Updating:
WP Champion Professional Theme Ver 3.4.0. has been released in our API for updating by way of the theme internal update function. If you have any questions your welcome to contact the support team for guidance prior to updating.
There is a specific order of updating and our advice is that you not update anything until you are certain all your most important plugins have indicated they have a WordPress 5.6 compatible release. We have noticed some plugins that are offering WP 5.6 updates are not backwards compatible.
Customers of our “Total Managed” hosting platform at 247wphosting.com can leave every aspect of updating to our hosting team (headed by James!). But if you feel you would like professional assistance in updating we offer very reasonable update pricing – contact us by email at support@thethemebuilders.com or via our skype id: support-thethemebuilders.com.
The recommended order of updating is:
- Do a backup of your website. Its often useful to export your Rev Sliders, Essential Grids and you can also export your menus and even all your widgets. But at least run a full backup of your database and website.
- Update all plugins other then those that are included with WP Champion.
- DEACTIVATE (But do not delete!) RESPONSIVE MENU PRO plugin.
- Update WP Champion and then update all the theme included plugins. you will see a prompt to install Champion Responsive Menu plugin. Install and activate it!
- Update your WordPress to Ver 5.6!
- Now surf to your plugins folder and delete Responsive Menu Pro as its no longer needed.
- MOST IMPORTANT: Once you start the updating don’t stop halfway to see if your site looks okay. Of course it does not as your only part of the way through the process!
The release today has several main goals:
- All Plugins Updated: Revolution Slider, Essential Grid and Element Pack
- New Responsive Menu Plugin: We replace Responsive Menu Pro with our own Champion Responsive Menu plugin (see below)
- Core Theme: PHP 8 Compatibility. WP 5.6 and Woo 4.9.2 compatibility. Many little code fixes and adjustments.
- Woocommerce Features: WPC has incredible Woo customization for both Shop and Single Product pages. Theme Woo templates updated. Adjustment and fixes for Woo Breadcrumbs and url strings.
- Portfolio & Masonry: All aspects of the Masonry shortcode display are improved. Plus some portfolio fixes.
- Header & Navigation: 4 new settings for logo & Nav menu position tweaking.
- Fonts/Media/Sliders: A new meta called Last Modified for posts. A new Retina setting. New Video parallax (smart boxes and sections) and other jarallax script updates.
WP Champion Professional Theme Ver 3.4.0 Changelog:
Our API build webpage has a “Files” tab with a breakout of New, Different and Deleted Files.
The Detail tab in the API release webpage will present you with the actual edited code in each file. Please note its not the entire content of each file but the blocks of code in each file that were edited. Click on “highlight” and edited code will be highlighted with two colors: purple for old code and green for new code.
There are 17 theme files that are deleted, and 14 new theme files including a new theme woo template (for displaying woo category thumbnails where needed). Over 100 core theme files are modified in this release!
Plugins Updated:
The following are updated.
– Revolution Slider : To Version 6.3.6
– Essential Grid: From 3.0.7 to 3.0.11 which finally seems to resolve all issues this plugin has had recently
– Element Pack: to Ver 5.6.3 which is continuing its track record of introducing new Elementor Widgets and adding more functionality for 3rd party plugins.
– Super Elements: To Version 2.2.2 which has new widgets and extends.
– Champion Responsive Menu: A replacement for Responsive Menu Pro
Essential Grid: In recent updates its developers have removed from the extended license version (the version we are allowed to build into a theme) all grid skins but 4 basic starter skins. So we have added to our importable content setting in the Advanced Settings panel an option to import 72 skins being the ones removed plus a few extra.
Champion Responsive Menu Plugin: The original developers of RMP have sold their plugin and changes in new releases do not mesh well with Champion as we have deep integration of RMP into our theme. So we forked it to our own version and further improved some code. It is a seamless transition from one plugin to the other. The steps are simple:
- Turn off Responsive Menu Pro. Do not delete it yet, just turn it off. If you have a caching program or plugin installed at this point you should clear all caches.
- Install and activate Champion Responsive Menu.
- Check your mobile menu. Some of you use the hamburger style menu for all viewports. Open it up and confirm all your styling and menu is in place.
