YES! We just finished a big new update for the next and probably last beta version of Custom Community 2.0 Theme. And we also just released the first beta version of the CC2 Premium Pack Plugin!
So, what’s new?
New Design
We put a lot of love into the new design, which feels like 98% finished now. Except you have good reasons that something feels still not finished here – please write us your personal feeling on this!
New Slideshow
One very most asked feature was to customize the slider’s width or height and to simply be able to choose some images you wanna slide. And yeah, we added all that.
Taken To A Whole New Level
We’ve put a lot of thoughts into a new beautiful and ultra-lightweight slider. No additional scripts needed than just the Bootstrap Carousel, combined with easy options, and much more customization possibilities than the old CC1 slider had. (More post slider options coming in pro version!)
More Sidebar Layouts added
Another most asked feature reqeust – so now you can have also 2 sidebars, left and right side.
More Theme Options added
Too many to list them all up here! :)
But few options still missing, they’re coming next.
New Premium Dashboard
We added a new nice Premium Dashboard so you instantly get an overview of all Premium Features – and for the Beta Version, you also see the current development status on each! ;)
LessPHP Compiling (premium)
Compile your setup with LESS. Reduced output, faster pageload.
Smarter Variable Handling (premium)
Some theme options modify Bootstrap variables directly. This way you have much leaner CSS, we don’t need to overwrite anything of Bootstrap’s CSS, and we have much more possibilities for smarter options.
New Shortcodes (premium)
20+ shortcodes for columns, tabs, bars,… Add all the cool Bootstrap elements in seconds.
Simplified Markup
Simpler PHP and HTML
No HTML is hidden in complex functions. Instead, we brought as much as possible into the templates, with the easiest markup possible. Everywhere possible we avoided to hook or create new dependencies. This makes the template files much easier and customizable than they were in Custom Community 1.x versions.
We simplified and rethought every line of code, so child theming gets as easy as possible for you.
Leaner CSS
Super lean and short CSS, around 10% of the amount that it was in versions 1.x of Custom Community!
Inline Help
All theme files with detailed inline documentation with helpful comments by the theme authors.
Better Readability
We take our time to polish and format the code just to make it most easily readable and beautiful.
(Just as we are still working on the code a lot, not all is cleaned up yet..)
See The New Demo
The new demo site is just being build here:
http://themekraft.com/custom-community-wordpress-theme/
Download the BETA here
DO NOT UPDATE YOUR LIVE SITE YET! It’s ALL BETA = just on testing sites!
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» Notice on Typography Options:
Some options needed to be removed from the theme, as they work via Bootstrap variables, which is not allowed in themes and because it’s plugin territory. Unfortunately this hits a few typography options like link color or font-family. We will think about this further, for now it is only available in the premium pack.
» Notice on Sidebars for Pages, Posts,…
In the first beta versions there were a few more sidebars when you go to Appearance -> Widgets. There have been different sidebars for pages, posts, archives, …
» This has been replaced with just left and right sidebar now.
Reason: nowadays you can do this via a great feature inside the Jetpack Plugin:
With that feature enabled, you can choose for every widget you drop into a sidebar, on which posts or pages it should show up!
Thanks for all your feedback!
Big shouts to every single one writing us their personal feedback! We were really enjoying to read all these different perspectives and it was great input! You have contributed forming the new Custom Community a lot! Cheers!
Just one thing
We got most feedback via email, it would be awesome to see more people using our ideas forums
What’s coming next for the final 2.0 now?
CC2 Theme
- Finish the slideshow HTML/CSS markup
- More Theme Options, especially:
- Option to have your website in “boxed” style
- Container background color
- Menu color and font options (premium)
- Hide page titles / center page titles (premium)
- More widget areas for header and content sections
- Some more options to fine-tune the top and bottom spacing from sections (premium)
- Make it translation ready
- Polishing and bug fixing
- Update Script for updating from CC 1.x versions
CC2 Premium Pack
- Finish the LESS Compiling Options
- Finish Child Theme Generator
- Finish the additional Theme Options
- Page Templates
- Single Page Options
- Finish Post Slider Options
- Make it translation ready
- Polishing and bug fixing
- Update Script for updating from CC 1.x versions
Planned Release Dates
We plan to finish the CC 2.0 Theme within the next 4 weeks.
And after an extra testing round it will be uploaded to wordpress.org!
The CC2 Premium Pack is half way done, but will need around 4 more weeks, at least, too.
Got ideas or just missing something?
If you still miss something, now it’s your time!
Visit our ideas forums, add your ideas and vote for others!
What you like most on the new CC, what do you still miss?
Please leave us your quick personal feedback in the comments!
And please do us a little favor, and share this post ;)
Have fun testing and playing with the new CC!
