Last week, the entire WooTeam arrived in Cape Town for a week of team building, discussions and a few outings in and around our beautiful city. Now in the new week, with the majority of the team having said their “so long”s and flown back home on the long flights from the southern tip of Africa back to their respective countries, we’ve jumped back into the saddle and are ready and invigorated to get back to exciting you all.
With that, we’d like to introduce WooFramework version 5.5.0, the latest update to the engine that powers all WooThemes themes.
As mentioned almost two months ago on our blog (and several times via Twitter), WooFramework version 5.5.0 is a release filled with lots of cleaning and a few important maintenance updates. The main two updates here are the removal of WooSEO and the Sidebar Manager from the WooFramework core, with the alternatives of WordPress SEO by Yoast (which has a built-in WooSEO importer) and the free WooSidebars plugin being recommended.
These are the updates included in version 5.5.0
- Removed WooSEO in favour of WordPress SEO by Yoast
- Removed Sidebar Manager in favour of WooSidebars
- Removed WP App Store installer
- Updated woo_pagination() function to better handle pagination of search queries and advanced term archive URLs
- Updated woo_image() function to better handle cases where the image height isn’t specified
- Code maintenance in the “Backup Settings” file. Remove WooSEO and Sidebar Manager data from the backup options.
Removal of the WP App Store Installer
WP App Store is a concept we greatly believe in, but from your feedback we heard that having this available via the WooFramework impedes your workflow. We’ve thus decided to remove this from the WooFramework completely.
How do I upgrade?
We’ve made the WooFramework upgrade process quick and painless. We’d recommend making a full backup of your theme’s files (via FTP) and then clicking the “Update Framework” link within the WordPress admin menu, to ensure you’re running the latest version.
How do I convert custom sidebars to the WooSidebars plugin?
To ensure you can quickly and easily convert your Sidebar Manager sidebars over to the WooSidebars plugin, we’ve created a converter plugin to take the manual work out of the conversion process.
This plugin is available directly via WooDojo, or available for download using the button below.
Download Sidebar Manager to WooSidebars Converter PluginWooFramework version 5.5.0 continues our mantra of simplifying and re-focussing our code base to ensure maximum scalability and removing any bloat we come across. We hope you enjoy this update and look forward to further updates to come. 🙂
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nice one but seems like automatic updates doesnt works 🙁
You may be running an older version of the WooFramework, which perhaps has a bug in the upgrader.
Please use the link above and see the manual WooFramework upgrade process. 🙂
I have tried it many times, now with updated framework, but im on localhost for now and all I get is “The login details supplied are invalid. Please try again. “
Thanks for your feedback. Please post to our support desk where our ninjas can assist further. 🙂
Ok I will but answer my one question, after I create new ticket, someone from Staff reply me and then the ticket is closed, so how can I reply on that ticket o.o
Just reply to it again.
Before I upgrade, I wanted to check that WordPress SEO doesn’t automatically come with it as default. So does it?
Thanks
Hi Leon,
No, WordPress SEO is a separate plugin that isn’t bundled with the WooFramework. 🙂
Hi Matty,
Thanks for the update and quick response, it’s appreciated.
Regards
Leon
This is an incredible morning. I can’t believe you guys removed your own SEO framework in favor of Yoast. Great move WooThemes. You will be hearing from me more often. Now if only Thesis would do the same. 🙂
Appreciate the vote of confidence Heather!
Anything else you’d like to shout out and recommend for us? 😀
This is amazing. I personally should thank you for opting Yoast SEO plugin and rplacing core WooSEO features with it. I have been using Yoast SEO for a while and it works like a charm. Good decision! Still have to try my hands on WooSidebars plugin. Thank you.
WooSidebars is definitely worthy of trying out, especially if you need custom sidebars on certain pages, etc…
Definitely agree, I’ve always used WooSidebars and not the built in version and it’s so flexible, we have each sidebar tailored to the page you are reading, a simple and valuable addition, especially for non coders or people who want to use as few 3rd party plugins as possible.
