I totally love-hate The Fabulous Thesis Theme for WordPress I use on my West’s Resort site.

It causes me endless frustration because I know I lack the skill to use the theme to full advantage. I swear at Chris Pearson daily and am exasperated with his ‘clever‘ tweets and his superior knowledge as I struggle with learning to add something as simple as a ‘rotating photos’ box to my site.

I know exactly what I want and I know it’s absolutely possible but it takes me hours, sometimes days to figure out how to implement simple features (he says they’re simple – hah!). There are times when I wish he was standing in front of me so I could smack some sense into him, (or at least beg for his cellphone number so I can call him when I want to say bad swears) but I always forgive him when I realize it’s operator error, and not his fault at all. His directions are not always set out in layperson’s (dummie’s like me) terms and I feel he assumes all Thesis users are on his brilliant, geeky minded level. I know there are plenty of brilliant designers out there who can follow his directions and create amazing sites – I’m just not one of them.

At that point, after I’ve given up trying to decipher the Greek ‘geek’ in the User’s Guide, I turn to the Forum where I know there are normal people like me who’ve gone through the agonizing hours of trial and error – and that they will cheefully help me make the Thesis Theme do exactly what I need. Forum users are always amazingly helpful and continually ‘pay it forward’.

Chris, I thank you for making me use my brain on a daily basis – you frustrate me no end, but I continually learn and improve my abilities when I use the Thesis Theme – and that’s a very good feeling!

At the Audience Conference in New York City, August 14, 2010 I was finally able to express my feelings to Chris in the Q & A session after his speech. I know he wondered who the heck I was, and I got up the courage at the Share A Sale party to introduce myself. I might just tweet Chris now instead of swearing at him!

Now, on to the good news -Thesis 1.8 has just been released and it has a ton of new and improved features. I know I can’t improve on Chris’s explanation so I’ve copied and pasted:

1. Header Image Uploader

Adding a unique header image is a great way to personalize your site. The problem is, simply adding a header image does not ensure proper SEO or good usability. Web ninjas know that header images should be clickable, CSS-based, and SEO-optimized, and let’s face it—this all sounds pretty technical.

Fortunately, Thesis 1.8 steps in and saves the day. Instead of dealing with all that technical mumbo-jumbo, you only need to upload your desired image, and Thesis will do the heavy lifting for you. It’s easy, optimized, and oh-so-simple.
2. SEO Character Counters

Did you know that search engines will only show a specific number of characters in title and meta description fields?

No worries. Put your fingers away, because you don’t need to touch your computer screen to count characters anymore. Thesis 1.8 helps you work within these constraints by offering character counters on appropriate input fields throughout the WordPress interface.
3. New Google Fonts!

Who doesn’t love having a slew of fantastic fonts to use on their site? Thesis is now the first premium website framework to support the Google Font Directory, which gives you access to 28 web-fonts for free!

And the best part? These fonts are web-safe—they’re served directly from Google servers, so everyone can see your fonts no matter what browser or operating system they have!
4. WordPress Nav Menu Support

One of the most awesome improvements in WordPress 3.0 is the navigation menu builder, and Thesis 1.8 offers full support for this exciting new feature. Best of all, if you choose to use the WordPress nav menu, you’ll be able to tweak its design by using Thesis’ existing nav menu design controls! Win-win!
5. Category/Tag/Taxonomy Page Options

In version 1.7, I introduced a new “Page Options” system that allowed you to add SEO details like title and meta content to category and tag pages. There are three notable changes to this system in version 1.8.

First, I’ve moved all of these options to a more logical position: inside WordPress’ category and tag editing pages. Now, you’ll be able to edit everything in one place without having to bounce around between different pages inside the admin interface.

Second—and this is my personal favorite feature in version 1.8—you’ll be able to add a unique headline and unique content to every category, tag, or taxonomy page on your site! This has huge implications for SEO, and even better, it will allow you to create pages that are more useful for your users.

Third, Thesis now offers full support for custom taxonomy pages in addition to category and tag pages. Should you choose to use custom taxonomies on your site, you’ll be able to benefit from Thesis’ incredible customization controls and unmatched SEO prowess.
6. Favicon Uploader

Favicons are a great way to extend your site’s brand, and Thesis 1.8 contains a simple favicon uploader that you can use to add one of these babies to your site. Like the header image uploader, the favicon uploader is extremely simple—just upload your image, and Thesis handles the rest of the work for you.
7. Custom Loop API

As far as developers are concerned, the new Custom Loop API is probably the most exciting, powerful, and flexible tool that I’ve ever added to Thesis. The premise is simple:

The Custom Loop API allows you to target and modify the content area of every type of WordPress page and, if you’re so inclined, every page of your website.

In other words, this is the ultimate custom template system. For an in-depth look and some examples, check out the Custom Loop API documentation.

More Details, More Awesomeness

As is always the case with a new Thesis release, there are tons of minor improvements in addition to the exciting new features listed above. The DIYthemes team is hard at work on the ever-expanding User’s Guide, and if you’re interested to dig deeper, you’ll find more extensive documentation over there.

With this new release of Thesis 1.8 I see a few options that I may try, especially the Favicon uploader. Then I’m going on to upload a real ‘header’.

If you haven’t taken the plunge to change over to Thesis, I highly recommend you do it now, using my affiliate badge below. My ‘stuck in the mud’ Hugo Says blog went from PR0 to PR2 in 3 months – that’s how SEO friendly the Thesis theme is! Google LOVES Thesis and I have to say I love it too even though I hate dealing with the learning curve!

Now, I’m off to install the new upgrade, Thesis 1.8, on my site – please drop by to have a look. Suggestions are more than welcome… AND the first person who can tell me how to get rid of the two words, ‘No Categories’ on the right hand side of the Navigation Menu on my Sunshine Coast Resort blog will win a fabulous prize – a copy of Jim Kukral’s book:

Attention! This Book Will Help Make You Money