Till the last version of Astra & Astra Pro, megamenu only supports primary, secondary & menu-3 menus. As per the customer requirement to have mega menu support for multiple menus, we are providing here a filter provision. Users can place their menu name into this filter, and that menu will get mega menu support on the front end.

Have a glance at the attached filter for a better understanding.

Let’s say I want to have mega menu support for menu-3 & menu-4, so my updated filter will be –

add_filter( 'astra_nav_mega_menu_support', 'custom_megamenu_support', 10, 1 );
function custom_megamenu_support( $nav_menus ) {
	$nav_menus[] = 'menu_3';
	$nav_menus[] = 'menu_4';
	return $nav_menus;
}

With the help of the multisite feature, you may control a network of websites from a single location. A network of several websites can be created and managed using this style of WordPress installation from a single WordPress dashboard. This makes it simple for you to update all of your websites and make changes from a single location. The number of websites can range from 2 to a few millions. For example, WordPress uses this feature to maintain 37 million websites at the same place.

What is a child theme?

A child theme is the exact replica of the parent theme that en-queues all functionalities and styles from the parent theme. The main use of the child theme is to allow customization in the theme files. 

Any changes you make on the theme files directly will be erased when you update the theme. Editing the theme files using the child theme ensures that the custom codes that you use to edit the theme files will remain on your website even after you update the site’s theme.

Here is an article that can guide you through more details about the Astra Child theme.

User roles

Network Administrator: When you create a multisite within your WordPress website, it makes you the network administrator of your site. It also allows your users to create their individual sites and be the admin for their respective sites.

Site admin: These users can create their own site inside of your multisite network; however, will not be able to install a new plugin while they can activate and use the plugins already installed by the network administrator.

The site admin has a lower level of access than the Network admin. The site admin can add new users and assign them roles as site admins; however,  their access will be restricted to the site that they have been added to. 

Domain Name

An important aspect of the multisite is that you can set up whether the sub-sites within your network can use sub-domains (example-site.mysite.com) or sub-directories (mysite.com/examplesite). You can also map other domains to your network in order to provide the options for the sites within your network to have individual domain names.

How to set up and activate multisite

While using the Astra theme, you can use the child theme to set up as many sites as you would like within your WordPress installation. Here are the detailed steps on how to set up a multisite network using a child theme. Please note that we recommend taking a solid backup of your website before enabling multisite features. Here is an article that will help you to backup your website.

Activating multisite feature

With every WordPress installation, the Multisite Network feature is pre-installed. All you have to do is set up and install WordPress as usual. You then only need to turn on the multisite feature.

Step 1: Downloading and installing file manager plugin

Any WordPress website that already exists can have the multisite capability enabled. To enable Multisite, connect to your site using an FTP client or cPanel file manager, and open the wp-config.php file for editing. In this example, we will use a plugin called file manager which you can download from here. Download the plugin and upload it to your WordPress site and install and activate it.

Step 2: Editing wp-config.php file

Once you activate the plugin, find the wp.config.php file and right click on it. This will open up a drop down menu. Select code editor from the menu.

Once the code editor opens, copy the following code and paste it into the code editor at the bottom. Click on save and close to save the changes.

Your WordPress site’s multisite functionality is simply enabled with this code. Once enabled, the multisite network still has to be set up.

Setting up multisite network

Step1: Disabling all plugins

On the next step, You must deactivate all of your website’s plugins if you’re setting up a multisite network on an existing WordPress website. Navigate to plugin>installed plugin and select all the plugins. Select deactivate on the bulk action option and click on apply.

Step 2: Installing the Network SetUp

Once all the plugins are disabled, navigate to Tools>Network Setup to configure the multisite network.

On the network setup page, you will need to enter the name for the network and your email address. Please ensure that the email address that you have provided is correct. After that, click on the install button at the bottom.

Once you click on the install button, on the next screen, WordPress will display a few codes which you will need to add to the wpconfig.php and htaccess.php files. You can edit the file similarly by navigating to the File Manager plugin, right clicking on the respective files, selecting code editor, pasting the codes and clicking on save and close button.

Note: while editing the wpconfig.php file, please ensure that you paste the code above the text that says “/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */”.

Step 3: Network Dashboard

Once you have set up the network settings, you will need to navigate to the Network Dashboard in order to make changes to the multisite. Click on the my sites on the top bar of your WordPress dashboard, select Network admin and click on Dashboard.

Once you have clicked on the dashboard, you will see the network dashboard and you will see “Right Now” dashboard. You can either create a new site and new user or you can search for the existing sites or users. 

Step 4: Configuring Network Settings

Once you are able to access the network administrator dashboard, click on Settings and choose Network Settings. This will open up the Network Settings options that you will need to configure.

The most crucial setting in your network configuration is typically found in the ‘Registration Settings’ section of the network settings page. On the network, user and site registrations are disabled by default. You have the option of allowing both site and user registration on your website, as well as allowing current users to build new sites.

This will allow you to add new sites to your multisite network.

