Microthemer 3.0 – What did we get right? What should we improve?

Hi Antonio,

Are you saying that you liked being able to switch off the WordPress admin bar even when viewing the frontend directly (i.e. not via the Microthemer interface)? That was the effect of turning off the WP admin bar in version 2. It would fully turn it off.

I changed the way things work so that the admin bar is just hidden when the site is being previewed via the Microthemer interface, but still shows when viewing the frontend site normally (if logged in). I think this is most desirable in the majority of cases. The global disabling was sort of a bug. For your case however, I would recommend adding the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_filter('show_admin_bar', '__return_false');

This will globally disable the admin bar in the same way that version 2 used to. You can then comment that code out when you want the admin bar back by putting two forward slashes at the start:

// add_filter('show_admin_bar', '__return_false');

If updating your functions.php file is tricky, are you aware that the WP admin bar only displays on the fronted if you are logged in? You could make sure that you are logged out in all the browsers you are testing with if that is easier?

Cheers,
Sebastian

Hi Antonio, this was a general bug that you identified. Well done! I’ve released a fix now – version 3.0.16.

# Bugs Fixed
* The pre-populated selector name value for all selectors in a folder was overwritten by the most recent selector created via the selector wizard. Thanks for spotting this Antonio!
* Importing a design pack made with Microthemer 1.x (before media query tabs were added) would result in PHP errors.

Get it from “My Downloads”: https://themeover.com/my-downloads/
Or Download the free trial: https://themeover.com/microthemer-free-trial/

Cheers,

Sebastian

You know I think you might be right again Antonio. You’ve highlighted another area I questioned many times before changing in version 3. The reasoning behind scrapping the bottom buttons and only displaying the screen width slider when editing a selector was that sometimes the general preview buttons could get out of sync with styling option media query tabs.

If for instance you select the Phone media query tab next to the CSS options, and then click the large desktop general preview button at the bottom, and then start inputting styles on the phone tab (which is already selected so won’t adjust the screen with) it could be a bit confusing – as the styles won’t take effect for the current large preview screen width.

However, the simplicity of removing the general preview buttons at the bottom does have a cost that you have correctly pointed out. It is sometimes useful to be able to quickly switch between the various screen sizes your media queries relate to.

This has been bubbling away at the back of my mind for a while. And now that I’ve discussed this with my designer we’ve come up with an idea that I’d like to hear your (and anyone else watching this thread’s) feedback on.

1. We will make the screen width slider visible at the top right at all times. Not just when selector styling options are present, as it does currently.
2. Instead of the labelled buttons at the bottom of the screen on version 2, the screen width slider will have little pointers underneath it corresponding the the min/max width media query values. When you hover your mouse over a pointer it will reveal the media query name and value (e.g. “Phone: max-width 480px”). When you click a pointer, it will adjust the screen width according to the value. Much like the bottom buttons on version 2 did.
3. If media queries overlap, say if more than one media query has a min or max value of 700px, hovering over a pointer will reveal the various media queries that are applicable to 700px. You can then click the relevant media query.
4. Microthemer currently adjusts the screen width slider min and max range to restrict sliding in accordance with restrictions of the media query. This feature will be maintained, but implemented slightly differently. The start and end point will always be 0 and [max-screen width] respectively but dragging the slider will be prevented between a certain range.
5. The auto-screen width adjustment that happens when you click a tab “e.g. Phone” will also be triggered when a CSS property field gains focus. This should prevent the possibility of the screen width preview falling out of sync with style options defined within a media query tab.

Hopefully that description makes some sense! It may be that we need to implement it and then see what users make of it in practice.

Thanks again for your continuing feedback Antonio. This is gold to us.

Cheers,

Sebastian