- Assuming all is well you can now delete Responsive Menu Pro.
Core Theme:
Updated: PHP 8 Compatibility, WP 5.6 Compatibility. Fixed all Champion core php 8 fatal and warning messages. Note that this only applies to the core theme. Most of our included plugins are substantially php 8 compatible but there are some trailing issues being worked on in almost all plugins.
Added: Translation of theme admin bar menu items and admin sidebar menu. Added setting in advanced settings to load theme_admin css in front-end.
Added: Gutenberg 9.1 legacy widget support.
Updated: Admin Language File
Updated: Theme core files to meet Envato Theme check. We will never be selling WPC at Envato but we figured it was a good exercise to surpass their theme check standard.
Moved: webfont.js into theme js folder not loading it from google cdn anymore.
Changed: Theme admin css for select js script dropdown updates.
Fixed: WordPress Importer Demo content now also importing the theme menu custom fields.
Fixed: Custom Fields menu js issue on inserting a new menu item. Columns and Visibility Fields could not toggle open and closed.
Fixed: Return empty array when Mega Menu Main plugin is not active (we have a mega menu child theme for anyone interested in using that plugin)
Fixed: various Css issues related to boxed layout sticky header enabled.
Removed: Support for IE versions below version 11 && $.browser js to check for ie versions below version 11.
All of the above is in the category of theme polishing and optimization. The practical outcome for owners is simply that everything works better.
Although PHP 8 is released by php.net it is not available on most host admin platforms such as Cpanel. Few plugins are 100% php 8 compatible and we suggest that even if offered you hold off on PHP 8 upgrading.
Woocommerce
Updated: Templates for woocommerce single product images and thumbnails
Added: Shop page url in breadcrumbs menu on Cart, Account and Checkout pages. It was missing and not following the theme woocommerce breadcrumb settings.
Fixed: Deprecated warning message for grabbing the woocommerce attachment category or tag image.
Fixed: Woocommerce translating cart item/items issues.
WP Champion has a separate settings panel for Woo integration with approx 150 settings. Furthermore when editing any single product you have yet another array of settings to control placement and display of elements in the single product display, and what is shown in a product list such as on the Shop Page. You can even build a 100% custom shop page and not use any of the default Woo list shortcodes which give very bland output.
Our Champion Woo integration is compatible with Fancy Product Designer which is perhaps the most advanced self hosted product design woo plugin available. But most importantly with WP Champion you can build, manipulate, and categorize in more ways then ever thought possible a store with Woo. Many woo plugins for styling are not necessary due to the abilities within WP Champion. We save you money!
Portfolio & Masonry
Fixed: Portfolio displaying correct image when only height or width parameter has been supplied in shortcode.
Fixed: turn off autosave on portfolio custom posttype.
Fixed: Masonry lay-out in screen sizes bigger then 980px. Also added adjustments column width settings to masonry shortcodes.
Updated: Masonry Isoptope JS files. Fixed RTL masonry layout.
Header & Navigation
Added: Logo float (left/right) for the Top Menu normal Menu situation (not mobile).
Added: Setting to move the Main Navigation Menu Button Layout Item up or down in pixels.
Added: Setting to Make the Main Navigation Fit to the Box Layout Container.
Added: Setting to toggle ON OFF full width sub menu follow Menu breakpoints offset.
Fixed: removing custom Menu fields from database on save Menu when they are not set.
Changed: Z-index for logo and logo_text.
Tweaks to help with fine tuning logo and nav in specific situations encountered in the last few months on different websites.
Fonts/Media/Sliders:
Added: Meta Items Date Modified field to meta options.
Added: Creating Fontface directory if deleted by accident in ftp/file manager.
Added: Installing additional fontface fonts in child theme if advanced child is active.
Added: Retina Image Multiplier setting. The multiplier creates a retina image from the original following the multiplier setting. Can be set between 1.0 and 2.0.
Added: jarallax video bg parallaxing and Jarallax video support and options in the Smartbox and Section shortcodes.
Updated: Theme Jarallax Javascript
Fixed: Nivo Slider issue images and caption getting out of sync when use of retina images was enabled.
Fixed: background image fixed not working due to bug in firefox. Remove transform css from various elements to make fixed background working again.