WooFramework 6 has arrived

Written by Matty Cohen on July 3, 2014 News, Product News.

tl;dr: WooFramework 6 has arrived! While it’s not essential to upgrade right away, we’d love to hear your feedback from using the product. WooFramework 6 requires WordPress 3.8 or higher in order to run. Having trouble upgrading? View our upgrade guide.

Today marks a milestone in the evolution of the WooFramework, the engine powering all of our WordPress themes. The WooFramework is largely responsible for the theme settings screens, as well as handling any custom fields added to your content, displaying your media and enhancing your theme with breadcrumbs and other useful features.

Everyone, please meet WooFramework version 6.0!

The new welcome screen, welcoming you to your newly activated WooTheme.
The new welcome screen, welcoming you to your newly activated WooTheme.

What to expect from version 6.0

WooFramework 6.0 is a large code rewrite, including a myriad of features focussed around self help and improving the overall user experience for you and your clients. This includes features such as a new welcome screen (displayed when activating your theme), a revamped settings screen which fits seamlessly into WordPress, and an enhanced “Framework” screen for displaying information about your theme, backing up your theme settings helping you to update the WooFramework itself.

To find out more, please see our blog post discussing what to expect.

The WooFramework settings screen integrates seamlessly into your WordPress dashboard.
The WooFramework settings screen integrates seamlessly into your WordPress dashboard.

When will this update be available?

This update is available right now to all WooThemes theme customers, directly from within your WordPress admin dashboard.

As this is a large update, we advise testing on a staging or development environment before applying this to your live website.

How do I update the WooFramework?

Updating the WooFramework via your admin dashboard is a matter of a few clicks. To do this, please follow our guide.

How should I treat this upgrade?

While we’ve had several months of internal and external beta testing, we encourage you to treat this upgrade seriously and to not rush the process. There is no immediate need to update, other than to be on the latest version.

I have questions! Where can I go?

WooThemes Ninja JoyOur ninjas are on hand to assist with any questions you may have, or bugs you’ve come across when upgrading.

Please log a ticket directly to our helpdesk, where our team can assist further.

What’s next for the WooFramework?

We have many exciting updates queued up for the WooFramework, in particular versions 6.1 and 6.2 which should see some large updates to the features on offer.

For more information on this as it develops, please follow our theme development blog for all the latest information.

Enjoy this update, everyone!

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57 Responses

  1. allmyhoney
    July 3, 2014 at 1:20 pm #

    Nice work. Maybe a good few people are upgrading right now but it seems to just spin and time out after you click Update Framework and then you get: Failed: Upload –

    I will try back later when its a little quieter maybe. thanks for the upgrade here it looks like exciting times ahead for wooframework and themes like canvas.

    • Matty Cohen
      July 3, 2014 at 1:24 pm #

      Thanks James. 🙂

      Yeah, I suspect the connection between your server and ours may be a bit slow at the moment.

      Our upgrade guide (linked above) provides steps for a manual upgrade, if you’d like to run that.

      Excited for your feedback. 🙂

      • Creatyz
        July 14, 2014 at 11:54 am #

        I suggest updating your own pages … http://screencast.com/t/740CCqwu so as to set expectations realistically …. I did not expect such an ugly upgrade from you guys….

        any way to roll back

    • allmyhoney
      July 3, 2014 at 1:33 pm #

      Upgrade worked fine just to update here 🙂

  2. helgatheviking
    July 3, 2014 at 4:38 pm #

    Great news! Though I was kind of hoping that the theme options array would all have keys so that specific options could be easily removed. I find that not every client needs the same options.

