Asides

Tarski 1.7.3 includes two bug fixes; if you’re not affected by either of these things, it’s probably not worth the time to upgrade from 1.7.2. Translations should be unaffected by the version bump.

The first fix is to make the update notifier work on servers where allow_url_fopen is disabled, such as the popular Dreamhost. Please note that if your server has allow_url_fopen disabled, you must enable caching by setting the cache directory’s permissions to 777. Otherwise, you’ll just get a “No connection to update server” message. Thanks to janzo on the forum for pointing this issue out.

The asides selector on the Options page has also received a small tweak, to bring it in line with expected behaviour: all post categories are now selectable as asides, even if they currently don’t have any posts in. Thanks to lecrocq on the forum for noticing this one.

Work on the next version of Tarski continues apace, and as always you can keep track of major changes via a quick glance at the roadmap. The technically-minded amongst you can also browse the latest development build. The next version will probably be released in early November, depending on my other commitments.

Bugs and suggestions to the forum as always.

Lots of changes, this time, so we opted to call it version 1.1. As always, a detailed list of changes is available in the changelog.

This release has a number of major changes. If you’re upgrading from an older Tarski install, we recommend deleting the entire contents of the old folder and installing a fresh copy of 1.1.

New Header

Ben did a new header, Coffee Rings, and we’ve added a blank header image for those who prefer a minimal look.

Theme Hooks

One of the biggest problems people seem to run into with Tarski and other themes is the necessity of editing theme files to add content to areas of the theme. This causes upgrades to be a substantial pain in the ass for users, as well as making support more difficult for theme authors.

We’re trying out a solution to this problem with Tarski’s new theme hooks. Using a single file, constants.php, code can be added to the theme without losing it when updating to the next version. Take a look at the documentation for more information.

As an example of this, our Mint stats tracker JavaScript for this site is added via the headerInclude hook.

Alternate Styles

Having seen some of the nifty tweaks to the theme, we figured it was time to make tweaking the CSS easier. The options pane now supports alternate styles, which can be used to tweak and override the default stylesheet. For example, this site is now running the polar.css style.

Tarski now ships with several alternate styles, and you can make your own by just uploading them to wp-content/themes/tarski/styles/. Got a nifty alternate style? Please do share yours with us - we may include it in the next version!

Asides

We’ve added an implementation of Matt’s Asides that draws on K2’s implementation as well. Just select a post category in your theme options and away you go.