Creating a new site

On the network dashboard, click on the create a new site option to create a new site.

You will need to enter the following information in order to create a new site.

• Site Address (URL): This will be the name of your website followed by the main domain. For example, storyteller.wpastra.com. Here storyteller is the name of the website and wpastra.com is the main domain address.
• Site Title: This is the title of the site which will be displayed on top of the dashboard.
• Site Language: By default the site title will be selected as the  English(United States). You can choose from the dropdown if you would like to change the language.
• Admin Email: By default this will display the email address that you had entered earlier when creating the network. If you wish, you can also change it as per your requirement.

Once you add the site, it will be available on the site dashboard. To access all the sites, navigate to the sites>all sites from the network dashboard.

Adding themes to the Multisite

To add themes navigate to My Sites>Network Admin>Themes. This page will display all the available themes on this multisite network. By selecting the “Network Enable” option next to a theme, you can make that theme accessible to other websites. A theme can also be turned off by using the “Network Disable” link located beneath the theme. It should be noted that the Network Disable option only appears while the theme is active.

To add a new theme, you can simply click on the Add New button on the top, select a theme and install it in the multisite network.

Using Astra Child Theme

Once you have completed the set up, you can generate a child theme from here. You can personalize your child themes according to your needs and then add them to the multisite network simply by uploading them. Once the child theme is installed, please Network Enable them to use them across the network.

Please take note that each child theme needs to have a unique name. When you upload the new theme to the multisite network, it will overwrite the existing one if you use the same name rather than generating a new child theme.

Installing plugins to the multisite

Similar to adding themes to the multisite, you can install plugins by navigating to the My Sites> Network Admin> Plugins. This will navigate you to the plugins page. You can activate the plugins on your multisite network by clicking the ‘Network Activate’ option found beneath each plugin. To add a new plugin click on the Add New button at the top, select the plugin and install it.

WordPress by default supports auto updates for all the plugins that are hosted inside WP.org. This is the reason that the option to auto-update the plugin is visible inside the WordPress dashboard for the plugins that are directly downloaded from the WordPress store; however, for the plugins that are downloaded from some other site, especially for the premium plugins like Astra Addon Pro, can not be auto-updated by default.

Core WordPress Bug

This seems to be a bug as WordPress prevents the plugins that are hosted by some other websites such as the Astra Pro Addon plugin, to get updated automatically. This is the reason by default the “Enable auto update” option is not visible on the WordPress dashboard.

How to Fix This?

There is no fix to this error; however, whenever there is a new update available for our paid plugins like the Astra Pro add-on or Premium Starter Templates, the option to enable the auto-update will be available next to the plugin. If the user updates the plugin using the auto-update feature at that time, it will be automatically enabled.

Will this be enabled for future updates?

The answer is yes. Once the user updates the plugin by enabling the auto-update feature, for all future updates, the plugin will get updated automatically.

Here is a working demo of this feature:

In this example, we have manually triggered Auto Update cron using the WP Crontron plugin. You can see the Astra Pro plugin has been Auto updated to the 3.9.1 version.

Once the plugin gets auto-updated, the auto-update option is again not available on the plugins page for our paid plugin. This is because of the bug from WordPress.

• WordPress version 5.3 or above
• PHP version 7.4 or greater.
• MySQL version 5.7 or greater OR MariaDB version 10.3 or greater.
• WP Memory limit of 128 MB or greater (256 MB or higher is preferred).

Note: if you are using the starter templates along with the Astra theme, you might also need to increase the (SubstituteMaxLineLength) to 10M.

X-Frame Options

It has to be set to “same origin” to avoid editing issues. Please ask your host to do this for you. 

PHP Z-Lib Extension

It is preferable to have the PHP Zlib extension enabled on your server. Please ask your host to enable this for you, if it is not.

Browsers

Use Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Microsoft Edge version 79 or greater.

Site health

You can always check the site health tab for additional information on your website. It gives you significant information on how to fix the errors on your website and also lets you know about the specific settings that you need to change in order to meet the system requirements. The option can be found under Tools > Site Health. Here is a list of things you can see –

• WordPress
• Directories and Sizes
• Active Theme
• Inactive Themes
• Active Plugins
• Inactive Plugins
• Media Handling
• Server
• Database
• WordPress Constants
• Filesystem Permissions
• AMP

For example – Let’s say you wish to know the current PHP version of your site. You can see it as highlighted in the screenshot –

Modern checkout layout

Users can now enable this to activate the modern checkout layout on their site. The best part is that the users can select one column layout or two column layout based on their requirement. In one column layout, the billing details and the order details will be aligned vertically, on top of each other; however, in case of the two columns layout, both the options will be aligned horizontally. Here is how it works.

Checkout button text option

This feature enables the user to change the text on the checkout button. See it in action below

Display Product Images in Order Review section

When this option is enabled, the product images are displayed on the review product page at the time of the check out. Here is how it looks on the front end.

Sticky Order Review

This option will make the order review sticky when the user scrolls down to enter the billing information or the customer information on the check out page.