    $options[] = array( ‘name’ => __( ‘Title’, ‘woothemes’ ),
    ‘desc’ => __( ‘Enter the title to display above the featured slider on the homepage.’, ‘woothemes’ ),
    ‘id’ => $shortname . ‘_homepage_slider_area_title’,
    ‘std’ => ”,
    ‘type’ => ‘text’ );

    to:

    $options[‘homepage_slider_area_title’] = array( ‘name’ => __( ‘Title’, ‘woothemes’ ),
    ‘desc’ => __( ‘Enter the title to display above the featured slider on the homepage.’, ‘woothemes’ ),
    ‘id’ => $shortname . ‘_homepage_slider_area_title’,
    ‘std’ => ”,
    ‘type’ => ‘text’ );

    • Matty Cohen
      July 3, 2014 at 5:12 pm #

      Hey Kathy. 🙂

      The theme options array in the WooFramework is now passed through a process inside the new “WF_Fields” class, which formats the array to include keys correctly. 🙂

      Take a squizz through the code and pop a message in the helpdesk (for attention: Matty) if you spot areas which require filters. 🙂

  3. tovabbi
    July 3, 2014 at 6:16 pm #

    Hey, upgrade went fine, but I need some time to get comfortable with the new Canvas settings screen. I cannot find the backup theme tab, for instance.

    • Matty Cohen
      July 3, 2014 at 10:54 pm #

      Hi there. 🙂

      That button is now under the “Framework” screen, with other tools such as the internal WooFramework updater. 🙂

      • Creatyz
        July 14, 2014 at 12:25 pm #

        How about page width, plus there’s a bunch of things not working .. such as my slider on Canvas Homepage (Business) stopped working … this is not what I expected from you guys…. any way of rolling back? Any way of getting a response from either

        1. Support (ticket submitted)
        2. Your Twitter account
        3. Your Facebook page, or
        4. This very blog thread

  4. Joan
    July 3, 2014 at 6:42 pm #

    Updated. So far, so good.

  5. Mikey
    July 3, 2014 at 7:17 pm #

    Heads up: http://docs.woocommerce.com/document/wooframework-release-notes/ needs some love

    • Matty Cohen
      July 3, 2014 at 11:02 pm #

      Thanks Mikey. I’ve updated the document to include relevant WooFramework 6 release notes. 🙂

  6. mattmikulla
    July 4, 2014 at 5:12 am #

    I updated and ran into some issues.

    1. My analytics tracking code is being output on the page (ticket submitted)
    2. The option to include analytics tracking in the appears to be gone
    3. I can’t set the site width anymore (not sure if this is a Canvas Theme issue)

    While we’re on the subject of internal search. Why do Woo Themes search functions in the headers or navigations only allow searching posts or products?

    • Matty Cohen
      July 4, 2014 at 9:54 am #

      Hi Matt,

      Thanks for your feedback on this. Please see my responses below:

      1. Thanks for submitting your ticket. Our ninjas are on the case. 🙂

      2. The WooFramework doesn’t remove any options from your theme. This is most likely a Canvas update/bug.

      3. Sounds like a Canvas bug to me. The WooFramework doesn’t adjust that. Please submit a ticket for this one as well.

      Regarding search in Canvas, this is specific to Canvas and has been resolved in recent versions. If this isn’t resolved for you after upgrading to Canvas 5.8.0, please log a ticket for this. 🙂

      Thanks Matt. We look forward to resolving the above for you and discussing further feedback on WooFramework and Canvas with you. 🙂

      • Matt Mikulla
        July 4, 2014 at 6:02 pm #

        Thanks.

        I also noticed that Canvas is outputting a sidebar (at the bottom) when WooCommerce pages are set to full width.

        • Chantal
          July 6, 2014 at 11:02 pm #

          Yes, I am having the same issue. The Primary Sidebar appears at the bottom of Canvas full-width pages.

      • mattmikulla
        July 4, 2014 at 6:33 pm #

        The Canvas changelog stated the search widget has been updated to use wordpress standard search widget.

        It doesn’t appear to be global for the search functionality output in the primary navigation.

        • Matty Cohen
          July 5, 2014 at 11:48 am #

          Thanks Matt. Please log as a ticket in our helpdesk and our ninjas will get right on it. 🙂

      • Creatyz
        July 14, 2014 at 12:27 pm #

        Can you address the YOUR Canvas bug please, and preferably BEFORE releasing a new MILESTONE update to your framework ….

  7. Mark
    July 4, 2014 at 10:47 am #

    I dunno if it’s just me but this new layout seems much harder to use.

    The Styling & Layout section in Canvas is a huge long page of repetitive looking options so you have to scroll up and down to find the right section. Then scroll all the way to bottom when you want to save your updates.

    Am I missing something? The older layout seemed much easier to navigate.

