Version 5.8 Changelog

Version released on May 28, 2023
View Release Article

🔥 WPBakery Slim Mode 🔥

There is a new Theme Panel option named "WPBakery Slim Mode" which can be enabled to remove redundant or what we consider to be "useless" elements from WPBakery, hide dynamic elements when editing standard posts/pages and remove the WPBakery Grid Builder post type. When enabled the theme will also remove the default WPBakery js_composer.min.css file and load a custom CSS file with only the core CSS needed (about 94% smaller).

This functionality can also be selectively enabled/disabled via the "totaltheme\integration\wpbakery\slim_mode\is_enabled" filter. For example if there is a specific element you were using but it's only on one or a few pages you can use the filter to disable slim mode on those pages.

Please keep in mind that this is technically a micro-optimization so you don't have to go around and try updating all your sites to use this new setting. But if you do enable it on an existing site you will need to browse around to make sure your site wasn't using any of the removed elements.

Added 33

  • Added: New WPBakery “Slim Mode” option added to the Theme Panel.
  • Added: New Option added to the Dynamic Templates to select a template type for organization (Part, Header, Footer, Single, Archive, Search Results, Error 404). Tagging your dynamic templates makes it easier when selecting templates in the Customizer, Header Builder, Footer Builder or Post Types Unlimited because the fields will display templates based on the setting instead of all templates, but it’s 100% optional. Support for bulk/quick editing your template type has been added to make the process easier!
  • Added: New “Template Part” element for inserting dynamic templates marked as “Parts” into pages.
  • Added: Top bar added to the admin Theme Panel sub pages to make it more obvious when you are on a Total admin page and moved page descriptions into the “help” tab so they aren’t always visible.
  • Added: “Help” tab to the Theme Panel page with useful links to the docs, changelog, themeforest, etc.
  • Added: New 14 “Overlay” card styles added.
  • Added: New Customizer tab at Global Styles > Preset Font Sizes where you can change the default theme utility font sizes (sm, md, lg, xl, 2xl…etc) which are used in the theme design but can also be applied in the page builder this way if you use the preset font sizes across the site you can control them globally rather then using fixed sizes across your builder elements.
  • Added: New “Steps” element added for use with WPBakery.
  • Added: New “Tribe Events Data” element which can be used to display event data such as start date, end date, formatted date, event cost, location, etc.
  • Added: New Customizer option added under Header > Logo for adding a custom logo link if you want your logo to go somewhere different then the homepage.
  • Added: New Customizer option added to Global Styles > Other to control the default bottom margin for p tags.
  • Added: You can now link to the current post author archive via the Theme Button element.
  • Added: New dynamic variable added – {{card_running_count}} – which can be used to display the current card number.
  • Added: Code has been added to fix layout issues with the multisite wp-activate.php and wp-signup.php templates and to fix issues with WPBakery shortcodes not loading on these pages.
  • Added: New “Query Type” options added to the Post Cards element: Related by Taxonomy, Posts by Author or Current Staff Member, Custom Field, WooCommerce Related and WooCommerce Upsells.
  • Added: You can now display posts via the Post Cards element that have been assigned via the ACF Post Object or Relationship fields using the new Custom Field Query Type.
  • Added: You can now display related posts via the Post Cards without having to create your own query string, simply select the Related by Taxonomy Query Type then select the post type and taxonomy to pull related items from.
  • Added: The Bottom Margin option has been added the to the Flex Container and Grid Container elements for consistency.
  • Added: Options added to the Toggle Group element to remove the first top border and last bottom border.
  • Added: Options added to the Icon Box, Teaser Box and Feature Box elements so you can toggle lazy loading on/off for the image as well as select a custom fetch priority.
  • Added: New Blog 22 and Blog List 22 card styles.
  • Added: New “Image Cover” option added to the Image Banner element which can be used to stretch the image when adding a Minimum Height to the Image Banner and enabling the “Use Image Tag” option.
  • Added: New Option added to the “Image Banner” so you can now apply the link to the button only and not the whole element.
  • Added: New Option added to the “Custom Field” element to automatically add P tags to the output.
  • Added: New Customizer options added to the Header > Mobile Menu tab so you can choose between the default angle style icon or a plus/minus icon for the dropdown toggle icon and set a custom size for it.
  • Added: New “Image Hover Speed” option added to the Post Cards element.
  • Added: New “Height” option added to the Image element which can be useful when creating custom cards to set your images to a fixed height regardless of their dimensions/cropping.
  • Added: More styling options added to the Contact Form element.
  • Added: New theme.json file added to control Gutenberg styles rather then having to add them via style.css.
  • Added: New option added to define your video “Poster Image” when assigning self hosted video backgrounds.
  • Added: New Customizer option added to enable a “Slide Down” animation for the header search replace.
  • Added: When Selecting a dynamic template in the customizer the theme will display a notice if the template is blank. Previously the theme would fallback to the default theme template which could cause some confusion.
  • Added: New options added to the Search Bar element for adding an aria label and enabling the role=”search” attribute.

