Init Press v1.2.4: Reading Controls, Dark Mode Styles, and Series Progress

Full progress and index for Series posts

For sites using the Series taxonomy to publish multi-part content, Init Press 1.2.4 adds a “Part X of Y” progress badge inside the series navigation block, along with a visual progress bar showing readers where they are in the overall series. Alongside it is an expandable index accordion listing every part of the series, letting readers jump to any part in one click instead of only being able to move sequentially through the previous/next links as before. This feature has its own toggle in Theme Settings.

A Reading Controls panel: font size and Focus Mode in one place

Previously, the Focus Mode button was a standalone floating button in the bottom-right corner of the screen, which happened to overlap the Back to Top button and made both awkward to use. Version 1.2.4 fixes this by consolidating every reading-experience control into a single floating panel in the bottom-left corner of single post pages, containing:

• Buttons to decrease, reset, and increase the article’s text size
• A toggle to turn Focus Mode on or off, hiding the sidebar and other distractions

A reader’s font size preference is remembered in their browser and persists across future visits. Each part of the panel still has its own toggle in Theme Settings, so site owners can show only what’s relevant to their site.

Keyboard shortcuts for the entire panel

For readers who prefer the keyboard, every button in the Reading Controls panel now has a matching shortcut: - to decrease text size, + to increase it, 0 to reset it, and f to toggle Focus Mode. These shortcuts automatically disable themselves while a reader is typing in a search box or comment field, avoiding unintended conflicts.

Choose a style for the Dark Mode toggle

Theme Settings now includes a “Dark Mode Toggle Style” option with two display styles to match different design preferences. The “Advanced” style keeps the animated gradient slide switch familiar from earlier versions. The new “Simple” style is a minimal icon-only button, lighter and more compact, well suited to navbars with limited space or a more minimalist design.

A “Last updated” note for edited posts

When a post is edited a meaningful amount of time after it was originally published, Init Press 1.2.4 now automatically displays a “Last updated” note with the edit date, placed at the end of the article next to the like/share section. It’s a useful signal to readers that the content is being actively maintained, and it can also benefit SEO, since search engines take content freshness into account. The minimum time gap required to show this note is adjustable through the init_press_last_updated_threshold_days filter for theme developers who want finer control.

Arrow-key navigation for archive pagination

Category pages, search results, and blog listing pages now support paging through results with the left and right arrow keys, making it faster to browse multi-page results without reaching for the mouse. This behavior is fully isolated from comment pagination, so it will never accidentally trigger while a reader is scrolling through a post’s comment section.

Other improvements and fixes

The series progress badge has been switched from uk-label to uk-badge for a more compact, visually balanced look. This release also fixes a pre-existing bug where Focus Mode read the wrong internal option key, causing its toggle in Theme Settings to be silently ignored, meaning site owners could disable the feature and still see the button appear on the front end.

Should you update to 1.2.4?

This update is worth considering for any site running Init Press, especially those publishing series content or prioritizing the desktop reading experience. Consolidating the reading controls tidies up the interface even if you don’t use the series feature, while sites with multi-part content get a clear experience upgrade from the new progress tracking.