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Vigilance Theme Improvements

  1. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    Today we made several updates to the Vigilance theme on WordPress.com. The goal is to bring our version on WordPress.com up to date to include the latest fixes from the theme designer.

    Regarding the visual appearance, the update fixes many small design details and layout bugs. For example, the "Comments" link on index pages is now at the bottom of posts (instead of under the title). Nested comments work better now, too.

    Other improvements:

    - Added an improved full-width image template with no sidebar.
    - Added navigation menu support. If you used the "Exclude Pages from Navigation" option before, you can now create a fully customized menu for Vigilance. See a full tutorial with examples.

    Please don't post here if you feel your site is broken. Contact Support and we'll help you get things working again.

  2. kwesiwa
    Member

    Now, the single top column is smaller in width. Hence, everything wraps to the next line making the top column much longer. Can the original width be restored?

  3. aw1923
    Member

    no, this sucks whatever you all did, my photos on my blog http://sensicology.wordpress.com/ are not aligned the way they should be. Photos are practically the main component of this blog. If this was a change made on purpose, I'll have to switch themes.

  4. jmeunier
    Member

    Did you change the fonts? I thought my browser was doing that, but I assume it is the theme changes.

  5. kwesiwa
    Member

    aw1923, I agree with you. The changes are messing with the width and size of the page and has changed the layout of the theme. That sucks!

  6. misouho
    Member

    "Added an improved full-width image template with no sidebar"

    Can someone tell me how to access said image template? In other words, how to use it?

  7. nicrobliz
    Member

    Look, I know WP is free and some of these changes is meant for the best but making dramatic changes in a themes appearance is a bit concerning. One of the reasons I chose Vigilance was because it was devoid of those illogical navigation tabs at the bottom of posts (which are not confined to the category the reader is in). Now, they've appeared and has spoilt things.

    WP may be free but bloggers have invested time and effort into their blogs and such changes are disheartening. I'm now wondering if I should even bother continuing setting up my blog if such changes are going to happen periodically (and changing themes won't solve the problem - rather delay it).

  8. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    @kwesiwa The column width didn't change in this update.

    @aw1923 Can you explain how the photos were aligned before? They look as expected to me.

    @misouho Simply add a gallery to a post or page, and then click one image to see the single image in full width. See http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/gallery/ for details on how to insert a gallery.

  9. spocrep
    Member

    my blog looks different because I've done some css changes before, it doesn't look like it should at all, i have to start all over again, or change the theme! can i do something so the new them improvements don't apply on my blog? and I know my css design isn't that good!

  10. jalexartis
    Member

    You have destroyed the appearance of my blog based on my extensive use of CSS. I do not like this at all! Why not an option to change or a warning. The hours it will take to fix what was not broken. You did me bad WordPress!!!

    Really disappointed,

    James

  11. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    @nicrobliz I'm sorry that you feel the changes are not dramatic, that is not the intent of this update. Vigilance was added in early 2009 in the 12 months since didn't have many improvements except for bug fixes. So it was due for an update!

    We do not plan to do this regularly.

    We do plan to continue improving all our themes over time to keep them up to date and consistent with the features that are included with other WordPress themes, such as the single post navigation.

  12. nicrobliz
    Member

    Lance, the single post navigation is fine BUT it's dependant on the order that the posts were published and NOT based on category posts. That's the problem I have with it.

  13. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    Regarding the CSS changes in this update, they are really quite minor in scope. Most likely are few small tweaks can help get you back to in business. :)

    If you feel that your Custom CSS has really been broken or you want help fixing things, please contact Support and we'll help as much as we can.

  14. nicrobliz
    Member

    So, for example, I have categories 'fruits' and 'vegetables'. I would like the post navigation to work within the category of 'fruits' (should the reader happen to be reading a post from this category) and not navigate to a post about vegetables! It's completely illogical.

  15. duskman
    Member

    Come on, guys -- I want to spent my blogging time writing posts, not fixing what wasn't broken in the first place.

    The calendar is now twice its width, meaning I have to re-do the layout to accommodate it or remove it entirely. The 'Networked Blogs' code no longer fits in its widget at all, exploding out to overlap other widgets. The code, for controlling font size/bold/emphasis, that I put in the text widgets no longer works, completely screwing up the layout I'd spent so very much time on.

    http://rylmandus.wordpress.com/

    Did anyone stop to think that we liked Vigilance the way it was before these updates -- which is why we chose it?

    I hate to sound ungrateful, but if you really had the urge to do this why not just create Vigilance 2.0 and let us decide whether we wanted to use it?

  16. nicrobliz
    Member

    If achieving the above is impossible, at least offer us the option to disable it.

  17. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    @nicrobliz I hear you, and I understand your concerns. This isn't a special feature for Vigilance though -- 90 out of 94 of our themes on WordPress.com have single post navigation as it's a standard feature in WordPress themes.