Updated 38

  • Updated: WPBakery Page Builder & Slider Revolution plugins.
  • Updated: Various code updated to take advantage of newer PHP 8.0 functions and fully qualified function calls.
  • Updated: PHP version requirement to 7.4 to be consistent with WordPress.
  • Updated: The WPBakery Template widget has been renamed to “Template” as you can now select Dynamic Templates and render Elementor based templates.
  • Updated: You can now enter a custom font size for the Post Cards title font size option.
  • Updated: Images displayed via the theme’s on-the-fly cropping now include the decoding=”async” attribute to be consistent with WordPress thumbnails to help speed up the site.
  • Updated: You can now select dynamic templates for the Custom 404 page as well as set the page layout and enable/disable the page header title.
  • Updated: The Heading element has been updated to include a “Link Type” setting so you have greater control over the heading link.
  • Updated: The List Item, Font Icon & Heading elements have been updated to include an “Alternative Character” option for the icon in case you want to display a custom character or icon via a shortcode or dymamic variable.
  • Updated: You can now use the Shortcode element inside the Flex & Grid containers.
  • Updated: You can now select a link type ACF custom field for the theme button text field.
  • Updated: You can now select “Custom Field” or “Featured Image” for the Image Source field in the Icon Box element.
  • Updated: When using the Icon Box element and showing an image with the “Resize Image” option disabled you can now select the “Image Fit” style (None or Cover).
  • Updated: The Post Cards element has been updated so when linking to a lightbox image or modal dialog the links added to the cards will include a role=”button” and an aria-label=”” attribute to alert screen readers for better accessibility.
  • Updated: The Lighbox dialog now includes an aria-label attribute for accessibility reasons.
  • Updated: The javascript used for the Menu Widget accordion is now loaded in its own file and only if needed.
  • Updated: The back to top and local scroll links have been updated to change “focus” on click to prevent accessibility issues.
  • Updated: Improved the javascript for the Header Min-Max font size option.
  • Updated: When using the Redirection option for terms (categories, tags, custom taxonomies) the theme now hooks into the “term_link” filter to modify the links on the front-end to swap the default url for the redirected one. This way links will go straight to the custom redirection rather than running a 301 redirect.
  • Updated: The [polylang_switcher] shortcode has been updated to use theme utility classes and now uses flex styles instead of floats.
  • Updated: The Button element will no longer fallback to a # symbol for the href. If there isn’t a defined link the button will simply not show anymore. This is to prevent issues when using the button with dynamic links.
  • Updated: Theme element “Callback Function” fields now display a select dropdown to select from your whitelisted callback functions so you don’t have to remember them.
  • Updated: Users with the editor role can now access dynamic templates and custom cards via the “Tools” admin panel tab (these can’t be added under a Theme Panel tab because WordPress will block access to the cpt).
  • Updated: You can now use min() and max() CSS functions when entering custom font sizes for theme elements.
  • Updated: Renamed the “Section Templates” to “Patterns” to be consistent with WordPress naming convensions.
  • Updated: Tweaked the design a bit for the Customizer unit selector so it’s easier to see (the little “px” select that shows up on certain fields).
  • Updated: Renamed the “Font Icon” element to just “Icon” and updated the Custom Size option to allow you to enter responsive sizes.
  • Updated: The Header Aside fields have been updated to support dynamic variables.
  • Updated: The CSS used to target the “pre” tag has been updated so that it does not affect the Gutenberg “Verse” block.
  • Updated: The Contact Form element has been updated so that the Custom Subject field allows for dynamic variables.
  • Updated: The “Header Replace” search style has been modified so it now works with the Transparent Header.
  • Updated: When enabling animations for your header menu dropdowns the animation will now also be added to the search and cart dropdowns for consistency.
  • Updated: The “Auto Lightbox” function has been updated to work with webP image formats.
  • Updated: When using the UberMenu plugin if a menu is registered to the header menu the theme will automatically disable the theme’s mobile menu so it can display the UberMenu mobile menu and hide the Customizer menu settings.
  • Updated: The “Header Aside” field in the Customizer now accepts Gutenberg block code.
  • Updated: The Custom Actions Panel will now parse blocks if you wanted to insert Gutenberg content.
  • Updated: The Button typography settings now correctly target Gutenberg buttons as well.
  • Updated: Italian translations thanks to Manuele from brainybyte.it