    • smashingdesign
      July 4, 2014 at 1:03 pm #

      I agree 100%.

      It’s hard to get to the section you need,. In the old version, there was sections you could click to.

      UX is important…

    • Matty Cohen
      July 4, 2014 at 1:23 pm #

      Thanks for your feedback on this, Mark.

      We’ll definitely be splitting the “Styling and Layout” section in Canvas to be more condensed into the appropriate sections.

      This should be coming in the next Canvas update. 🙂

      • Mark
        July 4, 2014 at 3:05 pm #

        Good to hear, cheers guys.

    • Chantal
      July 6, 2014 at 11:03 pm #

      I agree 110%. I am finding the new layout very frustrating to use.

  8. lightamatch
    July 4, 2014 at 1:22 pm #

    I’m not quite sold on the new layout yet. I guess I’ll need more time to adjust. Personally, I prefer the old layout when the “Styling & Layout” was divided. It made it easier to navigate.

    My issues are the same as what some mentioned:

    • My Analytics was displaying on my site’s footer. I had to manually put paste it in footer.php;
    • I cant find where to set/edit my site width.
    • On the homepage and category pages, my comment “speech bubble” are showing up for a split second then reverting to “2 comments”. Appears fine in post.

    • Matt Mikulla
      July 4, 2014 at 6:01 pm #

      Glad to know I’m not the only one with these issues. It’s driving me nuts.

      Hopefully we will learn more and an update will be pushed or a solution will be given.

    • Matty Cohen
      July 4, 2014 at 6:41 pm #

      Thanks for your feedback. 🙂

      Please do log tickets in our helpdesk for any bugs you come across, and we’ll get right on to fixing them up. 🙂

  9. raison
    July 4, 2014 at 5:18 pm #

    Awesome – Just tested our Canvas Debug Tool (Bamboo) and working perfectly with the latest version. Take a look here if you are a developer (Github Repo): http://raison.co/bamboo/

  10. douglsmith
    July 4, 2014 at 9:45 pm #

    I love the new admin layout and how it integrates so well with WordPress. Well done!

    I’m not so thrilled about the new breadcrumb behavior on blog posts, though. Breadcrumbs usually indicate a hierarchy, so listing all of a post’s categories as breadcrumb elements breaks that convention.

    • Matty Cohen
      July 5, 2014 at 11:47 am #

      Thanks for your feedback on breadcrumbs. 🙂

      Pre-WooFramework 6, the biggest query we’ve seen in our help desk around breadcrumb s has been along the lines of “why isn’t category X displaying in my breadcrumb, but category Y does?”. This prompted us to create the current breadcrumb solution.

      According to Google’s breadcrumb documentation, they advise multiple breadcrumbs for different category trees to the same screen. We felt this may be somewhat more intrusive than the current solution.

      Perhaps we should create a multi-breadcrumb solution and have it turned off by default, with a filter to enable it? Do you feel that would be a better solution than the current breadcrumb tree?

      I’m keen to discuss this further via a help desk ticket (please mark it “for attention: Matty”) if you’d prefer to dig deeper on this with me to find an alternative solution. 🙂

  11. Chris Weagel
    July 4, 2014 at 11:10 pm #

    Please change the Canvas Theme Settings back to the previous layout. This new arrangement is awful. I cannot easily find anything. It’s just a mess of controls thrown onto a page without any visual distinction.

    Setting your theme settings APART from the normal puke layout of WordPress settings was one of your strengths and made your themes a pleasure to work with.

    At least give an option to switch it back.

    • themeappears
      July 5, 2014 at 4:21 am #

      yes, i agree to Chris

      The visual appearance should have been done better as it it is looking like all the options are thrown on a single page and we are hunting for it.

      Earlier setting/option page was better than the latest. Reverting back to the previous one sounds good.

    • Matty Cohen
      July 5, 2014 at 11:45 am #

      Thank you for both of your feedback. We really appreciate it. 🙂

      We’ll be working on refining the Canvas theme settings screen to present to tools in a friendlier manner, as well as enhancing and refining the new layout over time, as well (we’ve got a few items logged in our issue tracker for presenting the theme settings for Canvas in a friendlier manner, as well as for adding extra spacing, for example, in certain areas of the theme settings screen).

