Upcoming Changelog: 6.4

IMPORTANT WPBAKERY VULNERABILITY NOTICE - I’m aware that WordFence has reported a vulnerability in WPBakery that can be exploited by users with the author role or above. These users already have significant permissions, such as deleting content or uploading potentially harmful files. For this reason, it’s important to only assign these roles to users you fully trust. Because the risk is low and limited to trusted users, the vulnerability didn’t require an immediate theme update. Since I’m currently wrapping up Total version 6.4, I’ve chosen to include the updated plugin in this release. This way you’ll receive one consolidated update instead of two back-to-back. If you want you can delete the WPBakery plugin then go to Appearance > Install Plugins and it will install version 8.5.
The Font Manager has been optimized. As always, be sure to update the Total Theme Core plugin to avoid any potential issues.
The Top Bar menu is now wrapped inside a Nav element for accessibility reasons.

Added Alias option to the Font Manager, allowing you to assign a custom name—such as ‘primary-font’—to a font family. This alias will be used across theme settings and elements, making it easy to switch fonts later without manually updating each instance or performing a database search and replace.
Added “Bleed Media” option to the Feature Box element, when enabled, it will stretch to the edge of the screen (sample video).
Added Options to theme elements when set to open an image gallery in lightbox so you can can control the title and caption display.
Added Event query types for the Post Cards element for use with the Tribe Events Plugin for easily displaying events.
Added Option to the Post Cards element to select a specific “Series” to display events from when using Events Calendar Pro.
Added Option to the Post Cards element when Events Calendar Pro is installed and using one of the dedicated Event Calendar query types named “Single Recurring Events”. The setting is enabled by default so only the next instance of each recurring event will display.
Added Event card styles for use with the Tribe Events Calendar Plugin.
Added Event date image overlays for use with the Tribe Events Calendar Plugin.
Added On/off toggle to display only featured Tribe Events in the Post Cards.
Added Option to the Total Taxonomy Terms widget that can be used to exclude terms.
Added Option to the Navigation Bar element so you can stack the links at set breakpoint.
Added Option to the Navigation Bar element to control the mobile select breakpoint.
Added Options to the Icon Box to choose the button style, preset color and icon when displaying a button for the link.
Added Option to the Icon Box to define the transition duration for hover animations.
Added Options to the Icon Box to define custom hover colors for the heading, icon and content.
Added “None” Icon style to the Toggle (FAQ) element.
Added New “Bottom Icon (Below Button) style for the Icon box.
Added A few more icon choices for the numbered pagination arrows (Customize > General > Numbered Pagination).
Added Options to the Image Grid to control the CSS animation speed and to enable Sequential Animation (animate each image one after another).
Added The “WooCommerce Template” & “WooCommerce Notices” elements are now available in Elementor.
Added An updates widget to the Theme Panel sidebar with a button that can be used to force check for theme updates (when license is active). This will send a new request to check for updates and clear the WordPress theme updates transient if an update is available. This new widget will also display any errors if there are problems fetching updates.
Added Menu setting “Menu Icon Placement” for choosing if you want the icon before or after the text.
Added Option to the Accessibility Panel to define the Top Bar menu aria label.
Added “Lightbox Gallery” option to the Post Cards Link Type setting.
Added “Include Featured Image” option to image elements (Grid, Carousel, Slider, Post Cards). When enabled, the featured image will be automatically inserted at the beginning of the gallery, so you no longer need to add it manually. If the featured image is already present in the gallery, it won’t be duplicated — allowing you to enable this option without needing to update existing posts.
Added New has_page_header conditional tag for use with the theme’s Conditional Logic fields, such as the one for the Transparent Header. So if you wanted to enable the transparent header on all pages that have the page header disabled you can simply add !has_page_header into the conditional logic field.
Added A validation check in the Font Manager to verify Google and Adobe fonts upon editing or saving. If a font fails to load correctly, an error message is now displayed at the top of the interface.
Added An option to enable AJAX-based rendering for Post Cards. When activated, Post Cards will fetch content from the server via AJAX after the page has loaded. This feature helps bypass caching mechanisms, allowing dynamic content like time-sensitive events or random posts to be displayed.
