We have exciting news in store for Avada customers. Avada 4.0 is right around the corner and includes an amazing new options panel powered by Redux!
If you use Avada, you know how important a role theme options play. These options allow you to easily customize all the different parts of the site without having to change or modify any of the backend code. Avada theme options have depth, flexibility and power which ultimately provides you with a design tool to create professionally unique websites. With the continued desire to grow Avada’s powerful options for our customer base, there is a need to use a more advanced framework that allows us to continue building for the future.
Needless to say, we are thrilled about adding Redux to Avada. This is the first step in allowing ThemeFusion to fulfill some very exciting long term goals for the future of Avada.
Avada’s New Theme Option Panel
Avada 4.0 theme options is now going to be powered by Redux. Redux is a truly extensible options framework for WordPress themes and plugins.
Our developing team has spent months working on integration. With the sheer number of options Avada offers, it is imperative that the interface is user friendly. We’ve created a custom design for Redux that results in a clean and precise user interface that is amazingly fun to use. Each option is clearly defined, described and logically organized into panels. We’ve taken many steps to make the interface feel like a natural extension of WordPress, even the styling of the panel changes based on the user color profile you choose in WordPress settings.
New Features
Avada 4.0 includes many new features that make theme options more refined and easier to use, which ultimately makes your job easier. We’ll highlight a few of our favorites below.
Combined Options
Our previous theme option panel did not make it easy to combine options, thankfully this changes in 4.0. Combined options are a grouping of similar options in the same area. A great example of this is our new typography control. Previously in Avada there were different areas of theme options to edit the font families, font colors, line-heights, margins and more. This required you to move around to edit all of those options. In Avada 4.0 we’ve combined these similar options into one control, allowing you to edit each field in a fraction of the time.
As you can see above, every aspect of the H1 heading is combined into one typography control for quick and easy editing. We’ve extended this concept into other areas as well, like header paddings.
Unlimited Custom Fonts & Icons
Avada 4.0 brings unlimited custom fonts and social icons at your disposal. In addition, you can now easily assign your custom fonts to any area of the site that has a font-family option! There is a new custom font section on the typography panel that utilizes our own custom repeater field. Each custom font you upload is housed inside a repeater field, and you can add or remove repeater fields as much as you wish. Simply upload your 4 web font files, name the font and save it. Click the “ADD” button to add an additional repeater field for a new custom font.
This same concept is also used for social icon networks. A repeater field is used allowing you to choose any of our included networks, or choose a custom icon and upload your own image.
Enhanced Color Pickers With Opacity Sliders
Avada currently supports rgba values for color settings with opacity. However you have to manually insert the rgba value which is not easy. Avada 4.0 brings an enhanced color picker that has a built in opacity slider, when used it will automatically insert the selected rgba value.
More Intuitive Organization
Being able to quickly find an option you are looking for is very important. Our previous organization of theme options was built a specific way almost 3 years ago before we developed many more options. Over time we realized that organization was not ideal for the number of options we have. In Avada 4.0 the theme options panel has been completely reorganized in a logical way. The concept is simple, if you wish to edit something in the footer, you will navigate to the footer tab and find every option we have available. This includes typography settings and color settings. Every option for a specific area is neatly organized into their own panel.
We understand that many customers are familiar with the previous organization before Avada 4.0. When change comes, it takes some time to get familiar with it. However, the new method is more intuitive and will quickly save you time. In addition to the new organization, there is a search field you can use to find an option which we will get into next.
Quick & Useful Searching
With the sheer number of options we include for easy customization, it’s important to have a search feature to quickly find an option. At the top of theme options is a search field that allows you to search for an option based on the title. When you perform a search, the side navigation panel is grayed out and all the focus is put on the actual search results.
Dependent Options
There are numerous options that are dependent on another option. For example, if you select unboxed social icons, the boxed color and boxed radius options should not show since they do not apply. If you cselect boxed social icons, then the additional boxed options will show. We’ve set up many dependencies for theme options so only the correct options show based on your selections. This setup makes using theme options easier and eliminates the margin of error when selecting an option that will not work based on another setting.
In addition, we have separate panels now for 3rd party plugin integrations like WooCommerce, bbPress, The Events Calendar. These panels of options for 3rd party plugins will only show if you have WooCommerce installed and activated.
Option Migration When Updating To Avada 4.0
Since we’re using an entirely new options panel, it is necessary for your previous Avada installations to migrate over to Redux. When you update from an older version of Avada, your theme option values will be copied and stored in your database for safe keeping. No data is lost this way. The extra copy of theme options is then migrated over to Redux so you can enjoy the new options panel. Always make sure you backup your current theme folder before you upgrade. Additional information will be ready when version 4.0 is live.
Conclusion
We’re very excited to be bringing you the new Avada 4.0 update. It truly is a major enhancement and helps pave the way for future versions of Avada that bring even more excitement!
We are in beta testing at the moment and estimate a live release within 3-5 weeks of time. Thank you to the many customers who signed up for beta testing! Onwards!
The post Avada 4.0 Is Coming Soon! appeared first on Theme Fusion.
