CUNY Academic Commons

I'm seeing a bunch of jQuery errors in the console. I'm guessing that the theme's menu JS is not compatible with jQuery 3+. I can't look into this until Monday, but I would hold off on making any content-level changes until this is verified.

Thanks. I neglected to add that Sujatha wrote "When I click on that tab it should bring up links to all of my books with a lot of information there, built up over many years."

Thanks so much for looking into this over the weekend, Ray. The fix looks good to me - I'm now able to use the Publication submenu and to browse to the Books etc sublinks.

I still see lots of errors in the JS console, but it's hard to know without more in-depth knowledge of the Clean theme whether or how to fix them.

The Git log shows that, aside from some PHP version compatibility monkey patches in 2018, we are running the same version of the Clean theme that we added in 2021. See #1637. For this reason, I think it's OK for us to patch the theme's Superfish library directly and commit it, since we're running a fork anyway.

The theme is not available for activation on the Commons.

I'm going to follow up with a review of other Superfish instances on the Commons.

Here's where the superfish.js script is found on the Commons, along with version numbers:

/wp-content/themes/mellontheme/js/superfish.js - 1.6.7
./wp-content/themes/DailyNotes/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/elemental/scripts/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/cbox-theme/assets/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/ArtSee/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/planer/assets/js/superfish.js - Minimized, no version number
./wp-content/themes/Shuttershot/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/13Floor/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/themorningafter/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/sixteen/js/superfish.js - 1.5.13
./wp-content/themes/Wallbase/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/eNews/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/platform/sections/nav/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/infinity/lib/js/superfish/superfish.js - 1.5.9
./wp-content/themes/luna/js/superfish/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/Lucid/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/aware/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/Basic/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/canvas-3.0.6/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/arras-theme/js/superfish/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/coda/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/continuum/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/wpfolio/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/Cion/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/freshnews/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/aperture/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/clean/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10 (after Ray's update)
./wp-content/themes/classipress/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/AskIt/js/superfish.js - 1.7.10
./wp-content/themes/simplicity/includes/js/superfish.js - Minimized, no version
./wp-content/themes/object/includes/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/thematic/library/scripts/superfish.js - Minimized, no version
./wp-content/themes/chineseindian.org/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8
./wp-content/themes/reveal/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8

Eliminating those that are up to date, here are comments about the themes:

/wp-content/themes/mellontheme/js/superfish.js - Custom theme, but no longer used.
./wp-content/themes/elemental/scripts/superfish.js - Not updated since installation in 2011. Used on 6 sites.
./wp-content/themes/cbox-theme/assets/js/superfish.js - Not used.
./wp-content/themes/planer/assets/js/superfish.js - Theme last updated from wordpress.org in 2017. Doesn't appear to be used on the Commons.
./wp-content/themes/Shuttershot/js/superfish.js - Not updated since being added in 2013. Used by 8 sites.
./wp-content/themes/themorningafter/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Last updated from Woo in 2012. Used by 8 sites.
./wp-content/themes/sixteen/js/superfish.js - Was regularly updated until Sep 2018. Used by 149 sites.
./wp-content/themes/Wallbase/js/superfish.js - Not updated since being added in 2013. Used by 4 sites.
./wp-content/themes/platform/sections/nav/superfish.js - Not updated since 2015. Used by 11 sites.
./wp-content/themes/infinity/lib/js/superfish/superfish.js - This is the old Infinity theme, related to CBOX. Not maintained since 2012. Used by 28 sites.
./wp-content/themes/luna/js/superfish/superfish.js - Not updated since 2012. Used on 23 sites.
./wp-content/themes/aware/js/superfish.js - Not updated since 2016. Used on 67 sites.
./wp-content/themes/canvas-3.0.6/includes/js/superfish.js - This is a one-off fork.
./wp-content/themes/arras-theme/js/superfish/superfish.js - Not updated since 2010. Used by 48 sites.
./wp-content/themes/coda/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Not updated from Woo since 2014. Used on 4 sites.
./wp-content/themes/continuum/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Not updated from Woo since 2014. Used on 7 sites.
./wp-content/themes/wpfolio/js/superfish.js - Not updated since 2013. Used on 13 sites.
./wp-content/themes/freshnews/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Not updated from Woo since 2014. Used on one site.
./wp-content/themes/aperture/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Not updated from Woo since 2014. Used on two sites.
./wp-content/themes/classipress/includes/js/superfish.js - Not updated from wordpress.org since being added in 2011. Used on one site.
./wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.js - Not updated since 2012. I think this was used only by JITP and can probably be removed.
./wp-content/themes/simplicity/includes/js/superfish.js - Not updated from wordpress.org since 2015. Used by 11 sites.
./wp-content/themes/object/includes/js/superfish.js - Woo theme. Not updated from Woo since it was added to the Commons in 2010. Used on 2 sites.
./wp-content/themes/thematic/library/scripts/superfish.js - No upstream updates since 2013. Used on 70 sites.
./wp-content/themes/chineseindian.org/js/superfish.js - One-off custom theme for the Commons.
./wp-content/themes/reveal/js/superfish.js - 1.4.8 - No upstream updates since 2017. Ray already patched our theme for Isotope.js.