Added “Limit Heading Width to Text” on/off toggles for the sidebar and footer widget headings so you can add backgrounds like the Poppy demo without custom CSS.
Added Border Radius options for the sidebar and footer widget headings.
Added Meetup to the list of social profile options.
Added Customizer option under General Theme Options > Lightbox tab: “Always Show Controls” By default, the script hides controls (arrows, thumbnails, close button, etc.) after 3 seconds of inactivity. Enabling this option will keep all controls visible at all times.
Added Code to prevent the Page Optimize plugin (which get’s installed automatically by WordPress.com) from combining theme CSS and JS because it incorrectly combines files ignoring important attributes and breaks the site.
Added Shortcode attributes to the header search and header cart icon shortcodes: label_hide_breakpoint, label_class, button_class and icon_class.
Added A loading icon next to the button text in the modal search form (when AJAX is disabled) to provide users with visual feedback while the site redirects to the search results page upon clicking the button.
Added Theme Panel setting to disable the “Connect to Staff Member” functionality.
Updated WPBakery to version 8.5
Updated Outdated WooCommerce template parts: tabs.php
Updated The Font Manager to cache the list of fonts and improved the loading and registration.
Updated The Horizontal & Off-Canvas Menu elements to support the menu-button class.
Updated The Centered Logo mobile menu toggle styles can now be selected for all theme header styles.
Updated The Navigation Bar when the style is set to “Expanded” to use the gap property for the spacing instead of side margin to prevent unwanted space on the side when items stack on smaller screens.
Updated When setting a theme element’s “Link Type” to “Current Post” the theme now checks to ensure the single post is viewable, this way if you create a card for use on multiple post types with a button that goes to the post, the button will only show when applicable.
Updated When creating an AJAXED filter using the Navigation Bar, links will no longer link to the taxonomy term archives to prevent issues with speculative loading.
Updated The Video element’s “iFrame Title” field has been renamed to “Video Description”. This field is now used for the title attribute of embedded video iframes and the aria-label of self-hosted videos.
Updated The Video element will use the video’s description as the aria-label for self hosted videos in your media library.
Updated When displaying events from the Events Calendar plugin (Tribe Events) with the “Posts With Thumbnails” widget, the theme now uses the tribe_get_events() function to retrieve the events so they display in proper order.
Updated Better accessibility and focus styles for the Fancybox lightbox popups.
Updated Better accessibility for the Navigation Bar element when used as a filter.
Updated The Icon Box Element so the border settings in the Style tab are available for all styles.
Updated Navigation Bar links when used as a filter will now have a rel nofollow attribute to prevent unnecessary bot crawling of the filter links.
Updated The Navigation Bar element will use a flex container for new installations. For old installs you can opt-in to this update using the vcex_navbar_use_flex_layout hook or use the new “Stack Items Breakpoint” setting.
Updated Total widgets that have exclude and include terms fields to support a list of term id’s or slugs.
Updated You can now disable the Mega Menu Columns menu setting via the “Screen Options” tab in the menu dashboard.
Updated The Font Manager to use a single metabox for all settings.
Updated The Contact Form spinner now displays inside the button next to the text.
Updated Theme elements where you can select a custom field as a link to display ACF text and email fields for use with the button element when creating clickable phone/email links.
Updated The Theme Settings metabox with conditional logic to dynamically hide fields based on the values of other fields. For example, when the “Disable Footer” setting is enabled, all related footer settings that become irrelevant are now automatically hidden. To prevent any potential conflicts, this feature is only enabled for new installations (aka where the totaltheme_initial_version database option is >= 6.4).
Updated The Meta class to include a new render_callback parameter, allowing the definition of a custom function for rendering the value of a custom field on the frontend.
Updated The Newest Products section displayed on the empty cart page when using the WooCommerce Gutenberg cart block, so that it better matches the theme’s default product entry layout. This update is specifically for users who utilize the newer WooCommerce cart blocks instead of the classic cart shortcode.