    Vigilance didn't have it, and we're working on getting it to all themes (Hemingway doesn't have it yet).

  18. nicrobliz
    Member

    But that was one of the main reasons why I chose Vigilance...

  19. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    @duskman Please see my note above about helping you get issues fixed. We're happy to help you get things fixed up.

  20. spocrep
    Member

    ok I'll start working on my css, I was in the middle of posting a new blog post, but i guess that won't happen today (little upset), wish me luck, please just notify us next time,
    thanks for all your efforts :)

  21. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    To help you out with your Custom CSS, I'll cook up a list of the CSS selectors and any HTML that may have changed and post it here shortly.

  22. spocrep
    Member

    ok great that would be very helpful, I already noticed some of it, and i fixed some of the things, thanks!

  23. taaldacht
    Member

    I appreciate the update you guys have made!

    Still wondering though:
    Will the alert box be custom coloured again? I hope so.
    Will the links go back to the way they were? (Without underline and bold.) I hope so.
    What is the new font for the headings?

  24. facebusterdeluxe
    Member

    While I appreciate the option of new features, I was pretty content with the way Vigilance looked & worked. I liked it so much that I built parts of my site around it & tried to maintain a uniform color scheme. Now there are all those tiny changes that just make it... off. Worse yet, I'm having a rather good day traffic wise, only to find the site wasn't the way I worked to get it to look.

    The easiest fix, my background & link text colors seemed to reset, even though the code#'s were still there. I fixed that by re-saving & it fixed that problem.

    There are still other things that have changed I'm a bit dismayed by. If these are getting fixed, great, but I'd appreciate if they were looked into:

    -All of the text links I had before were Bolded. Now they've only got an underline. This was true for titles of my posts as well. Made everything look a lot more impactful.

    -Images in my posts have a border suddenly. I'd prefer them without. This might also because they link to larger versions of those images. Still, I'd prefer them without if possible.

    -My calendar widget used to fit very comfortably in the left handed column. Now it's huge & bleeds over onto the right column, like it'd only fit in both. Frankly I liked it smaller.

    -The one nitpick I always had with Vigilance was that goofy bar over the page links just under the menu. I took great care in making a banner that would line up & basically make it invisible. Now there's like this huge gap.

    If these are long term, I guess I'll have to maybe start looking for another kind of theme. But that's going a real headache. And again, in the future, you could you try to give some sort of heads up when you're adjusting things like this?

  25. duskman
    Member

    I've never touched the CSS settings, didn't need to -- and, candidly, I haven't the time to learn a new skill set.

    Why does the code I put in the text widgets no longer work?

  26. murato
    Member

    i was good with vigilance but now my tables are messed.
    why does the font size increased in tables. i have a format of table to make some particular posts but its doomed now.

  27. taaldacht
    Member

    Yikes, I just discovered the standard border around my images. Please tell me I don't have to remove them for each separate image.

  28. lance
    Theme Wrangler

    Here are more details on the HTML and CSS changes for the Vigilance update on 06/02/10 in case you use Custom CSS and want to patch your customizations to work with the new selectors.

    There were very few HTML changes.

    footer.php - The text is now wrapped in <p class="right">
    CSS selector: #footer p.right

    header.php - <div class="skip-content"> was added
    CSS rule: div.skip-content { display: none; }

    image.php - The sidebar was removed and content element given width of 920px (full width)
    CSS selector: .attachment.single #content

    index.php - Comments area moved into post-footer div element

    single.php - Added <div class="categories"> around category list
    CSS selector: .categories

    comments.php - Entire comment area is now wrapped in <div id="comments">. Previously <div class="comment-number"> has the ID value. Also Added comment timestamp to comment date area.

    404.php, page.php, archive.php, search.php, sidebar.php - No HTML changes

    ----

    Now for the CSS changes to master.css:

    Hide skip to content
    div.skip-content { display: none; }

    Tagline and navigation fixes to avoid navigation overlapping the header image
    #nav { margin: 15px 0 10px 0; }

    Alert box background and border color:

    .alert-box {
	margin: 0 0 20px 0;
	padding: 20px;
	background: #f3f3f2;
	border: 1px solid #e3e1db;
}

    The alert box background color is not changeable, but the border will come from custom colors if you use them.

    Comment area CSS: lots of small tweaks to fix nesting issues. New rounded corners and small background color change.

  29. lonebu
    Member

    What has happened to the headings in my blog, and how do I turn it back to the way it was before the upgrade? Also, the space between posts seems to have shrinked somewhat.

    I'm on a free WordPress blog,and it looks like I have to get the CSS upgrade now. Hm.

  30. truthrevisited
    Member

    I spent A LOT of time and effort on the CSS of my website. Now everything is thrown off, fonts are huge, images have grey borders, spacing is off...If that was done to the HTML, there's no fix. Is there no way to go back to the way it was?? There seem to be a lot of people who feel the same way I do.

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