Two step checkout customization

We have added more customization options for the two step check out process and on the pages associated with this process.

Checkout Note

Enabling this option allows you to add a custom message on top of the check out page. You can enable this from within the customizer. Please note to have this option enabled, you will need to switch to the Modern Check Out layout. This feature does not work with the default check out layout.

Title and Subtitles for step 1 and step 2

This new feature lets you add custom titles and subtitles for each step of the check out process. See it in action below:

Offer button title and subtitle

If you are running a special offer or have a special discount on your website, this button will be the ultimate friend that you can have. The best part is that you can now customize the texts of the title and subtitle of this button with just a click. Please note that this feature is also a part of the modern checkout layout and does not work with the default layout.

Modern cart layout

Activating this feature will significantly improve the look and feel of the cart layout. Here is how it will look on the front end.

Sticky cart total

Enabling this feature will ensure that the cart total remains fixed on it’s position while visitors can scroll down to check out the list of items added to the cart.

Real-Time Quantity Updater

This option lets you update the quantity of the products directly from within the cart. Here is how it works on the front-end.

Modern input styles for overall Ecommerce setup

This option enables the modern input styles for the overall ecoomerce setup on your entire website. In order to activate the page, you will need to navigate to appearance>customize>woocommerce>Misc>Input field style.

Quantity Updater

This option lets you update the quantity of the products directly from the product page. This option comes with three different layouts that you can choose from. Here is how it works on the front-end.

Steps navigation for shop funnel

This option lets you display the navigation of the shop funnel to your user during the checkout page so that the users can navigate to the subsequent pages if they need to change or modify anything.

Modern Layout

You can enable this option with a single click on the radio button. 

User Gravatars

You can now use Gravatars to show the profile pictures of your customers on the my account page.

Grid View for your orders & downloads

All the purchases, maybe it is an order that the user had placed on your website or a digital download, are available in grid view providing the users more comfort if they want to look at their purchase history.

We have introduced three new gallery designs for the single product page giving you more controls on how a product page looks. With this new designs you can use the horizontal and vertical sliders or simply keep the product gallery horizontally or vertically.

New options to enhance single product designs

With the Astra 3.9.0 version, you have more control over the designs of your single product website. The available options are as mentioned below.

• Control the width of Add To cart button
• Introduced Payment icons
• Introduced icon list field to add text as per your choice
• Introduced Shipping Text option
• Improved Product Navigation by displaying preview
• Introduced support for Product Variation
  • Inline & Stack variation

Sticky Add to Cart button

You can now make use of the sticky add to cart button at the bottom of the single product page. This enables your visitors to add the product to the cart even when they are checking out the product descriptions at the bottom of the page.

Recently Viewed Products

With this feature enabled, you can add the recently viewed product by the visitors in the sidebar to provide more opportunity to your visitors to buy the product and also enhance cross selling.

New design layouts for Product Description tabs

We have introduced three new design layouts for the product description tabs such as vertical, accordion and distributed. See it in action below.

Sticky Product Summary

This particular feature will stick to the product summary when your visitors scroll down to check the product description or related products.

Product Card Designs

On the shop page of your website, we have introduced the Shop Card Design with the Astra theme which enables you to design your shop page product cards more beautifully. To access the settings, you will need to navigate to Appearance>Customize>Woocommerce. Scroll down to the Shop Card Designs. Here you will find 3 beautiful designs that enhance the overall looks of the shop page.

Design 1: It  is the basic standard design that the users had earlier. It displays the product name, categories, price and rating option just below the product image.

Design 2: It enables the side by side view of the product image and product details as mentioned above.

Design 3: This is a modified version of the design 1 where the visitors of your website will see the “Add to Cart” button when they hover over the product image.

Toolbar for WooCommerce shop layout

We have introduced the toolbar options for the shop page which enables more control for the design of the shop page. Here are a few features of the toolbar.

Result Count

When enabled, this option displays the number of items in the shop page.

Filter

This option adds a filter option on top of the shop page to help the visitors find what they are looking for.

Sorting

Sorting option lets you sort the products by popularity, ratings, upload date and price.

Easy List view

Enabling this feature helps in quick switching in the card designs. 

Sticky Sidebar

Enabling this feature inside the shop structure option will stick the sidebar while the products are being scrolled.

Here is how it looks on the front end

Collapsible Filter

This particular feature is available under the filter panel layout. Enabling this feature will make the filter collapsible from the top.

This is how it looks like on the front-end

Flexibility with the designs

We have introduced multiple design features that will not only enhance the look but also makes it more user friendly and professional. Here are the key features.

Product Content Alignment

To access this feature you will need to navigate to the design tab and scroll down to the Shop Card Styling section.  This feature lets you change the alignment of the product content.

Product Card Padding

The card padding option lets the users create padding around the product cards. See this feature in action below.

Product content background color

We have also added an amazing feature that lets you change the background color of the product content inside the card.  You will need to navigate to the design tab and click on the color selector next to the Product Content Background option. Choose the color as per your requirement and the background color of the product content will be changed.