Updated The Dynamic Templates dashboard to always show the shortcode column, making it easier to find without needing to filter by part.
Updated Conditional Logic fields to support negation by adding an exclamation ! mark before the tag, such as !is_single.
Updated ACF Fields now display at the top of the list when selecting a custom field from within a theme element.
Updated Font weight options in theme elements to be normalized and added ability to choose the newer Lighter and Bolder relative font weights.
Updated The Contact Form element to display the specific error message when a submission fails. If you’re using a custom error message, you can include {{error}} wherever you want the error to display.
Updated The Toggle Bar so if you have the “Remember State” option enabled and the content changes, visitors will see the updated notice even if it had previously been closed.
Updated When using the WPBakery “Hide if Empty” row setting, the row will now always be visible in the front-end editor to allow for editing.
Fixed Issue with modal search not working correctly for non-Latin characters when displaying live results.
Fixed The horizontal menu extra icons (search/cart/dark mode) were not vertically aligned in Safari.
Fixed When setting a theme element’s “Link Type” to “Current Post” it now correctly returns the redirection URL if that post is using the “Redirect” field in the Theme Settings metabox.
Fixed Tables missing top margin in the Gutenberg editor.
Fixed The Multicolor Divider element was not using the theme’s color picker.
Fixed Tables having extra bottom margin when added via Gutenberg.
Fixed Modal Search (non ajaxed) design on small devices – the input and the buttons will now stack.
Fixed When in dark mode the theme will automatically disable the fancybox light skin css file (when in use) so it can use the default dark skin.
Fixed Debug warning related to total theme localization when saving the theme’s portfolio, staff or testimonials admin settings pages.
Fixed When defining custom labels in the Contact Form element and using placeholders instead of labels the custom labels were not being used in the body of the received email.
Fixed An issue where WPBakery failed to load in the backend when a Pricing element was added. This was caused by a bug in the latest version of the plugin, which required setting an empty default value for the custom button parameter.
Fixed Issue where the header menu button’s horizontal padding was removed when using header style one, deprecated styles (theme panel option) and enabling the menu item underline on hover.
Fixed When enabling the hover and active underline for the main menu it was being added to the dark mode toggle icon.
Fixed The Users Grid widget was not displaying editors.
Fixed Issues with the Video element not working with unlisted Vimeo URL’s containing a privacy hash.
Fixed The Button color settings in the Post Terms element were affecting the “Before Text” – new options added to control the before text color and font weight.
Fixed You couldn’t select a custom card style for related posts when using the Post Types Unlimited plugin.
Fixed The Just Events “Today’s Events” query was only displaying events that start and end today – rather than events that either start or end today.
Fixed Cart icon was not working in the Cart Link Elementor widget.
Fixed Display issues with the WooCommerce products Gutenberg block.
Fixed Shortcodes not working when used inside the Toggle element heading text.
Fixed The Mobile Menu Icons menu location was not updating live in the Customizer.
Fixed When Vertical Align Center was enabled in the Feature Box and using a custom breakpoint, the content was being horizontally centered when stacked.
Fixed The header search and cart icons work correctly when set to the “Dropdown” style and used inside the Mobile Menu Icons menu for header styles two, three, four, five and six.
Fixed When adding a search icon to the Mobile Menu Icons menu location it would not work with the new Modal style search.
Fixed An issue where the Post Cards element did not display all available query options for certain query types that support them.
Fixed Issue with the crop checkbox not being checked in the Image Sizes panel when only a width or a height was defined.
Fixed An issue where specific CSS files were not automatically excluded from the W3 Total Cache plugin’s minification process, as required due to a known bug in the plugin.
Fixed The header search and cart dropdowns will now hide when resizing the browser if the toggle used to open them becomes hidden.
Fixed The Toggle Bar’s “Remember State” setting now works properly for logged out users.
Fixed The acf_{key} dynamic variable now works correctly inside ACF repeater templates.
Fixed The Gallery Slider element was not displaying translated images when used with WPML or Polylang.
Fixed Missing spacing between the product quantity and the add to cart button when added via a dynamic template.
