Why you do not need Thesis Openhook/WordPress Hooks if you are using Thesis version 2.3 and above

Thesis openhook was once a very popular plugin to be used alongside with Thesis wordpress theme below version 2.1. Once you upgraded your Thesis to version 2.1 and above, you would find that the function of the Thesis openhook is not supported. Meaning if you have implemented some html scripts at the hooks, it does not seems to work with your higher version of Thesis.

Also, if you are still having Thesis openhook as your plugin, you would be prompted to upgrade as shown in the diagram below:Thesis openhook plugin

Many people literally kicked themselves after upgrading the plugin because Thesis openhook suddenly turned to WordPress Hooks after the plugin update:

Thesis openhook to wordpress hooks

And you find yourself having absolutely no idea how this hook works at all.

Website owners may be tempted to downgrade back to Thesis 1.84 and to find somewhere where they can download back their Thesis openhooks because it was so useful. I was one of them too until I figured things out.

Why you must upgrade to Thesis higher version

Thesis wordpress theme version 1.84 is not responsive. Meaning the page is not user friendly to mobile- basically mobile users would need to zoom in and out the page. Today, increasing high number of people are finding and accessing your sites via their mobile devices so you are losing out on visitors if your sites are not responsive.

Sure, there was a tutorial somewhere whereby you can make the Thesis 1.84 theme responsive. I managed to do it for one of my sites few years back through some tutorials but I have forgotten how to do it already.

You may think you are facing a dilemma because you need your Thesis Openhook and yet you also need a mobile responsive site but you cannot figure out how to get your Thesis 1.84 to be mobile responsive.

Upgrade to higher version, figure out how to use the canvas and your problem would be solved!

Do you know if you upgrade to a higher version of Thesis, you can do away with using any hooks. In fact, with the drag and drop functionality, you do not need to use hooks anymore. I have deactivated the hooks plugin across all my sites.

With the higher Thesis wordpress version 2.3 and above, some of the functions that can be done are:

1. You can install custom tracking scripts like Google Analytics

2. You can insert advertising like Adsense, affiliate or other advertising using widget boxes function in your Thesis> Skin Editor> Canvas (more about this in future articles)

3. You can add one or multiple feature boxes on your site. What’s more, the location of the feature box would be up or down across different site templates- you choose the location you want by drag dropping at the Skin Editor> Canvas.

4. You can amend or customise your footer content.

5. You can also customise different footer and siderbars to appear on different custom pages.

All the above can be done without requiring any hooks or CSS custom scripts.

Take a look around this site. I have 4 different categories in this blog. Each section has a different sidebar. If I want to make my homepage to look different or change the footer on each category page, I can also do this using Thesis theme. Again, I need not do any special coding or add any custom CSS screen at the theme editor.

In fact, the Skin Editor> Canvas can do much more than what previously could be done by Thesis Openhook (but I also must say thanks to Thesis Openhook who really helped countless of people when the technology was not available for a noobie to do these functions).

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