      We look forward to your continued feedback on this (our help desk is the best place to provide this feedback directly) and to growing WooFramework 6 with you. 🙂

  12. Elliot
    July 5, 2014 at 4:40 pm #

    I’ve written a blog post / review about the new updates for the Framework and for Canvas. Specifically I talk about why we use Canvas exclusively for development. The things we like, the things we dislike and some of the work arounds we use: More here: http://raison.co/woothemes-framework-6-review/

    If you have any feedback, please leave it in the comments – thanks

  13. Slapes
    July 6, 2014 at 1:51 am #

    Like others I’m not liking the new theme settings layout in Canvas so I look forward to that being updated. As for problems, like someone mentioned earlier I found that the sidebar was displayed at the bottom of full-width pages (which I’ve sorted temporarily with some CSS) and also I’m finding that text on my website which is set to be bold is no longer appearing as bold. Is this something you are aware of and fixing?

  14. Slapes
    July 6, 2014 at 2:18 am #

    Another thing, it is adding “\” in various places in my Custom CSS box in Canvas which is screwing up my CSS code. Every time I save my settings it seems to add more “\”

  15. Joe Jenkins
    July 7, 2014 at 4:21 pm #

    You’ve killed my admin 🙁

    It was much easier to find things before with everything down the side, now everything for Styling & Layout in Canvas is on one screen and it takes forever to find it.

    I’m just going to the corner now to cry..

  16. Wouter Siteur
    July 8, 2014 at 12:28 am #

    I am really disappointed. And it seems I am not the only one that doesn’t like the update at all.

    I really miss the different Canvas configuration tabs. And I don’t like the long Canvas configuration pages.

    I just finished a long manual for my clients with Canvas configuration screenshots. It’s useless now … 🙁

    So, please tell me: how do I revert to the previous framework version !!!

    • Wouter Siteur
      July 8, 2014 at 8:14 am #

      He, nobody listening here? I am really angry and frustrated!

      PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO REVERT THE PREVIOUS VERSION OF THE FRAMEWORK !!!

      I need it today and I don’t trust the normal support. That takes at least 3 days to get an answer. And that’s another frustration. I am a paying customer, even after you raised prices. You’d better invest in better support before developing a framework that frustrates your paying customers …

      • James
        July 8, 2014 at 10:32 am #

        I’m sorry you’ve had a bad experience with our help in the past, but unfortunately blog posts are not the place to get support. Please submit a support ticket and we’ll be able to help you with this.

        I would strongly recommend that you do not continue to use old code, however.

        • Wouter Siteur
          July 8, 2014 at 4:07 pm #

          It’s not one bad experience, I always have to wait 2-5 days for an answer. I don’t complain about the content of the support, only the (lack of) speed.

          I submitted a support ticket, let’s see how long it takes …

          • Rob
            July 20, 2014 at 9:58 am #

            Try their Facebook or Twitter pages Wouter. Since it is a public space, you’re much likely to get a response…. worked for me, which basically confirmed my point, namely that is DOES work faster that way…. 😉

        • Rob
          July 14, 2014 at 11:51 am #

          your most recent framework update does not play nice with Canvas (in your own words) — is this also considered old code!?

          need a way to roll back please … link?

      • Rob
        July 14, 2014 at 11:50 am #

        Hey guys, any way of rolling back to per-6 framework …. kind of realllly critical for me…. Anyone?

  17. Syrehn
    July 8, 2014 at 6:44 am #

    The new framework is giving me a headache scrolling and hunting for things in the jumble that is now the theme settings. I’d rather not have my clients or myself want to dig our eyes out with a rusted spoon after using the new framework settings layout. Hopefully this gets adjusted a.s.a.p. 🙁

    Additionally, I like others, am also unable to change the site width any longer. Tried in both Canvas and Uno with no luck so not sure if this is the framework or an issue with Canvas/Uno.

    • James
      July 8, 2014 at 10:34 am #

      We made the decision to make the new settings screens match WordPress own appearance for consistency and familiarity for new customers. It also brings it inline with the settings screens in our other products like WooCommerce, Sensei and Projects.