Good. When can we expect the captcha to the contact page?
Hi Komarik,
There is currently no set ETA on this.
If you’d like to see it added, please vote for the idea on WooIdeas.
Thanks. 🙂
Thanks, recently already voted.
It may not be for you but as a stop gap I’ve just installed ‘Beauty Orange WordPress Comment Captcha’ as a quick and easy solution for now and is extremely simple to add to the Contact Page.
HTH
Leon
The above reply was meant for ‘Komarik’
: )
Thanks, I will try this plugin.
I manage a number of sites that need to have woodojo added. I have uplaoded the plugin but the ‘login’ screen to download any of the items in woodojo won’t accept my woo user/password. It just goes back to the Woo Login Page w empty fields asking me for my credentials again. I am indeed logged in at woocommerce.com. Hints?
Same problem here, and no answer on the horizont….
Hi Lara and Adolfo,
WooDojo version 1.3.0 removes the need for logging in. 🙂
Kudos on the decision to remove the WPApp installer; it means so much to those of us on the user end of things to know that you guys really are listening and care!
One of our many moves to show we’re listening, thanks for letting us know it’s appreciated Drew!
I have got answer on my ticket about plugin or theme updates
“Our developers are working on a fix to make Plugin Updater work with our new system.”
So give em some time 😛
Great, thanks for letting us know!
I’ve gone to Update Framework and it tells me I have the latest version 5.4.2
Is something wrong?
Hi Iain,
This is possible cache-related.
Please clear your browser cache and try again. If you encounter this again, please contact our support desk directly.
Thanks. 🙂
Didn’t work.
I’ll raise a Support Ticket.
Cheers
Iain
Nice update! Please work on sorting out easy automatic updates for WooThemes and associated plugins. It is easy to update the framework but not the themes or the plugins. Each time I have to manually update a theme or plugin via FTP, I’m wasting precious time that could be put into other tasks.
Other premium plugins/themes I use update with ease. This would be a welcome addition, thanks!
Hi Steve,
Thanks for your feedback. This is on our radar.
Please see WooIdeas for a collection of ideas that have been submitted for consideration (this is one of them).
Thanks. 🙂
While the ideas thing is good in principal, in practice it often fails. People submit the same I idea many times so you don’t get a clear picture of how many want something. Or, especially, how many would want it if they realized it was even an option. Updating the theme from the admin is one of those no-Brainer, “why wasn’t this done long ago” items that’s not properly represented there. In fact this is probably my biggest complaint with WooThemes. You tease us with the framework updates, but leave the actual theme updates in WordPress’ stone age.
Why I can’t acces to support page??
http://support.woothemes.com/knowledgebase
http://support.woothemes.com/ ?? Nothing opens.
It’s most likely an issue with your account on our side, email us here with your username and email on the account. We can look into it and get it fixed! – support[at]woocommerce.com
Just one question – up to now you have recommended All in One SEO to work with Woothemes and I’ve been doing this on all our sites that use your themes.
Is All in One SEO still good or do I need to switch to Yoast?
Hi Pat,
All-in-One SEO Pack is still good as well, yes. 🙂
Thank you, Matty 🙂
Good for you! But please… respond to my first ticket a couple of weeks ago about my subsribtion that is not working anymore… (I can not fill in all required field in the CC panel…. 🙁 )
I used the ‘panic button’ and just a couple of minutes ago I used the supportforum.. (again…)
Hey ELL, I answered the ticket you submitted last night.
I don’t believe we ever received your first e-mail so apologies for that!
All is wel now, for some change reason I hade to update my account details… (so I want to make an public excuse for my ‘attacking’ comment… )
Thank you so much for removing the stupid app store from the themes. The first time I saw that it drove me nuts and cost me an entire day of debugging. I never would have guessed in a million years that you guys would have packaged that inside one of your themes.
