WordPress 3.0 is nearly here, so its time to have another look at the new menu manager, and integrate that lovely new feature fully into the HeatMap Theme drop down menus.

Version 3.0.5a beta allows both the pages nav bar and the categories nav bar to be fully customised using the new WordPress 3.0 menu manager. You can still use the old menu system too if you prefer your drop down menus to be automatically generated.

So, WordPress 3.0 beta testers start your engines! Custom WordPress dropdown menus are here!

As ever, the beta is available from the Heatmap Insider Beta Downloads area.

I was so excited to try out the new WordPress 3.0 menu manager, that I decided to get a bit ahead of the game and implement the new feature on the latest HeatMap Ads Theme beta.  You’ll need to be running a WordPress 3.0 Beta test server in order to have a play with it. WordPress 2.9 users will just have to wait a little longer

Whats new?

There’s a new addition to the HeatMap Theme options page which allows you to switch on support for the new menu manager (thus ensuring that the new menus are backward compatible with the ones you already have). At this time the menu manager only works for the Pages Nav Bar.

The new beta is available in the HeatMap Insider Forum Beta Downloads area.

We’ve fixed up a few bugs that were buggin’ us, and added just few more features…

• Demo Mode – When HeatMap Theme is first installed it now starts up in demo mode showing the diagram of widget positions, with some widgets actually in place. Demo mode doesn’t actually add any content to your blog or change any widget positions that you’ve already set up.  Turn demo mode off and all your content will miraculously appear again. Our intention is to expand demo mode to be a full scale ‘preset widget’ mode eventually -  ie. a superquick way to set up all the widgets straight from the ‘zip wrap’, but for now its just a demo mode.
• Save buttons EVERYWHERE – Up till now you had to make the long trip down to the bottom of the options page to press [SAVE]. No longer. There are save buttons everywhere you might need them in this release.
• RSS images are now TRANSPARENT gifs – when surfing the web looking at what people are doing with their HeatMap Theme installations we noticed that people were having trouble matching the colours of the RSS images to their custom backgrounds for the cat-bar… sooo we’ve changed them to transparent gifs so you can avoid that colour matching headache.
• Direct links to the Authors of each post have been removed – Why? I was uneasy about the  implications of using the_author_posts_link() to return the author of each article as it reveals the username of the author (a feature of WordPress that I think needs to change). Don’t worry; if you do like things that way -  you can just uncomment the relevant code and all will be as before

For now, you can download HeatMap Ads Theme 2.2 beta rc1 from this site, and we’ll be submitting it to the WordPress Theme directory in due course.

Installation Tips

Remember this is a beta release for people who are happy to take an active part in the development of HeatMap Theme.  Please send us feedback if you find any small ‘bug-ettes’ (or giant person-eating-superbugs for that matter).

We’ve tested it on our sites and its working fine for us without problems, however, as ever, your mileage may and vary we recommend you backup your files and database before installing this release.

This release has been tested using WordPress 2.8.4.

“Okay, here we go, over the top, take no prisoners…“

• Backup your files and database (just checking you heard me the first time – I find that Lester Chan’s backup plugin is excellent for the database part. Very cool.)
• Check your wp-content/themes directory. If you already have a previous version of HeatMap Theme in there and it is currently named heatmaptheme then rename it to something else (for example heatmaptheme21).
• Unzip the download file and copy the heatmaptheme directory into your wp-content/themes/ directory.
• If its not activated already go into your themes admin and activate HeatMap Theme 2.2.
• Check out the new demo mode and when you get bored of it then turn it off in the HeatMap Options page.

Child Theme users

Your child theme should automatically find heatmaptheme 2.2 beta when installed if your child theme is already activated.

Please note:

WordPress can get a bit confused if you rename a theme directory in such a way that WordPress cannot find the theme that it currently has set in your theme admin, and then you start playing around with the widgets.

You might, for example, inadvertently do this if you have a child theme activated and then you change the directory name of the ‘parent theme’, so that the child themes can no longer find their parent theme. You might find your widget settings disappear if you do this… so don’t do it. Resist the temptation to play with your widget if WordPress is in a state of confusion about which theme is set 

We have found a way around this should you get yourself into this rare pickle. You can just skip back through your recent browser history until you find your widget admin page which still has the widgets set. Give the widgets a quick ‘jiggle’ so they resave their positions again, just to be sure. Otherwise you’ll be using to those backups you made earlier

‘Caveat emptor’ and all that! (look it up people! look it up!)