NC State Theme Release 4.1
The first major release of v4 of the NC State Web Platform was recently released. The flagship feature of v4.1 of the theme is additional custom post types for resources, non-degree programs and courses. These additional post types build on top of the academic programs post type that was released in November.
Academic Programs
The academic programs post type is a great way to create program landing pages that are both searchable and filterable. This helps users more easily find programs of interest to explore. The included pre-configured landing page format helps create consistency between programs for users to more easily compare and contrast each program. It also provides a unique layout when compared to traditional pages. This functionality can be viewed on our demo site.
Key Feature Update: New Custom Post Types
Resources
The resources post type is a lightweight but flexible option to provide a listing of items that can be searched and filtered. In v4.2 to be released within the coming weeks, the “Resources” label can also be configured to whatever terminology best represents your content. This can be viewed in pre-release format on the block repository page of our documentation site.
Non-Degree Programs
Many campus units provide programs for workshops, summer camps and other types of seminars. These offerings do not lead to credit towards an academic degree, but they benefit from similar filtering and search functionality. For this reason we introduced a post type for such programs. An example is available on our documentation site.
Courses
Version 4.1 of the theme also includes a courses post type. This post type also allows users to search and filter based upon criteria such as semester and department. Currently courses must be manually populated, but we are exploring how to automatically populate courses in future release.
Many other minor improvements are also included in v4.1 of the NC State Web Platform. Details are available in the full release notes.
Developer Release Notes
The links below connect to pull requests and commits in GitHub. These are for those who would like to see code changes and details about its implementation. If you do not have access to the GitHub repository, please submit a request to gain access..
New Features
- Added three new Custom Post Types, Resources, Non-credit Programs, and Courses. These are now available for opt-in. (#69, #80, #81)
- Posts now have filtering options built into the CPTs. (#69, #78)
- The custom taxonomies of a post now display at the bottom of the post. (#73)
- Added a setting to allow site administrators to turn off the Protected and Private prepending of page titles. (#64)
- Added an option in the theming settings to remove the text from the site home link in Pro masthead. (#62)
Bug Fixes
- Theme support for third party plugins was being added even if the plugins were not active. Rather, installing the plugin would prompt theme support. We have updated this conditional. (#74)
- The Course Catalog and Newswire Feed were not supposed to be available in Posts. We have updated their contexts. (#71)
- The News Sidebar was not set up to show up if the NCState-Pro-add-on activated. But, it needs to show up if the Pro Masthead is disabled. It should now be showing up under these conditions. (#76)
- Content would have a visible jump when scrolling with the compact masthead. This should no longer be occurring. (#68)
- Updated several locations of code that was throwing errors in both PHP and Javascript. (#66)
- The Arrow was not displaying in the correct spot. We implemented an adjustment for these to be more in line. (#59)
- The CTA arrow was displaying at incorrect times on the Featured content block. We updated the logic to be in line with expectations. (#58)
Quality of Life Enhancements
- Fixed a typo in the templates framework. (#75)
- Updated the tracking code for both GA4 and Pendo. (#72)
- Updated site styling to work off of a grid alignment system. (#79)
- Links are now stripped from the event titles in the event block. (#77)
- Updated The Giving Form to use modern React Lifecycles. (#67)
- Updated Link Lists to use the correct semantic HTML (li, ul tags) rather than using divs. (#65)
- Update for compatibility with the core-site-add-on for move into version 4. (#63)
- Update to the GA settings. This sets its cookie on the domain of the current site instead of the domain’s top level domain. (#60)
Need help?
Have questions? Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns at go.ncsu.edu/ucomm-dev-request.
- Categories: