Cannot customize the footer of the classicthesis package

Question

I am using the classicthesis package as a template for my document. It adds a footer to the document when it is in draft mode. The footer is configured in classicthesis.sty by the following lines.

% ********************************************************************
% Drafting Stuff
% ********************************************************************
\RequirePackage{scrtime} % time access
\newcommand{\finalVersionString}{\relax}
\providecommand{\myVersion}{$\!\!$} % w/o classicthesis-config.tex
\ifthenelse{\boolean{@drafting}}{%      
%    \RequirePackage{draftwatermark}%
%       \SetWatermarkLightness{0.9}
%           \SetWatermarkScale{.5}
%           \SetWatermarkText{\today\ at \thistime}
        \PassOptionsToPackage{draft}{prelim2e}
        \RequirePackage{prelim2e}
        \renewcommand{\PrelimWords}{\relax}
        \renewcommand{\PrelimText}{\footnotesize[\,\today\ at \thistime\ -- \texttt{classicthesis}~\myVersion\,]}
}{\renewcommand{\finalVersionString}{\emph{Final Version} as of \today\ (\texttt{classicthesis}~\myVersion).}}  

I downloaded the archive available on the website and created a new project for testing purposes. The output is displayed as expected. The footer can also be modified in the classicthesis project when I edit the above lines in classicthesis.sty.

[ September 14, 2012 at 13:03 – classicthesis version 4.1 ]

The problem

My real project is based on version 4.0 (2011/12/17) of the package and includes several custom changes. The file classicthesis.sty, however, does not have any changes relevant to the problem. I checked it against the same file of version 4.1 using kdiff3. All changes in the file refer to the version update.

Somehow I messed up the project. My document shows the footer. But whatever I do to the last two lines of the above source code, the footer does not change at all! I can even delete the commands relevant to the footer content as in the following example. It stays the same.

...
        \renewcommand{\PrelimWords}{\relax}
        \renewcommand{\PrelimText}{}
}{\renewcommand{\finalVersionString}{}}

The only thing that works reliable in my document is that I can remove the drafting option from the package to disable the footer. The option can be configured in classicthesis-config.tex.

I noticed that I can at least change the version string. I is definied in classicthesis-config.tex which contains the following macro.

\newcommand{\myVersion}{version 1.0\xspace}

I did not prepare a MWE since the total number of files would mess up the whole question. I hope you can still try to help me. Please let me know if I should add more information.
I wonder what could be misconfigured so that the described behavior is possible. Where does the footer information in my project come from? Where can I change the footer definition?

Answer 1

You can redefine appropriately \PrelimText and \finalVersionString in the preamble of your document; here's such a redefinition showing how to replace the defualt "classicthesis" string with the title provided by the \title command:

\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage[drafting]{classicthesis}
\usepackage[bmargin=6cm]{geometry}% just for the example
\usepackage{xspace}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\title{The Title of This Work}
\author{The Author}

\makeatletter
\ifthenelse{\boolean{@drafting}}
{\renewcommand\myVersion{version 1.0\xspace}
  \renewcommand{\PrelimText}{%
  \footnotesize[\,\today\ at \thistime\ -- \texttt{\@title}~\myVersion\,]}
  \renewcommand{\finalVersionString}{\emph{Final Version} as of \today\ (\texttt{\@title}~\myVersion).}
}
{}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1-30]

\end{document}

Here's an excerpt of the resulting document showing the footer:

Old versions of classicthesis don't define \myVersion, so the line

\renewcommand\myVersion{...}

will have to be changed to

\newcommand\myVersion{...}