Fixed 24

  • Fixed: The Button element was not parsing dynamic values for the URL field.
  • Fixed: Not being able to change your blog columns when selecting a custom card style in the Customizer for the blog.
  • Fixed: When using the centered header logo the logo was showing in the mobile menu when loading the site in a desktop then shrinking the browser width to mobile size.
  • Fixed: The [post_permalink] shortcode was returning the post title instead.
  • Fixed: When selecting a custom card on a per category/tag basis for WooCommerce the option wasn’t working.
  • Fixed: The CSS used for the WPBakery stretched rows was not taking into consideration the site “Frame Border” when enabled via the Customizer.
  • Fixed: The Product 2 Card style was not property closing the link element and could cause weird layout issues.
  • Fixed: The “Text Width” option in the Image Banner element was not working correctly when the “Use Image Tag” option was  enabled.
  • Fixed: The Border Color option was not working for the Icon Box element when selecting the “Top Icon with Outline” style.
  • Fixed: Various theme and total theme core functions were updated for PHP 8.2 to fix deprecated notices.
  • Fixed: The Custom Field element was not parsing shortcodes inserted in the custom field.
  • Fixed: Custom Access functions were not showing up in the WPBakery page builder when editing sections and rows.
  • Fixed: There were some layout issues when using the “Inner Column Gap” option on rows and then adding inner rows.
  • Fixed: When using preset card styles with a link around the whole card and enabling videos it would cause the card layout to break.
  • Fixed: The Shortcode element was not parsing dynamic variables.
  • Fixed: The minimum width option was not working when using Superfish dropdowns for the header menu dropdowns.
  • Fixed: The Contact Form element was displaying the word “undefined” for the email subject when a custom subject was not added to the element.
  • Fixed: The CSS stretched rows for WPBakery were not working correctly when used with the Header & Footer Builder when the page had a sidebar.
  • Fixed: When enabling “Show in Rest” for the theme’s Portfolio, Staff and Testimonial post types it was not allowing you to set the category or tag when editing a post.
  • Fixed: Disabling the “Enable Single Post?” option under the Testimonials settings was not working.
  • Fixed: Dynamic Templates were not rendering property when using Elementor as your page builder.
  • Fixed: When adding the Post Cards element to a dynamic template with the “Auto Query” type selected while using Elementor the element was not showing any sample posts.
  • Fixed: When selecting a custom template for the Post Cards modal link if the template was created with Elementor it was not rendering correctly.
  • Fixed: When using sliders inside Toggle elements the sliders were not properly rendered.

Removed 3

  • Removed: The top bar social links no longer include the title attribute because it causes a “Redundant title text” error when testing for accessibility.
  • Removed: The option under Theme Panel > Custom 404 to redirect all 404 errors to the homepage has been removed. This was a popular thing to do in the past but its no longer recommend and actually a bad idea for SEO reasons.
  • Removed: The “dashes” added to the mobile menu sub-items has been removed for a cleaner more modern look.

New Hooks

totaltheme/theme_builder/do_{$location}totaltheme/page/header/is_enabledtotaltheme/page/header/breakpointtotaltheme/page/header/styletotaltheme/page/header/has_titletotaltheme/page/header/has_subheadingtotaltheme/page/header/subheadingtotaltheme/header/menu/is_enabledtotaltheme/header/menu/is_customtotaltheme/integration/wpbakery/slim_mode\is_enabledtotaltheme/integration/gutenberg/remove_core_styles/enabledtotaltheme/integration/wpbakery/video_backgrounds/video_attributestotalthemecore/dynamic_templates/template_typestotaltheme/integration/wpbakery/full_width/is_enabledtotaltheme/integrations/{$integration}/is_enabled
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