4.5 Update Has Changed My Layout

Hi,

This is a styling issue with #primary and #secondary as #primary is set to use 100% of the width, your child theme would have to refine this and set the width of the primary area and secondary area explicitly.

These values were not changed in 4.5 for Twenty eleven though, so why you are only now experiencing this is odd, unless you’ve been using a much older version of Twenty Eleven up until now (I only checked one version back)

Thanks Marius, I check the website weekly for updates and update accordingly. The change happened immediately after I updated to 4.5. I have managed to move the #primary over to the left, but can’t get #secondary to pop back up to its original position. Do you have any suggestions?

I have managed to move the #secondary up, just working on moving the #primary over to the left more to where it originally was.

Awesome, I’m glad you got it sorted ??

Thanks for steering me in the right direction.

I have the same problem since updating to 4.5 this morning. I use the 2011 theme (not a “child” theme) and my sidebars on static pages appear below the content. On the pages created by posts, the sidebars are in the proper position. Site is vweisfeld.com

I’ve read the solution that worked for RJDinnan, but it doesn’t make sense to me. So, if you are able to send advice, KIS! Thanks so much. You all usually set me straight.

Hi,

It would appear you are correct, when using the Page Template for sidebars on individual pages the core Twenty Eleven theme is misbehaving.

There’s a ticket for it at https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/36510 if you are interested in following along at home.

This appears to be a consequence of WP 4.5 adding the singular class to the body for itself. TwentyEleven assumes that it can prevent the singular class from being present on certain page templates, but this is no longer the case. For now this can be fixed by using a child theme of TwentyEleven and adding this to your child theme’s functions.php file:

function twentyeleven_body_classes_fix( $classes ) {

	if ( is_home() || is_page_template( 'showcase.php' ) || is_page_template( 'sidebar-page.php' ) ) {
		$index = array_search('singular', $classes);
		if ( $index !== false ) unset($classes[$index]);
	}

	return $classes;
}
add_filter( 'body_class', 'twentyeleven_body_classes_fix' );

Eric, I am sure your advice is good, but I have no idea how to set up a child theme of TwentyEleven. When I say simple, it has to be *really* simple for me, in terms of the steps!

Eric,

Why cant that code change just be made in the TwentyEleven main theme?

Ans will WP be addressing this with a new theme update?

Not having heard back from Eric, I tried to figure out how to establish a child theme myself, based on this WP support page: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes

The first direction is “to create the child theme directory, which will be placed in wp-content/themes.” I could not find the right place to do this from my dashboard, so I typed in the URL vweisfeld.com/wp-content/themes and got a blank page. Nothing happened.

Where do I perform this first step? And will the second and third steps be easier to figure out?

Vicki, theme creation cannot be done through the dashboard, it requires file system access. It also involves writing code. It’s normally handled by developers, and is honestly over the head of most non-technical end users.

If you’re feeling brave and want to give it a try yourself, you’ll need to download and install an FTP program such as Filezilla, then use it to login to your web server. If you do not know your FTP credentials, you will need to get them from your web hosting provider. From there, you should be presented with an interface not too different from Windows Explorer (or the Mac Finder) that will allow you to access your file system, create new folders, upload files, etc.

Oh, OK. Well, in its latest update, wordpress has introduced a problem that I have not had in 3.5 years and now I need to hire someone to take care of it? I am good at problem-solving, but slow and short on time, so I don’t think I can fix this myself. Thanks for the advice not to wade in over my head!

According to the latest bug scrub post, it sounds like they’re planning on addressing this issue in 4.5.1. So your best bet might be to just wait it out.

Great! I did take a number of my widgets off the home page so that it didn’t look so strange. Can easily add them back. Thanks for the update!