So the question is, what do we do? In all of the cases above, the themes are no longer actively maintained upstream. So we could probably safely patch without the updates being overwritten. However, updating might break some theme functionality, if Superfish saw some API changes. On the other hand, it could be that Superfish is already broken on all these sites, so we can't break it any more than it's already busted. Ray, do you have any insight into the Superfish changes?

Sujatha has now replied - " I checked on a different browser and it appears to be working again. For the Op-eds section, all of the Op-eds don't seem to be there or there are gaps in the formatting. But otherwise all good."

Thanks, Marilyn. I assume that Sujatha means that the content is not tiling cleanly at https://www.sujathafernandes.com/category/blog/. I'm unsure how this worked prior to the jQuery update, and it's not obvious at a glance whether there's anything we can do to fix it in this legacy theme. Maybe Ray will have an idea after taking a quick look. In any case, I'm fairly sure it's a matter of appearance - the rows aren't clean - and not one of missing content.

On the other hand, it could be that Superfish is already broken on all these sites, so we can't break it any more than it's already busted.

I agree with this assessment.

To be sure, I tested the most popular, outdated themes and aside from sixteen, all of those themes had broken hover menus. I've listed some example URLs (thanks to Boone's new wp-cli tool in #14736, this made things easy to query!).

• sixteen - https://jeaninealo.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ (working)

• thematic - https://arabstages.org/

• aware - https://labnaz.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

• arras-theme - https://kctlgraphicnovel.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

I think we should move forward with updating Superfish for the outdated themes.

Here's the Superfish changelog: https://github.com/joeldbirch/superfish/blob/master/changelog.txt

It appears that v1.5 is the big change for compatibility to jQuery 1.9.

As for Sujatha's site and Boone's comment:

Thanks, Marilyn. I assume that Sujatha means that the content is not tiling cleanly at https://www.sujathafernandes.com/category/blog/. I'm unsure how this worked prior to the jQuery update, and it's not obvious at a glance whether there's anything we can do to fix it in this legacy theme. Maybe Ray will have an idea after taking a quick look. In any case, I'm fairly sure it's a matter of appearance - the rows aren't clean - and not one of missing content.

I noticed the same issues while I was debugging. It appears that the "Load More" link at the bottom of the page is broken due to a mix of the Isotope and Infinite Scroll JS plugins.

For the spacing issue, I have an intermediate fix in place that updates the Isotope library and disables the Infinite Scrolling option from the clean theme's options page. This means that the "Load More" button no longer shows up on the site and reverts back to WP's manual pagination.

If we wanted to fix the "Load More" button, this would require updating the Infinite Scroll JS library and will require updating the theme's JS in /js/infinite_scrolling.php. Let me know if I should spend more time looking into this.

Do you two think I should tell her to switch to a new theme?

Thanks, Ray! I've updated all themes on my second list (which does not include the 'clean' theme - I didn't want to mess with your changes). https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/fa6a2b88269779550353ac017b4f819f2fd1e1bf

Marilyn, I'd say yes, if the user is unhappy with the way the current site looks (after Ray's most recent library updates, which fixed the hover menu), then she should consider exploring new themes. The theme she's using is quite old and no longer maintained, and the Commons team is unable to take over maintenance in a proactive way.

Just piping in to say that I agree she should look for a new theme given Boone's comments