Introducing Frugal 3.3: A New Level Of Design Control
Frugal version 3.3 is now available and takes design control to a whole new level. The following video will go into detail, but here’s a brief run through of what 3.3 brings to the table.
- One Click Skin Creation: Once you’re done designing a Frugal Skin (adjusting the Frugal Options and creating and uploading your custom images for your Skin design) you just type the name of your Skin and click ‘Export Skin’ to create and download your new Skin file and you’re done.
- One Click Skin Installation: Installing a Skin is even easier. You just locate your Frugal Skin zip folder, click ‘Import Skin’ and you’re done!
- Much refined Import/Export feature: Now there’s a One Click Frugal Options Export button and the Import is just a matter of checking the boxes next to the options pages you want to Import and then upload your Export file.
- Bulk Delete Images: No longer do you have to delete images one at a time. You can now select all and then delete.
- Increase Your WordPress Memory by flipping a switch. This new option allows you to raise your WordPress memory limit to 64 megabytes if you need a bit more memory to run WordPress, your theme and all your plugins (be sure to confirm with your web host that it will allow a memory increase to 64 megabytes as a few still do not).
- Frugal Snapshots! This one is super cool! Every time you click ‘Save’ in a Frugal Options page Frugal will take a snapshot of your entire options set. This allows you to restore your settings back to a previous point or even forward if you want to UNDO the restore. With this Snapshot function you’ll be able to see the date of the ‘Save’ down to the second, the actual page where you saved the changes and a list of all the changes you made. Just select the Snapshot and then click ‘Restore’ and Frugal will revert to that exact state. How cool is that!!
- Full Localization: Frugal now includes an .po and .mo file to make it much easier to translate Frugal into any language (currently no translations have been performed, but the localization is done).
A screenshot of the All New Snapshot feature in action:
Check out the video below for more details and see for yourself how Frugal 3.3 raises the bar once again:
One more exciting piece of news is that there is a new member of the Frugal Development team! I’ve recently hired Seth Atwood (I said ‘Atkins’ in the video, but I meant ‘Atwood’. My bad, Seth. ) as a Full Time Frugal Developer. He’s pretty darn amazing with code and design and is mostly responsible for the new options/refinements in 3.3. Now we’ll be able to push ahead much faster as we strive to bring you the best WordPress Theme available! We’re already working on some amazing stuff for the next release so stay tuned!
Eric Hamm
21 Responses to “Introducing Frugal 3.3: A New Level Of Design Control”
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Sweet. I’m guessing this is on Sid’s Radar so I’m sure we’ll be in touch about how this impacts us. If it makes implementing skins easier I’m all for it
I just shot Sid and email. Implementing a Skin shouldn’t be too hard, even with his custom coding. Eric
Eric
Great to see you continue to improve Frugal, thanks for the work you put into your business and keeping your clients happy.
This will be the first upgrade I need to do. A bit nervous about this. I can’t see specific instructions for upgrading to 3.3. Do I need to just follow previous upgrade instructions on the forum?
Marionx
Love your site! Nice job customizing.
As long as you’re using Frugal 3.2 or 3.25 when upgrading to 3.3 you should just be able to do a simple install/activation/upgrade. All mine have gone super smooth. Eric
Then just overwrite the theme files ?
I use frugal 3.25
Cristiano
Just install Frugal 3.3 like any other theme. Because its folder is called frugal_33 it won’t overwrite your 3.25 install. Then just activate version 3.3.
Here are some general WordPress Theme Install Instructions.
Eric
Dude this is amazing. Great work on all the new features, especially the snapshots – that is killer
I just show you an email about it
Thanks Sid! Like I said, the snapshots idea was Seth’s. That dude is a PHP magician!
Eric
Looks awesome, as usual. Keep up the great work guys.
Thanks Sherad! We will.
Eric
Nice, Eric! As always. Now there seem to be…two Energizer Bunnies.
Yep, there’s two of us GOING and GOING…
Eric
That one click skin creation just made life easier for me. Thanks Eric.
Glad to hear it!
Eric
This is great, the snapshots are a brilliant idea. Great work Seth!
So one question. When creating skins, should all the image files (background, logo, etc) be in the wp-content/uploads/frugal folder?
Hey Donna, glad you’re liking what you’re seeing.
Yes, when creating a Skin you need to upload your Skin images to your /wp-content/uploads/frugal/ directory (which happens automatically when using the Frugal Image Uploader) and make sure you name the images with the name you give your Skin (ie. skinname-background.png or skinname-header.png, etc..)
Eric
Oh great, thanks Eric! That’s really helpful to know about the naming conventions. I’m keen to make skins, is there someplace where you have documented that more, or should I just ask as questions come up? I might just do documentation for my own purposes anyway
Donna
Awesome work!
The snapshot feature looks like a life-saver
Will it be possible in the future to save individual snapshots, then come back in three months and re-use that snapshot?
The snapshots are technically hard coded files so yes, you could, but the easiest way to do this is to just do a Full Export of your Frugal options when you hit a point that you’d like to save for future use.
And yes, the snapshots feature IS a HUGE lifesaver.
Eric
Will Frugal work with a WordPress.com site, or does it have to be a Hosted WordPress build?
Thanks
Nitya it has to be a hosted WordPress site because WordPress.com doesn’t let you upload themes.