Version 6 is the biggest update in the Authentic history. In this article, you’ll learn what has changed and how this affected websites using the former versions of Authentic.
What has changed in version 6?
In version 5, a user could configure the homepage layout in the WordPress Appearance → Customize → Homepage Settings.
A user had to set the “Front page displays” option to “Your latest posts” in Settings → Reading, in order to display the featured post sections (post slider, tiles, and carousel) on the homepage.
These featured post sections had a fixed position on the homepage and could be used only once. That resulted in limited flexibility, as you could not change the order of the featured posts sections, add new ones or add multiple sections of the same type.
Version 6 is based on the Canvas page builder instead. The homepage is now a static page. The page builder allows creating unlimited pages (including the homepage, of course) and layouts.
The former version 5 was using a default blogging theme structure with all recent posts being listed in the main homepage archive.
Thanks to the page builder in version 6, you can also now have magazine-like layouts with a few post sections where posts from different categories appear too.
What will happen with Authentic 5 installations?
When you install the new version 6, the theme will detect automatically if version 5 was used before.
In this case, the legacy features will be enabled by default. The legacy features include theme option sections responsible for the homepage layout and located in Appearance → Customize → Homepage Settings:
- Post Slider
- Post Tiles
- Post Carousel
- Page Layout
That means that users of the former version 5 will be able to use the new version 6 as they used version 5 before.
How do I migrate to Version 6?
Follow these steps to upgrade from version 5:
- Create a full site backup.
- Install the new version using our guide.
- Update the Powerkit plugin to the latest version.
- Install the new recommended plugins from Appearance → Install Plugins.
This will be enough to update to version 6 and use the legacy features as before.
However, if you would like to make use of the new block-based homepages, then go to Appearance → Customize → Advanced Settings and disable the “Enable legacy features” checkbox.
This will disable the theme option sections responsible for the homepage layout in the WordPress Customizer. After disabling them, you may build a new page using the Canvas page builder. Please refer to this section for more details.