Designer: Mynethome
Theme version: 3.0.0
The Suffusion theme is available for free download at Themegrade.com. The theme tested at Themegrade.com is 3.0.0. A newer edition is available for download with the version 3.2.7. As the version tested here is 3.0.0, some of the test results are not correctly evaluated. The theme has been designed by Sayontan.
The Suffusion theme has received a bronze medal on the basis of its general score of 73% and SEO score of 58%. As the latest version of the theme is still to undergo proper testing, the score represented here is not accurate. But looking at all the user testimonials, the Suffusion theme is one of the best themes out there. Further tests are bound to reveal the fact that the Suffusion theme deserves a gold medal at Themegrade.com.
In the general test, the Suffusion theme scores heavily in all the essential areas. The latest version of the Suffusion theme is W3C compliant with both CSS and XHTML. It is compatible with IE7, Chrome and Firefox browsers. Designer support is included as well. The Post Area is also well supported with Floating Content, Auto Adjustment and Nested/Threaded Comments. The Sidebar includes Auto Adjustment and Link Hierarchy. Special Effects include an Options Page and Drop down Menu.
The SEO test says that the Suffusion theme is not W3C compliant. The designer begs to differ. The theme is Search Engine Optimized. It supports Content Code Position, Post and Page Title Tag and Home Page Heading SEO.
This theme comes with a large array of features. Some of the features it incorporates are custom widgets like Twitter, Follow Me, Google Translator, Featured Posts and Category Posts and it includes FeedBurner support. Widgets are available in 8 areas. Other features included are Automatic Thumbnails and Magazine Style. Multiple page layout options are available with 16 different color schemes. The color scheme includes colors like green, purple, and blue. All the colors are based on either a dark or a light background. 10 different templates are included. Header Customization is also supported. The format is one column, two columns and three columns fixed width. RTL language support and customizable excerpts are available. Forum support is also a great feature.
The Suffusion theme is easy to use. It does not require advanced programming language knowledge. It is very attractive. Overall, the Suffusion theme delivers a power packed package.
Theme Score
General : 73%SEO : 58%
Overall : 67%
Category
| no. | General Test Item | Point | Pass | Fail |
| 1 | W3C Compliant - XHTML | 2 |  | |
| 2 | W3C Compliant - CSS | 2 | | |
| 3 | Browser Compatibility - IE7 | 1 |  | |
| 4 | Browser Compatibility - Firefox | 2 | | |
| 5 | Browser Compatibility - Chrome | 1 | | |
| 6 | Support from Designer | 2 | | |
| 7 | Post area - Proper Image Alignment | 1 | | |
| 8 | Post area - Floating Content | 1 | | |
| 9 | Post area - Auto Adjustment | 1 | | |
| 10 | Post area - Nested/Threaded Comments | 1 | | |
| 11 | Sidebar - Auto Adjustment | 1 | | |
| 12 | Sidebar - Link Hierarchy | 1 | | |
| 13 | Special Effect: Options Page, Drop-down Menu | 2 | | |
| Total | 18 pts | 13 pts | ||
| Theme Score | 73% | |||
| no. | SEO Test Item | Point | Pass | Fail |
| 1 | W3C Compliant - XHTML | 1 | | |
| 2 | W3C Compliant - CSS | 1 | | |
| 3 | Home page Heading SEO | 1 | | |
| 4 | Post & Page Heading SEO | 1 | | |
| 5 | Post & Page Title Tag (Title as seen in SERPs) | 1 | | |
| 6 | Content Code Position | 2 | | |
| Total | 7 pts | 4 pts | ||
| Theme Score | 58% | |||
For the details of each of the tested criteria above, click here
Tested on: Wordpress ver 2.9.1Preview on: Wordpress ver 3.0.1 (Strict Test)
Why are there 2 Wordpress vers?
Theme testing in such detail is a tedious process. We try our very best to present the most accurate information about the theme.
We need your help: if you find a discrepancy in any of the items we tested above, please leave a comment below and tell us what is wrong. We'll look into it and make correction if it is our mistake.
If you are a user of this theme, feel free to leave a comment and share with us your experience with the theme.
how to customize the function suffusion_print_post_page_title ,without loosing if we upgraded any version , Please answer me any one .
I am a self-taught, 56-year old woman with no knowledge of CSS, PHP, JS Query and only basic HTML, I still managed to create WP sites using this superbly flexible, customisable Theme, now at version 3.8.0.
I cannot say that I understand what the issues are with XHTML and CSS protocol compliance, but I can feed back to anyone looking for a superb theme that I found this theme after trying about 13 others, and I have stuck with it across 3 websites I created.
I see in the latest release announcement that Sayontan has decided to stop developing the theme in any major way and I can see what he is getting at. What’s more, his decision to halt development is evidence of considerable integrity.
Suffusion is a complex theme (which is not the same as complicated) with a formidable features and flexibility; further, gratuitous development for its own sake risks compromising overall stability for only marginal gain and a lot more support tickets for the author. Instead Sayontan expresses his commitment to polishing and consolidating the theme so that it is robust and fit-for-purpose.
I, for one, welcome that integrity and agree that Suffusion is now a complete product which Sayontan is committed to continue supporting, so, if you are looking for a truly professional theme for your Wordpress blog I would strongly recommend Suffusion.
Best of luck, have fun!
T.
Can anyone advise where the colour of the sidebar widgets is set in the CSS?
I used to use Suffusion theme for my blog/website at http://www.translationbykako.com . I loved it at first because of the appearance and a wide variety of customization. However, I encountered a few problems such as not being able to take off the “comment closed” line and missing “save button” on the latest version. I went to a forum and looked at the fix-code. Unfortunately for a newbie like myself, I really didn’t enjoy a bunch of instructions like modifying php or css files and digging through admin area and tweaking settings.
There seems to be frequent bug issue and hence a very frequent updates on new versions. And users are encouraged to go to the forum to find the code to fix it yourself. New version usually means new issue to deal with. I didn’t enjoy that part. I didn’t feel like baby-sitting my theme all the time…
Also, the loading time took a lot longer than other more simple, straight-forward wordpress themes. I wanted to prioritize faster, lighter loading time with a simple interface rather than fancy customized website with a heavy, long loading time.
Suffusion is a great theme. It’s just not for everyone. You can try it out and always change the theme just like I did. Currently I am using “Twenty Ten” theme and it’s very straight forward with clean look. You can’t customize like Suffusion but it fulfills my needs.
i am having real problems with this template as i do not seem to have the suffusion theme options under the appearance tab. i have widgets, menus and editor but no theme options.
does anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
I too do not have “suffusion theme options” under the appearance tab. Were you able to find out anything?
The developer, Sayontan, has a support forum to address issues pertaining to the Suffusion theme. Kindly go to http://www.aquoid.com/forum/.
I was googling WP stuffs and read this post by chance. I’m Suffusion user. With so many options to choose and such an elegant design, I can do a lot of fancy stuffs without coding knowledge. I feel it’s unjustified that Suffusion not ranking top 5.
By the way, Suffusion already upgraded to version 3.4.5, this reveiw is not updating, might misleading users.
This site does not have ranking for individual Wordpress theme. The top 10 ranking is only applicable to Wordpress theme providers.
This theme is revised very frequently that I couldn’t keep up with it. I’d greatly appreciate if anyone here could provide me with a review of the latest version.
I can confirm that it is is XHTML compliant, but sometime with other XHTML validation will fail with other plugins.
I think it is a very good theme…
Just one thinks I had statistic SQL queries counter, and page generation time manually: cannot insert php code in
And it uses a lot of SQL queries (more than 300), but page generation is really faster than my previous theme…
Brian I think you need to re-evaluate Suffusion. I stumbled upon it through the WordPress site and set up one site. I liked it so much that I am developing several other blogs using suffusion. It’s amazingly simple and yet very flexible.
Najee
@Najee, I retested this theme on WP 2.9.1 and it is still failing item #1, #2, #7 in the general test and #1, #2, #4 in the SEO test.
I added Options page and Drop-down Menu under the Special Effect. But I don’t see effect such as Automatic Thumbnails, Twitter Feed, Featured Content and Magazine Style just yet.
@Brian,
Sorry, you asked for a demo site and I did not have one at that time. I am in fact in the process of building one at present and will post the link to it here when I have it ready. Nonetheless you can see the native magazine layout, the featured content and automatic thumbnails in full action here: http://hokuwo.de/, a site designed by a user. Automatic thumbnails are used in several places on this site and you can see it most prominently in the individual category pages, like http://hokuwo.de/?cat=3.
As for the things you marked as “failed”, maybe you should try the latest version of the theme. You have 3.0.0 here while the current version is 3.2.7. I can assure you it has been XHTML compliant for a while and the CSS compliance fails on browser-specific CSS3 features.
One general point here – from your prior comments I guess your tests are restricted to just what you see without any customization on the demo page. Maybe you should make this explicit in the criteria for your tests? Because most of Suffusion’s power is in the theme options menu, which is at least comparable to several “premium” themes if not better. The options page is something that you cannot see from the demo page because it needs admin access. But if you were to actually activate the theme you would see the whole array of features that it opens up, like 5 custom widgets – Twitter, Follow Me (with FeedBurner support), Google Translator, Featured Posts and Category Posts, multiple layout options, 10 different page templates etc.
Regards,
Sayontan.
@Sayontan, a big change in Themegrade is underway. I am currently working hard to get it done in the next 30 days. I’ll come back to review your latest theme version after my priority work has settled. Sorry for the delay.
I’ve just started designing a blog for a client based on the Suffusion theme. I tried several others, but most of them require far more advanced knowledge of ftp, HTML, and so forth. This one looks sharp and seems to be functioning great so far…thanks, Sayontan!
Hi,
I am the author of this theme and I see quite a few discrepancies in the above. I understand that the tested version was 2.2.1 (current version is 3.0.0), but even with the old version a lot of the information is not accurate. E.g.:
1. There has always been “Support from Designer”. You can check http://mynethome.net/contact or http://www.aquoid.com/news/themes/suffusion for the comments list: the theme has been supported very well since its first release, often with turnaround time of less than 1 hour for issue resolution. About a month back I moved to a forum-based support exclusively for handling issues.
2. Even with the very old versions you have the following “Special Effects”: Options Page, Dropdown Menu (since version 1), Header Customization. With later versions you have a lot more: Automatic Thumbnails, Twitter Feed, Featured Content and Magazine Style.
I would like to request a re-evaluation.
Sayontan.
@Sayontan, I have reviewed the latest version of the Suffusion theme. I didn’t include the special effects because the demo doesn’t show those features you specified. I viewed the demo from Wordpress site and couldn’t see those features too.
If you could provide me with a demo link that shows all the effects you mentioned, please let me know and I’ll add those under the “Special Effects” field.
I am building a new worpress site with intergrated forum and i have chossen to use the suffusion theme and i think its fantastic.
Only issue i am having is that i want to use transparency on the post background, it works in safari ff and chrome but not in IE8.
Can someone please post what code i need to add and to what file.
I know it says on the theme Layer Transparency (not for IE) but sureley there must be a way.
http://www.calibraforum.co.uk/wp