Align v1.8
This major release launches some exciting new features and continues to refine the experience of using the Align theme. We've also fixed a number of priority issues which have been reported by our customers (thank you, all!)
Highlights of this release include: an entirely rebuilt Navigation section (previously known as “Main navigation” section), including the ability to easily fine-tune desktop and mobile layouts, and to use it as a standalone section in any template; awesome new text transform theme settings to easily control how text looks throughout your shop; groovy new theme settings to use a gradient for your primary body background or alt backgrounds; a refactored “sticky” engine for buttery smooth sticky/scrolling UI/UX; and some significant improvements to slideshow performance which leverages the work we released in v1.7. Also be sure to check out our new “Calm” theme style preset — we think you’ll love it.
There’s a ton of other frontend polish and “under the hood” refinement in this release, and we’re excited to see what you build.
This release also includes our eighth major round of theme localization support, including new support for Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Latvian, and Romanian (👋 🇧🇬 🇨🇿 🇭🇺 🇱🇻 🇷🇴). This is in addition to the languages added in our previous releases and brings us to a total of 35 supported languages! (👋 🇦🇪 🇧🇩 🇨🇳 🇩🇰 🇳🇱 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇪🇪 🇫🇮 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇬🇷 🇮🇳 🇮🇩 🇮🇹 🇯🇵 🇮🇩 🇰🇷 🇱🇹 🇳🇴 🇵🇱 🇧🇷 🇵🇹 🇵🇰 🇷🇺 🇪🇸 🇸🇪 🇹🇷 🇺🇦 🇻🇳)
This is Align's eighth major release, and our nineteenth overall since Align went live 🎉 Please reference the changelog to learn about everything included in the previous v1.7 release — it was huge!
We'd once again like to thank our customers for your trust and patience in our work. As always, we’re here to help and we welcome your feedback — please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, comments, or concerns. Your feedback helps us build a better theme.
Added
Collection and article descriptions: Added “Expandable” setting to collapse long collection descriptions or article excerpts (great for SEO!)
Mobile navigation: "Show open by default" setting to control which menu starts opened
Navigation section: Added separator settings for full visual control
Theme settings: New body and alt background gradient theme settings
Theme settings: New text transform settings to easily make any text Capitalized, fixed width, lowercase, or UPPERCASE
Theme style: Added new “Calm” style preset (previous “Minimal” preset has been deprecated)
Improved
All slideshows (and all sections with slideshow functionality): Huge performance improvements; polished pagination styles; and new "freemode" scrolling for more natural UX
Banner section/block: Improved margins, layout, and settings precedence
Blog cards: Enhanced image rendering to improve image sharpness
Collection filters: Improved sticky location and UX
Collection section: Subnavs now have border option
Footer navigation: Improved custom colors support
Headings: Mobile layout polish and alignment settings
Hero sections: Improved content and heading widths; enhanced button color support
Logo block: Improved color settings
Menu blocks: Improved layout for smaller screen sizes
Menu blocks: Improved features bar rendering
Mini-cart: Removed outer border on mobile
Navigation and footer logo block: Added mobile width setting to provide even greater control of your mobile logos
Navigation section (previously "Main navigation"): Rebuilt from the ground up to provide better performance and layout control for desktop and mobile (and some fun new features in future releases! 👀)
Navigation section: Can now be used as a standalone section in any template
Navigation section: Enabled hover UX style in editor
Product cards: Improved image click UX and refined variant sizing
Product information section: The variant select/dropdown arrow is now clickable; the gallery has improved pagination spacing
Search: Polished mobile frontend layout
Social media icons: Improved frontend ordering to match theme settings (alphabetical)
Various content width and margin polish
Fixed
All separators: Fixed edge cases with custom colors
Articles: Fixed excerpts rendering the full post content
Collection filters: Fixed mobile dropdown icon on reload
Expandable text bug fixed on Safari mobile
Minicart: Fixed empty cart glitch
Navigation section: Fixed overlay "flash" bug
Product cards: Fixed default variant selection bug
Product information section: Fixed sticky add to cart bug with unavailable variants
Product information section: Fixed sticky image which was getting influenced by Featured product section
Product information section: Fixed mobile separator settings
Search: Fixed predictive search results edge case issues
Videos: Fixed the promise-based console error
Align theme
