A maintenance and security update that also includes minor improvements and new logic to hide the primary menu.
Elite Star News
Final touches included php8 and ClassicPress compatibility along with ongoing code maintenance and refinements. We also configured the Plugins helper to be off by default (the helper can notify on the dashboard about the plugins we used to enable certain features and functionality during our testing of Blue Haze).
Blue Haze v0.9.9.8 is essentially production ready, feature testing on a variety of sites and configurations is complete, so in that respect things are in good shape. However, the plan to incorporate a level of plugin management into the theme has been set aside and instead we are developing a separate suite of tools for Plugin Management. We will provide details about that project in another post, but are sort of holding off on backing some of the plugin related code out of the theme until we are further along with the Plugin Tools. Since other changes made enhance functionality for sites using the blog features of WordPress, we decided to release what we hope might be the last Beta Version of the Blue Haze Theme.
Development continues on Blue Haze and v0.9.9.6 cleans up some of the issues we wanted to work out before an official release version is assigned. The main items left to cover include additional testing on a few more sites and configurations along with how to properly handle plugin requirements and/or suggestions – this has been difficult to work out due to endless variations desired by developers and publishers. Our suggestions could easily be overwhelming or bothersome for some, while others may enjoy knowing how we made use of plugins to achieve functionality for certain features. The further we push into trying to work out a theme driven solution, the more it seems that offering a plugin might be the better choice, as it could provide the basics regarding what plugins we find useful and compatible with Blue Haze, while potentially becoming a plugin manager to use across multiple sites.
Features continue to be added and refined as Blue Haze is tested on an expanding number of sites. As of release 0.9.9.4 the functionality provided by the plugin Post Template Select has been replaced by settings integrated into the Blue Haze Options dashboard that allows selecting which post types, including any custom post types, you want to be able to use the Blue Haze Dynamic Template on.