Fixed The full-width WooCommerce add to cart button Customizer setting was not working when creating dynamic templates or custom cards.
Fixed Issue with the Next and Previous Post Links not working when used in a custom post type dynamic template when the “In Same Term” setting is disabled.
Fixed The Image Slider and Testimonials Slider elements were not displaying on the front-end when using Elementor due to a conflict with the Elementor entrance animation settings.

Developer Notes

Changes

Added - New filter "totaltheme/icons/list" allows you to register custom icons or override theme icons.
Added - New filter "totaltheme/searchform/args" allows easily modifying the args for the searchform.php file with the addition of 'search_param' so you can modify the search input name "s".
Added - New filter "totaltheme/local_scroll/normalize_ids" which can be enabled by returning true (it's enabled on new installations by default) to sanitize local scroll ID's so if the end user enters something "weird" it will be converted to a proper local scroll ID.
Added - New CSS variables for the header menu underline element for easier modification and slimmer default CSS.
Added - New "heading" type to the WPEX_Meta_Factory class.
Added - New "hint" parameter for the WPEX_Meta_Factory class which will add a small description under the field.
Added - New "sanitize_callback" parameter for the WPEX_Meta_Factory class so you can define a custom sanitization function for when the field is saved.
Added - New "input_attrs" parameter for the WPEX_Meta_Factory text field type.
Updated - Theme CSS to simplify media queries by replacing @media only screen with @media.
Updated - For accessibility reasons, we've updated the top bar menu to use nav element around the ul.
Updated - The Post Terms element to use a flex container to prevent extra space below the items and for better wrapping.
Updated - Optimized the loading of certain classes used in the admin so they aren't loaded if wp_doing_ajax returns true.
Updated - Made some optimizations to the javascript used to trigger Fancybox in the theme (lightbox).
Updated - The Social Links widget to use a gap instead of margin for the spacing between links.
Updated - Inline CSS for term colors is now added using wp_register_style.
Updated - Inline CSS for term colors is now cached in a transient.
Updated - Expanded the term color classnames "has-term-{id}-color" and "has-term-{id}-background-color" to include hover states "has-term-{id}-hover-color" and "has-term-{id}-hover-background-color". This allows for setting term based hover styles in theme elements without the need for javascript.
Updated - When using the "reset" button in an advanced AJAX filter, it will be disabled by default and become available for use only after applying a filter, on reset it will become disabled again. If you were using a reset button in a custom filter, you should update your HTML to give it a disabled attribute by default as the attribute will get added whenever the button is clicked for the first time.
Updated - The ajax filter script used to create custom Post Cards ajaxed filters to support new data types for use with the Events Calendar plugin (starts_before, starts_after, ends_before, ends_after, end_date, start_date, venue, organizer, featured, geoloc, geoloc_lat, geoloc_lng, ticketed).
Updated - The ajax filter script used for custom Post Cards ajaxed filters to support date and datetime-local input types.
Updated - The ajax filter script now supports select elements with options that each have their own data-vcex-type.
Updated - The ajax filter script now supports a new data-vcex-type="tribe_events" filter type that accepts the following values: past, upcoming, ongoing or today.
Updated - The ajaxed pagination links to include the "no-prefetch" class to prevent issues with speculative loading.
Updated - The heading element now uses inline CSS instead of a utility class for the font-style property (italic) to ensure it correctly overrides customizer settings or custom CSS.
Updated - The vcex-ajax JS script now uses the defer attribute for optimal loading.
Updated - The Customize > Typography > Body settings are now added to the site using CSS variables so they can be easily re-used in your custom CSS.
Updated - ACF fields added via PHP using acf_add_local_field_group now display in theme elements where you can select a custom field.
Updated - The theme no longer overrides the WooCommerce single-meta.php file in order to add the 't-label' span to make the labels bold. With the recent addition of "Brands" it isn't possible to consistently apply the same span to brands so the theme now uses different CSS, without the added spans, to maintain the same design across all meta items.
