What’s new in 1.2.5
The main goal of 1.2.5 was to lighten the load on long series posts, where the part index used to bloat the page unnecessarily.
On-demand Series Index
Previously, the Series Index accordion rendered every part’s link directly into the page HTML, even before the reader ever opened it. On series with dozens or hundreds of parts, this bloated the DOM and slowed down page loads. As of 1.2.5, the list of parts is now fetched through a dedicated REST API endpoint the moment the reader expands the accordion, complete with a loading indicator and a retry state if the request fails.
Dark Mode Toggle Style as radio buttons
The Dark Mode Toggle Style setting in Theme Settings was converted from a dropdown to radio buttons, so administrators can see both available styles (Advanced, Simple) at a glance instead of opening a dropdown.
What’s new in 1.2.6
Where 1.2.5 was about performance, 1.2.6 is about customization and tidying up the settings page.
A new Skin system
Init Press now supports switching skins directly from Theme Settings, selected via radio buttons. Each skin is a separate CSS file layered on top of the theme’s base styles, and four are included out of the box: Default (the standard look), Midnight (dark only), Sepia (light only, warm paper tones), and Ocean (an accent-only retint that works in both light and dark mode). For skins marked dark-only or light-only, the theme automatically locks the entire site to that color mode and hides the light/dark toggle from the navbar to avoid conflicting states. Developers who want to register their own custom skins can hook into the init_press_skins and init_press_skin_forced_mode filters.
Consolidated Appearance settings
The “Theme Color” section used to hold just the primary color option. Now that it also covers Dark Mode Toggle Style and Skin selection, it’s been renamed “Appearance” to better reflect what it actually controls.
A dedicated Advanced Features section
Post Demo Mode and the Download Links Feature — two features with their own metabox on the post edit screen, and a much bigger footprint than a simple on/off switch — are now grouped together under their own “Advanced Features” section in Theme Settings, making the settings page easier to scan.
Reading experience refinements
The Focus Mode toggle in the floating reading controls panel is now automatically hidden on screens narrower than 960px, along with its f keyboard shortcut — below that width the sidebar already stacks under the content, so hiding it no longer changes the layout. The Reading Progress Bar has also been adjusted to sit just below the WordPress admin bar instead of underneath it, matching the admin bar’s own responsive height.
Every new interface string introduced across both releases has been fully internationalized, with ready-made Vietnamese translations included, so it’s ready to use right after updating the theme.
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