. Obviously if you want to use them in any other GPL-compatible project then you’re free to do so.

Options page

Obviously the biggest change in WordPress 2.5 is the new admin interface, and Tarski’s options page has received a thorough overhaul too. The last time we made such a big change was in version 1.3—almost a year ago. Things have come on a fair bit since then. Enjoy the new version.

Bugs and suggestions on the forum please.

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30 comments

  1. KevBo’s avatar

    KevBo on May 20, 2008 at 6:57 pm

    Thank you for the update, I plan on installing it later this evening. I havent been using Tarski for very long but by far its the most customizable theme I have found and suits my uses better than any theme Ive used in the past.

    Great work

  2. dinu’s avatar

    dinu on May 21, 2008 at 7:14 am

    Hi,

    Whom should I contact for permission to translate theme to my Language ( Malayalam ) ?
    What are the things that I should check before I do this ?

    Thanks

  3. Mikael’s avatar

    Mikael on May 21, 2008 at 8:36 am

    You don’t need any permission to translate the theme.

    All you need to do this is a program (poEdit is a good one, http://www.poedit.net) and then download the pot file from the Subversion Repository which includes all the strings in the theme.

    The localisation page (http://tarskitheme.com/help/localisation/) contains all you need to know and a couple of good links about translating WordPress.

  4. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 21, 2008 at 9:40 am

    Mikael is correct. We already have two translations for 2.1, Swedish and Russian, and another would be most welcome. If you post it on the forum once it’s ready, along with your details, I’ll add it to our translations repository and credit you on the localisation page.

  5. Markus Baumann’s avatar

    Markus Baumann on May 21, 2008 at 11:13 am

    Update went smoothly and so far everything works like a charm.

    Thank you for a great theme plus the comprehensive documentation. Keep up the good work!

  7. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 26, 2008 at 7:45 pm

    I’ve just put Tarski 2.1.1 up for download, which fixes a couple of minor bugs in Tarski 2.1. Thanks to David H. Sundwall and Eduardo Larequi for reporting the issues.

  8. Andreas Karlsson’s avatar

    Andreas Karlsson on May 26, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    How do I get Avatar to work on my site?

  9. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 26, 2008 at 9:28 pm

    You can turn them on by going to Options > Discussion in your WordPress admin panel. More details are available on the Codex.

  10. Eduardo’s avatar

    Eduardo on May 26, 2008 at 9:57 pm

    Thanks, Ben, your work is great.

  11. Juliano Ajamil’s avatar

    Juliano Ajamil on May 27, 2008 at 6:40 pm

    Very nice, Ben!
    I’ll update my Brazilian Portuguese translation ASAP!

  12. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 27, 2008 at 6:43 pm

    Fantastic; it’s wonderful to have so many translations being updated. When you post your updated translation, could you include the .po file? I’ve started adding them to the repository as a way of ensuring that they’re available should anyone want to modify them (and as an additional benefit, creating a backup for the original author).

  13. Juliano Ajamil’s avatar

    Juliano Ajamil on May 27, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    Sure, no problem.
    Thanks again for this wonderful theme :)

  14. Insei’s avatar

    Insei on May 27, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    Thanks for the theme :)

    updating (8)

  15. Xial’s avatar

    Xial on May 30, 2008 at 1:36 am

    Interesting bit of news, but something in this version of Tarski is breaking my ad boxes from Project Wonderful.

    Verified by switching to that ugly Kubrick default of WordPress, pasting code into a widget, and looking at the result (it works, I see ‘Your Ad Here’, since boxes were suspended), and then switching to Tarski, pasting the same code into a widget, and getting nothing.

    It appears that on the page itself, it’s arbitrarily trying to ‘clean up’ the HTML by inserting paragraphs and line breaks all through it. As a result, the ad box chokes.

  16. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 30, 2008 at 8:32 am

    Can you post on the forum with the code you’re pasting into the text widget?

  17. Squeaky's - Madmouse Blog’s avatar

    Squeaky's - Madmouse Blog on May 31, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Nice theme and instructions. Thanks…

  18. Miguel Bengoa’s avatar

    Miguel Bengoa on May 31, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Once again, a great theme – but my avatar does not seem to work…

  19. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on May 31, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    You need to turn them on; see my previous comment.

  21. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on June 7, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    Tarski 2.1.2 is now available for download. It fixes a nasty timeout bug which made the WordPress admin panel inaccessible when the Tarski website

  22. Ben Eastaugh’s avatar

    Ben Eastaugh on June 8, 2008 at 12:05 am

    Looks like I accidentally included a PHP 5-only function in the 2.1.2 release, I’ve remedied this in 2.1.3, hopefully this should stop the problems some people are having.

  23. sash’s avatar

    sash on June 8, 2008 at 2:23 am

    Greatest theme ever! I love it …

    :)

  24. alan’s avatar

    alan on June 8, 2008 at 9:10 am

    I love this theme more than any other but for some reason it is slower than any other theme also. I use godaddy and they are really ghetto so I don’t know if that is the problem or not.

    And I think you guys should build a ajax search bar and commenting system like the K2 theme, I love that stuff.

  25. vpetkov’s avatar

    vpetkov on June 8, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    2.1.3 goes fine. tx!

  26. Harith’s avatar

    Harith on June 9, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    Hey guys,

    Thanks for the update. It seems like Tarski doesn’t play nice with fluency admin. The div which contains info about Tarski being up to date is nudged over to the left so the text gets cut off a little.

    If you want a screenshot, let me know!

  27. Zets’s avatar

    Zets on June 9, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    Thanks

  28. bruce’s avatar

    bruce on June 24, 2008 at 11:54 am

    A fine theme, Ben & Chris – thanks for all the work and the clear documentation.

  29. Gary Smith’s avatar

    Gary Smith on June 27, 2008 at 9:42 pm

    Really good work on this theme man, it really kind of pushes the envelope of the WordPress concept. Simplicity coupled with Functionality.

    Major kudos for putting this thing together and keeping it updated. One thing that I really like that stands out above the rest is the sheer usability that you’ve worked into this.

    There is a horde of customization abilities scaling from the beginning wordpress blogger to the theme construction guru. This is the kind of theme creation I hope to pride myself on in the near future.

    Keep up the great work!

  30. Dieter Zinke’s avatar

    Dieter Zinke on June 30, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    Have you tried the rcaptcha plugin with tarski?

    http://recaptcha.net/plugins/wordpress/

    Looks ugly.

    Regards Dieter

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