I have planned to release next minor revision of xScape over the weekend, but some of the new features will require changes to all themes. To avoid doing that twice, I decided to postpone release of the new framework until next week when the new major 1.7 version will be out.
xScape 1.7 will have two new modules. One, is already mentioned bbPress plugin support (that one is currently in beta) and the second one is called Side Scroller. This module adds a floating box outside of the content area, that will move along with the page scrolling, and will always remain on top of the visible part of the screen. It can contain different things, it can have 3 different widths and will be styled by the theme. Share This module is changed to support this new module (as on the image), but also, xScape theme settings will allow adding major share buttons to this area and freeing some space in the content for the post.
Beside two modules, new framework will feature many minor changes and improvements, more fonts will be added to Google Web Fonts module, Clicky tracking code is updated… Also, few more changes are expected for the interface to complete the cycle of changes in the past couple of versions.
This framework version will also mark end of (development) life for three themes: baseScape, airScape and photoScape. Next week they will get full support for all new xScape features including bbPress and Side Scroller modules. They will still work with new versions of the framework, but if some framework features come along that require changes to the theme files, they will not support these themes.
But, as previously announced, new photo/media theme is in development, and it will be called Liquid. It’s expected some time in June. Also, another theme is in planning stages, it will be blog oriented with interesting layout.
