October 20, 2020/in , /by Kriesi

Enfold 4.5 – new template builder elements, more options, new demos focusing on gradients and a few words about the Gutenberg editor

A release that highlights some of the recent improvements of Enfold

In our last few major releases we were focusing a lot on improving the theme performance wise and making it as easy as possible to be GDPR compliant. During that time we also introduced some new visual features (like gradients for example) which did not get a proper introduction due to the emphasis on usability and non visual features. We figured we should spoil you with a design oriented update between those recent usability updates and the ones we are currently preparing for the future :)

So whats new?

Quite a lot actually.

First of all we added 2 new demos (knowledgebase and agency) that show the power of aforementioned gradients and box shadows, and feature a style that is very different from our previous demos.

For sites with a lot of post based content we got additional blog list layouts.  We also got a new ajax search element for the template builder that allows you to easily place an additional search field anywhere on your site. A new table of contents widget allows to show the structure of a single entry in the sidebar and allows easy navigation for the user. This should all aid you in building and structuring websites that contain a lot of posts.

In the “new element department” we got the new Icon Grid element that displays a grid of icons and allows you to show flipbox or tooltip content on hover.

Of course there is a slew of new options and improvements  like extra hover effects for the masonry (with greyscale, desaturation and blur options), some additional improvements to the GDPR scripts that were introduced with the latest update, improvements to the theme updater, more animation settings for Masonry, Gallery, Icon List and other elements with predefined animations, etc etc – Feel free to check out the full changelog at the end of the entry ;)

Theme Updater

One thing that has changed, is the way theme updates are now done from the backend. We had to switch to the latest API version that Themeforest provides since earlier versions are now deprecated and no longer work reliable. Since these two API versions are not compatible this means that it will definitely be necessary to update your API credentials in your Enfold backend once you have done the update to version 4.5. We have updated our theme documentation on how to create that new “access token” that is required by Themeforest now.

Gutenberg

Some of you might have already seen that WordPress is trying to move to a new text editor called “Gutenberg”. This editor is currently available as a plugin but will – sooner or later – end up in the final Version of WordPress Core, thus replacing the current TinyMCE Texteditor.

Now that we got a relatively stable version of Gutenberg to work with, we checked in which way we can incorporate our template builder and are happy to let you know that we should be able to provide the same experience with Gutenberg that we provide now, meaning that you can switch between the Gutenberg editor and the Advanced Layout Builder whenever you like.

We will add this to one of the following smaller updates to make sure once you switch to WordPress 5.0 (which is said to be the official release of  Gutenberg) everything is smooth sailing. The current release also has a compatibility script that allows you to test the Gutenberg plugin and still use our Template Builder. We just wanted to let you know that its going to be smoother than now in the future ;)

What else did we change? Here is the Changelog:

  • added: new demo: Enfold Agency
  • added: new demo: Enfold Knowledgebase
  • added: new element: Ajax Search Form
  • added: new Element: Icon Grid Element with Flipbox or Tooltip
  • added: option to chose an alternate main menu for mobile devices
  • added: box shadow for columns
  • added: compatibility with the Gutenberg WordPress Editor Plugin (once the editor is added to the WordPress core a more sophisticated solution will be applied)
  • added: option to link special headings
  • added: custom margins for color sections
  • added: a new option to enable a separate sidebar for archive pages instead of using the ‘blog sidebar’
  • added: additional blog list layouts
  • added: options to visually wrap an Animated Numbers element into a circle
  • added: Table of contents widget, which allows to automatically collect the content of a page based on the headings used
  • added: Various additional styling options for the advanced styling blocks.
  • added: new options for the timeline element to display “steps” (like: step 1: register, step 2: confirm, step 3: etc)
  • added: Text alignment option for left sidebar
  • added: Highlight column by slightly increasing its
  • added: Additional accordion styles
  • added: new sidebar styling
  • added: option to display a data privacy checkbox to registration form
  • added: filter that allows plugins to translate a footer template page
  • added: new Product snippet element to display woocommerce price as template builder element
  • added: RTL support for portfolio and masonry grids
  • added: a re-coded version of the combowidget was re-introduced to the theme
  • added: option to always load the mediaelement scripts, in case it is required for 3rd party plugins
  • added: extra hover effects for masonry images: (grayscale/desaurationt/blur)

 

  • improved: the theme updater now works with the latest Envato API version. Please not: you will need to generate a new token for updates
  • improved: added support for smoothscroll for clickable columns and cells
  • improved: contact form auto responder email can now be set and various filter names have been updated
  • improved: backend element preview
  • improved: added the option to enable/disable animations for the following elements: Masonry Entries, Masonry Gallery, Gallery, Icon List, Timeline, Icon
  • improved: added support for WP Embed for ALB pages
  • improved: classes to prev page/ next page pagination and a filter for output
  • improved: added a filter to allow 3rd party scripts to force load media element in frontend
  • improved: added support for custom post type select for magazine element
  • improved: the theme updater script
  • improved: Allow tabs to be selected using keyboard navigation only
  • improved: Events Calendar Styling rules
  • improved: Google maps values can be filtered programmatically now
  • improved: Social media buttons all link to https now
  • improved: added a filter to programmatically change the google maps overlay image
  • improved: added rel=’nofollow’ to search link to avoid duplicate content in search engines
  • improved: lightbox behaviour for WooCommerce Galleries

 

  • fixed: an issue with layerslider fullwidth/responsive mode
  • fixed: an issue with multiple image uploads in shortcode popup
  • fixed: an issue with product review display
  • fixed: an issue with disabled elements and the data privacy modal window
  • fixed: an issue with RTL comment field display
  • fixed: some small spelling errors and typos
  • fixed: an issue with sticky transparent headers on tablet sized screens
  • fixed: a PHP warning caused by the instagram caching widget
  • fixed: an issue with the Masonry Gallery Lightbox title
  • fixed: changed schema.org address to https:
  • fixed: issue with cookie consent message not accepting modified font size
  • fixed: a problem with multiple tab sections on one page
  • fixed: phone number on tablet screen size
  • fixed: a fallback image issue for slideshows
  • fixed: WPML bug not showing translated images
  • fixed: a WooCommerce shop page ordering conflict
  • fixed: Layerslider Text alignment when using RTL language
  • fixed: a protfolio grid column issue
  • fixed: an issue with the media gallery and IE11
  • fixed: empty inline background-image property for sections
  • fixed: img HTML tags syntax error for height and width
  • fixed: an empty translation string causing a PoEdit Error
  • fixed: an issue with circle images that are set to increase their size on hover
  • fixed: an issue with codeblock overwriting in ALB
  • fixed: an issue with horizontal gallery lightboxes if multiple galleries are active
  • fixed: undefined PHP notice for video element
  • fixed: added a check if the inital open tab value is valid
  • fixed: an issue with the overlay burger menu when the layout: “logo center/menu below” was selected
  • fixed: added missing link target to timeline element
  • fixed: a problem with codeblock in postcontent element
  • fixed: an issue with postboxes causing a javascript error on post saving
  • fixed: an issue with custom footers not being displayed fullwidth
  • fixed: an issue with portfolio javascript breaking on complex ALB pages
  • updated: several language files (german, spanish, hebrew)