      I agree the style screen in Canvas is too long, but this is an issue in Canvas, not the framework. It’s also an issue we’re hoping to address in an upcoming version of Canvas so keep your eyes peeled for that 🙂

      • Wouter Siteur
        July 8, 2014 at 4:04 pm #

        Your answer surprises me: Canvas is also a woothemes product, and you even call it your “flagship theme”, so you could have thought about this problem. You apparently didn’t, but since so many people complain about it, I hope you will take it seriously and update Canvas within days, not weeks or months.

      • Rob
        July 14, 2014 at 11:46 am #

        Canvas is yours right? Nice explanation ….. any way of rolling back, sorry guys….

      • Creatyz
        July 14, 2014 at 5:03 pm #

        “… but this is an issue in Canvas, not the framework.” so…?

  18. bentasm1
    July 12, 2014 at 8:00 pm #

    Updated to WooFramework 6.0 and Superstore latest version….. All is well! Except one kinda important issue:

    Now the page titles are just the URL. What’d I do wrong? 🙂

    • bentasm1
      July 14, 2014 at 6:52 pm #

      Anyone? 🙁

  19. Rob
    July 14, 2014 at 11:45 am #

    Really makes me wonder what problem we were solving in the first place …. worst update, very unlike Woo

    … any way of rolling back? Issues

    • Creatyz
      July 14, 2014 at 12:13 pm #

      Having chosen YOUR Canvas flagship Theme as my select Theme for client projects, I was hoping you could give more support for the recent framework update!!!!

      Guys, and while you’re at it, maybe update your page content as well … this is not at all what I’ve come to expect from you … http://screencast.com/t/BEfBjTlmP

      I am in the middle of a site migration after months of work on the new website, and thought to make sure all settings, frameworks, etc., were up-to-date ….. feeling like a morone right now … ROLL BACK, anyone!

  20. Woody
    July 17, 2014 at 5:15 pm #

    WHoah!!!!

    Finding the options in Theme Settings is now a nightmare – takes ages to find the appropriate setting and then scroll down and save etc…

    I’ve done 3 test installations now of Canvas 3.8.1 on different machines using the new Framework – definitely not fit for primetime.
    Courier font won’t display on any of the test installations – don’t know if it’s the framework or Canvas
    Padding and Margins for the Primary Navigation in Boxed Layout is completely whacked in Canvas 5.8.0 onwards. I now have to do some mad CSS hacking just to get things to display like older versions.

    Some of us here are heavily invested in Woo and Canvas but I’ve had so many other issues over the last few updates, I’m terrified to touch or update anything now.

    Please go easy with these updates guys!

  21. James
    July 18, 2014 at 3:07 am #

    I HATE IT!!!

    While updates are always nice, i just don’t like the interface. It is just so hard to navigate now!

    I loved the old interface much better.

    The page I hate the most is the ‘Styling and Layout’ page, its a good example of why the old one was better and easier to navigate instead of one massive mess on one page.

  22. Michael
    July 18, 2014 at 7:33 pm #

    Unfortunately, since upgrading to v6 none of my custom CSS is functional.

  23. douglas
    August 5, 2014 at 6:39 pm #

    When is Woo going to revert back to a control panel for the framework that brings back the instantaneous page load when moving from one sub panel to another? 6.x may load each panel faster but what went from being instantaneous now adds an exponential amount of time, all of which works like an anchor on productivity during the design and dev process (which, in turn, makes the update a money loser).

    Here’s the pre 6.x version in action. Note the page load timer indicates it took 3.7 sec for the control panel to load but once it did, moving between each sub menu is instantaneoushttp://screencast.com/t/dib2SiMv6

    Here’s a 6.0.2 install: keep your eye on the page load timer and you’ll see that the initial control panel page load took 3sec, which is faster than the 3.7 sec in the pre 6.x install BUT each sub panel now incurs a new page load time so what went from being instantaneous is now 28.76 seconds!!!! Each sub panel loaded anywhere from 2.22sec to 7.57 sec – http://screencast.com/t/HBOFUAIaD

    Both of those installs are running on the same business plan account at WPEngine so my question is when are you going to fix this massive problem since the framework update has actually increased development and design time exponentially.