I was absolutely certain my server had been hacked yet again. (I had just recovered from a hack attack the week prior). You can’t imagine how angry I was, but I bit my tongue and didn’t come over here ranting about it.
I am also happy to hear that you are working on a theme update system. I have all of your themes installed on my server for my customers, and it would be so nice to just know when they are in need of updating. Currently I have no way of knowing which ones have updates available which is a horrible pain.
There are many other theme companies, themeforest included, that have already solved this problem in a very elegant way and it works great. Maybe you can take a peek and see how they are doing it. Then maybe it would not take very long before we see an update like that. There is even freely available open source code on github exactly for this purpose that works great. I even use it on my own plugins and themes.
Another thing that would be nice is if you could find a way of somehow separating out the framework from your themes. I am now going to have to go through all 100+ themes one at a time and update them manually. Can you imagine how much faster and easier it would be if I simply had to update a framework plugin in one location?…..
Even at full speed it is going to take me the better part of an entire day to update everything… ughh
How about making a single download of all the themes available so I can simply go to your site, download one large zip, open it and upload to my server????
*It wont hurt anything as all mods are made to child themes, and it would save me hours of downloading all the themes one by one… another ughhhh
Hi Shawn,
Some great feedback here, thanks.
The idea of a “Framework Updater” plugin has been on my mind as well.
I’ll be sure to mention it to the rest of the team (if they don’t already see this comment). 🙂
How about the one large zip file with all the themes in it?
That actually wouldn’t take any work on your part hardly at all and would save those of us using all the themes on multisites a huge amount of time. I’m seriously dreading the idea of having to spend half a day just downloading and uploading all the themes by hand again… ughh
This is an excellent idea. Please do it! Also please add automatic updates for themes, within WordPress. It’s frustrating that all the free, and most paid themes can be updated from the admin with a click (including the framework) but the actual theme can’t be.
Can you point me to the documentation on WooSidebars. Not sure how to implement this within the Canvas theme.
Thank you!
Sure, Marcus. 🙂 The documentation for WooSidebars is available here: http://dojodocs.woocommerce.com/woosidebars/
I’m certain that at some point in the past WooThemes supported All in One SEO. Why the switch? Or why not support both? I’ve got several very good SEO people who I work with who tell me AiO is still the best and both they and other reports out there say it’s very easy to accidentally take a ranking hit using WordPress SEO if you don’t have everything set “just right.” The latest version of AiO is excellent.
Hi Tevya,
We’re not saying our themes don’t support All-in-One SEO Pack, because they do. 🙂
We’re simply recommending “WordPress SEO by Yoast” for customers who were previously using WooSEO and require a new solution, now that WooSEO has been removed.
All-in-One SEO Pack works with our themes. 🙂
Not meaning to pick on your documentation, but I have questions not addressed either in the post or in the converter docs.
I use the old original sidebar manager in backstage. I have SEVEN custom sidebars with MANY many widgets in each. Neither of your post/docs explains what will happen to the CONTENT of my old sidebar manager custom sidebars!
When I update to 5.5, these old-custom sidebars will vanish from view? Vanish from the WIDGETS admin? The content of the old-custom sidebars will DISAPPEAR?
When I convert, the SIDEBARS will return – but the CONTENT will not?
Please advise.
thnx
Hi there,
To clarify, the converter loads your Sidebar Manager sidebars into WooSidebars with the same sidebar ID values, so all widgets, etc, would be preserved.
We’d advise making a full backup of everything before you start, if you’re unsure. 🙂
Hello,
Question – I think I am missing something. I know, have used, and like Yoast’s SEO plugin for some time. BUT I am confused/curious as to why WooThemes dropped its WooSEO settings built into the theme.
Can anyone shed some light on this please?
Thanks.
Simply because Yoast SEO plugin does it better, and we wanted to slim down the WooFramework and themes and move functionality over to plugins, but SEO isn’t our expertise so we’d rather leave that to the expert.