Almost since the beginning, custom styling in Alchemists has worked the same way: you pick your colors and fonts in Theme Options, and a companion plugin — the Alchemists SCSS Compiler — rebuilds the theme’s stylesheets on your server.
It did the job for nine years. But it always came with strings attached. PHP needed write access to your uploads folder. Some hosts made that a headache. And every tweak, no matter how small, meant a full recompile.
With 4.9.0, that whole machine is gone. Change a color, hit save, and it applies instantly. No compiling, no files written anywhere, no companion plugin.
The part that took the longest — and the part I care most about — is that your site won’t change at all. The old Sass code didn’t just store your colors; it derived new ones from them: darker shades for hover states, tints for decorative elements, transparent blends for form icons. All of that math is now precomputed with the exact formulas Sass used. Update from 4.8 and your site renders the same, down to the pixel. It just gets there faster.
What do you need to do?
Honestly — nothing. Update the theme and your saved colors and typography carry over on their own. After that, the SCSS Compiler plugin has no job left: deactivate it, delete it, and enjoy having one less thing to update. The theme shows a small reminder in the admin until you do.
Also in this release
- WPBakery Page Builder 9.0 — the bundled plugin is updated to 9.0 and the theme is fully compatible with it. Still on 8.x? That keeps working too; update whenever you’re ready.
- WooCommerce 10.9 — the Order Details and variable product templates have been brought up to date with the latest WooCommerce.
- Faster loading — theme stylesheets and scripts now ship minified, with CSS about 20% smaller.
- If the header shopping cart is disabled in Theme Options, WooCommerce’s cart-fragments script no longer loads at all — one less request on every page.
- Fixed: license activation could dead-end on a “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page” message when Freemius asks you to confirm your email. You now land back on the license screen with clear instructions and a re-send button.
- Fixed: a PHP deprecation notice in the Twitch widget for non-verified channels.
- Plus security hardening, internal cleanup, and updated translation files. Tested up to WordPress 7.0.
Getting the update
If you have an active license, 4.9.0 is already waiting in your WordPress dashboard. ThemeForest buyers can download it from their Downloads page or convert their purchase code into a free license key at Migrate page and get one-click updates in the dashboard from now on.