Version 1.8 - 01 April 2025

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

Version 1.7.1 - 11 December 2024

This maintenance release fixes priority issues which have been reported by our customers (thank you, all!) Please reference the changelog to learn about everything included in the previous v1.7 major release — it was a big one!

Added

• Theme setting: New WhatsApp setting
• Translatable hardcoded strings for breadcrumb “shop” and collection “grid size view”

Improved

• All sections: Audit background siblings
• Banner section: Audit border radius
• Cards: Audit card padding style
• Product cards: Slideshow sizing
• Product cards: Slideshow navigation layout
• Collection and article cards: Setting to hide buttons

Fixed

• Collections: Filter results loading in editor
• Collections: Subnav background in editor
• Product cards: Video autoplay
• Product information section: Variant selector inconsistency

Version 1.7 - 21 November 2024

This major release launches some big 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!) This is our biggest release to date, and we appreciate everyone's patience as we continue ensuring the highest level of quality.

Highlights of this release include: a complete product card overhaul (with hover imagery, video support, and variant interface); powerful new content and section layout settings; banner theme settings and a beautiful new banner card style; variant swatches in collection filters; a complete slideshow refactor; improved Multicolumn block column settings to more easily create custom layouts; and you can now add an icon to any button in the theme!

We’re also excited to launch awesome new background settings in every section of the theme (and many blocks): you can now add background color, gradient, image, or video to any section in your shop 👀

This release includes our seventh major round of theme localization support, including new support for Arabic, Bengali, Estonian, Javanese, and Punjabi. This is in addition to the languages added in our previous major releases (👋 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇱🇹 🇪🇸 🇨🇳 🇳🇱 🇯🇵 🇵🇹 🇧🇷 🇩🇰 🇬🇷 🇮🇳 🇹🇷 🇰🇷 🇳🇴 🇷🇺 🇺🇦 🇻🇳 🇬🇧 🇫🇮 🇮🇩 🇵🇱 🇸🇪) and brings us to a total of 30 supported languages!

This release also culminates an intensive theme-wide audit of all settings and setting organization, and aims to improve your experience in the theme editor. We’ve standardized all core section settings and added powerful new theme, section, and block settings throughout. And as always, we’ve continued to optimize our underlying codebase in preparation for exciting new updates in our forthcoming releases.

This is Align's seventh major release, and our seventeenth overall since Align went live 🎉 Please reference the changelog to learn about everything included in the previous v1.6 release — it was a big one too!

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.