Updated - Custom fields from the Theme Settings metabox are now displayed in the theme element's custom field selector when they have the public parameter added and set to true.
Updated - The totaltheme/header/logo/image filter now passes the image_attributes as the second parameter.
Updated - The Contact Form element for improved accessibility.
Updated - The Font Manager to cache the list of fonts and their inline CSS in a transient.
Updated - The Font Manager now registers all fonts via wp_register_style.
Updated - CSS for font family assignments added in the Font Manager are now added in their own style tag to prevent conflicts with the Customizer.
Updated - Fonts loaded via the Font Manager no longer pass through various filters: wpex_google_font_enqueue_weights, wpex_google_font_enqueue_italics, wpex_google_font_enqueue_subsets, wpex_google_font_enqueue_display - since fonts added via the font manager have their own registration settings they shouldn't be mutable. Updated - The Widget Title Text Align settings in the Customizer now apply the selected value with utility classes instead of inline CSS.
Updated - The ToggleBar now uses localStorage instead of a Cookie for the active state when the "Remember State" option is enabled.
Updated - The Feature Box vcex_feature_box.php template file so it no longer adds inline CSS, custom styles are now handled by the main shortcode class.
Updated - The No Posts Found message for the Post Cards element now displays inside the Post Cards element to prevent issues where the unique ID and extra classes couldn't be used to target the message, the bottom margin option wasn't working and you couldn't display posts using AJAX if the default grid was empty.
Updated - The PHP class used to generate inline CSS for theme elements to support nested CSS for a slimmer output. This enhancement is not enabled by default but can be opted into by setting the 'vcex_shortcode_css_use_nested_css' filter to true. Once CSS Nesting browser support percentage reaches ~93% on caniuse.com the theme will be updated to enable this by default.
Updated - The Local Scroll ID field for WPBakery Sections and Rows now sanitizes the input. This means you can use a custom field that returns a string (such as a title) without needing to create a separate field specifically for the Local Scroll ID. Additionally, when setting the link type of any element to Local Scroll, the selected link value will be parsed using the same logic.
Fixed - The table element had a fixed 20px bottom margin instead of using the "--wpex-el-margin-bottom" CSS variable.
Fixed - The Theme Panel System Status Memory Limit was displaying a red background instead of green when the memory limit was set to unlimited (-1).
Fixed - Fancybox lightbox images not having alt attributes.
Fixed - Accessibility issues with the lightbox thumbnails.
Fixed - The ticon shortcode was adding an empty font size via inline styles (wouldn't cause issues, but it's not necessary).
Fixed - The theme's "wpex_overlay_header_dropdown_style" custom field was being saved to the post as "default" even when not needed.
Fixed - The vcex_post_terms_default_spacer filter was being applied when a custom spacer was selected for the element.
Fixed - Dynamic singular templates created with Elementor were missing the custom-singular-template div elementor around the content.
Fixed - Animation utility classes (spin, bounce, ping, pulse) are now disabled when reduce motion is enabled on the user's device.
Removed - The WPEX_THEME_CHANGELOG_URL constant as it's not needed anywhere.
Removed - The url_sort_prefix variable from the vcex_ajax_params js object as it wasn't used.
Removed - The totaltheme-cards-builder-metabox js script as it's no longer needed.
Removed - The troubleshoot button from the Theme License panel as it's no longer needed.
Removed - The ability to dismiss the license activation notice in the WP admin.
Removed - The wpex_font_weights() function and filter has been deprecated.

New Hooks

totaltheme_initial_versiontotaltheme_db_versiontotaltheme/icons/listtotaltheme/searchform/argstotaltheme/topbar/menu/theme_locationtotaltheme/topbar/menu/has_classic_layouttotaltheme/togglebar/contenttotaltheme/togglebar/is_enabledtotaltheme/togglebar/styletotaltheme/togglebar/contenttotaltheme/togglebar/wrapper_classtotaltheme/togglebar/inner_classtotaltheme/local_scroll/normalize_idstotalthemecore/meta/main_metabox/has_conditional_logicvcex_contact_form_mail_subjectvcex_contact_form_mail_headers