2.5 Release

August 6, 2009 by Ben Eastaugh | 16 comments

Tarski 2.5 improves Tarski’s compatibility with WordPress 2.8 and takes advantage of its new features to produce a leaner codebase. An excruciating amount of detail is available in the changelog. Please note that WordPress 2.8 is required for this release.

Download Tarski 2.5

You can also get this release as a Git tag or a Subversion tag or branch.

We strongly recommend following the upgrade guide. Always back up your files and database before running a WordPress or Tarski upgrade. Please ensure that you upgrade WordPress before installing the new version of Tarski.

Fixes & enhancements

Tarski 2.5 fixes a number of bugs, most of which were very minor. Its widget code has been extensively overhauled to meet the new standard interfaces introduced in WordPress 2.8.

The Recent Articles widget has been almost completely rewritten. Not only can it now be used in multiple widget areas, but the title it displays and the number of articles listed are now customisable.

Support for right-to-left languages has improved again, thanks to mark-k on the forum. I hope to build on this for 2.6 and improve the way the options page displays for RTL language users as well.

In the spirit of progressive enhancement, users with more recent browsers such as Safari, Firefox and Chrome will hopefully notice the improved styling of form submit buttons.

Deprecations and diminishment

As many of you noticed, this release has taken a lot longer than usual to come out. This wasn’t because it was an especially complex release (it wasn’t; despite the length of the changelog, the changes in 2.4 were much more substantial), but because I no longer have as much time as I once did to work on Tarski.

As a result, I’m rethinking how I approach the upkeep of the theme. I’d rather spend my time as a programmer than a janitor, so the changes I’m making ought to ensure that Tarski continues to be updated with each new version of WordPress, while eliminating a few of the headaches that have built up over the years.

No more default widgets

In the last version, I added a set of default widgets to Tarski’s widget areas. This was, I thought, a nice piece of functionality; the only problem was that it relied too much on private WordPress internals, rather than the public API. Unsurprisingly, the internals changed (for the better—these changes were at the heart of the improved widget support), and my code no longer worked.

Rather than rewrite it, with the possibility of it breaking with the next WordPress release, I’ve removed it altogether. If a new, approved, public way is added to allow this functionality then I’ll reinstate the defaults, but until then, new users will just have to put up with things looking a bit bare until they add their widget selections.

User sidebar file deprecated

Because widgets are now settled as the way to customise WordPress sites, I’ve deprecated the user-sidebar.php file. Support for it will be removed entirely in Tarski 2.6.

Constants file deprecated

Considered a legacy API since the introduction Tarski’s extensive hooks API (a far superior way to extend the theme), the constants file is now deprecated entirely. Support for it will be removed in Tarski 2.6.

Subversion repository no longer maintained

Tarski 2.5 will also be the last release available from the Subversion repository. Again, I have a limited amount of time, and I’d prefer to spend any time I do have to work on Tarski writing code, rather than keeping two version control repositories in sync. Anyone wanting to maintain a public Subversion repository is, of course, entirely welcome to do so.

Support forum hanging on, for now

The forum is probably the most time-consuming thing of all. I’m not planning on shutting it altogether, but my activity there will drop a bit further. Tarski is an exceptionally well-documented theme, and there are literally hundreds of forum discussions covering a vast number of user questions. For those who want to make changes, there is example code in abundance.

As always, hope you enjoy the new version.

Please post bug reports and suggestions on the forum.

Tags: 2.5, custom sidebar, RTL languages, widgets, WordPress 2.8

16 comments

Daniel on August 7, 2009 at 8:24 am

Hi Ben,

I just want to thank you for this great theme and the continuous improvement of it. Keep up this good work!

Regards from the summerly Germany,

Daniel
huda on August 10, 2009 at 2:24 am

i like it…
tarsky is nice theme..
Albear on August 18, 2009 at 9:16 pm

Hi Ben, I love Tarski, it gets better and better, upgrade from 2.4 to 2.5 went smoothly.

Keep up the good work!
mark-k on August 22, 2009 at 4:58 pm

Whatever will become of tarski in the future, it surely is one of the nicer theme to work with, at least from a perspective of a developer.
1. Ben Eastaugh on August 22, 2009 at 5:31 pm
  
  Thanks, Mark—making Tarski a good platform for developers to work with has been one of my main goals over the last couple of years, so it’s great to hear that I’ve managed to achieve something in that regard.
Gryphon on August 30, 2009 at 9:50 pm

Hi Ben. Just wanted to say a cumbersomely big thank you for your excellent WorPress theme. After trawling through loads of themes Tarski was the only one we found that had the level of refined elegance to suit our brand style. Thanks again for your sublime work. It is much appreciated.

the way that can be spoken of
is not the constant way
but on occasion it may be programmed
Artikel Internet on September 2, 2009 at 8:45 am

I like the theme, thanks very much

david
samic on September 25, 2009 at 12:54 pm

i have copy your header image and some styles for my blog and i wrote at the end of my page that there are from your site. is this right? can i do this? is it against copyright?
1. Ben Eastaugh on September 25, 2009 at 1:17 pm
  
  All the code and images are released under the GPL, so you’re free to use them (within the limits of that license). Credit is not required, although it is appreciated!
Pingback from Site Changes | Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4 on September 26, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Parker Lim on October 3, 2009 at 9:51 am

Love the theme. My only concern is that I can’t see the TIME my posts were made. I would like to have that as well as the date on each post. Currently each post just shows the date. How do I add time?
1. Ben Eastaugh on October 3, 2009 at 12:01 pm
  
  There isn’t currently a way to do this, without adding a filter to the get_post_time or get_the_time hooks. I suppose I could add a new API hook for this.
  1. Parker Lim on October 3, 2009 at 12:21 pm
    
    Thanks a lot for the quick reply. Is there a guide on how to add a filter to either of those hooks so I could enable this feature? I’m familiar with very basic scripting so I don’t know if I’d be able to do this on my own. Would I be better off waiting until you release the next version of the theme?
    1. Ben Eastaugh on October 3, 2009 at 12:35 pm
      
      The WordPress Codex article on the Plugin API is a good start; if you get stuck, post on the Tarski support forum and I’ll try to provide some example code.
Web Designer / Developer on October 11, 2009 at 5:43 pm

Great Theme!, Thanks for Sharing!
Karl Craig-West on October 15, 2009 at 10:03 pm

Our church has chosen a variation on this theme for their new website. Have to admit that I love this theme and I think they’ve chosen very wisely.

Many thanks for a terrific work.
Karl