Newswire is our latest theme. Designed with local news sites and newsy blogs in mind.
Taking a lead from news sites like the Huffington Post we’ve incorporated a big ‘ol slider on the home page. By default this slides the latest posts, but you can also use the core WP ‘sticky posts’ feature to flag those particular posts you want to feature in the slider with bold headlines and large format images.
The theme also features two customizable navigation menus, and we’ve added the ability to choose between a range of fonts, change the color scheme, upload your own logo and even add banners in the header and sidebar without adding any plugins. For the banners look for the two banner templates (Appearance > Edit), to which you can easily add your banner code to populate the header and sidebar banner spots.
The Newswire theme is released under the GPL V2 license.
Theme Demo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtDod7rPFjg
For help setting up your site to begin with check out our guide on how to start a blog, as well as our hosting reviews for Bluehost and Siteground.
Hi.Thank you for the amazing theme.
I’d like to place the search form into the main menu. Is there a simple way to do that?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Carina, there is no simple way to do this unfortunately. It would require some template and CSS customizations beyond which we could describe here in the comments. If you need professional help with this I recommend Codeable.
Is there a way to make all menu blocks fit in just one level? I mean, I want to see just one row with all the menu elements.
You mean in the main horizontal nav at the top? If so then yes, just go to Appearance > Menus and create your own custom menu which can be as simple or complex as you need.
Can you give me link of your website? Thanks
revistadivague.com
You can increase the width of the container of your website. Download Simple Custom CSS WordPress plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add this code,
#container{max-width:1280px;}
.But the problem is, as screen sizes decreases, it is not possible to make all menu items fit in just one row or level.
How to change banner image ? once i did but unable to change the banner images now.Please help me out.
Hi Logesh, on which site are you using this theme? I tried the link you left but that site doesn’t run this theme.
Hi, I am very much enjoying trying this great theme. I’m puzzled why I can’t get the tagline to appear in the header. I see on the demo there isn’t one either. I’ve looked in the header and in the site-heading div there is the php blog info description.
Could you possibly help me to get the description of the site to appear please? Thank you.
Inside the-newswire theme folder, open header.php file then after line #103, you can add this code,
Note: Make a child theme first then make a copy of header.php file and apply the changes inside your child theme.
Sorry.. I more or less figured it out. I am only putting things up as placeholders and trying get an idea of how the theme works. Thanks for your patience.
Hi, is it possible to have the articles on the homepage sorted by categories listed alphabetically, and keep everything else the same? In other words instead of the latest post showing regardless of category, a post in category “Democracy” would always be first, followed by a post in “Education”, etc., and no repeats one after the other (2 Educations in a row, etc.), so that all categories are represented on the home page. Thanks, Pete
Hi Pete, anything is possible of course but what you describe would take a fair amount of customization of templates, certainly more than we can get into here. We’re not available at the moment for customization work, but you could try Codeable as a low cost way to get this kind of work done.
Thank you, Charles, for the kind/prompt response, and for the outstanding theme.
Thanks. The problem appears to be that if I click on the category–using it as type of navigation, it does not take me to the whole article–only the excerpt that shows on the front page. The same thing happens when I click the navigation button (which is the same as a category in this example).
Hi Rebecca, ah sorry. Forgive me, I’m not following what you want to achieve. I thought you wanted pages on the site that listed posts in a particular category such as World News or Local News.
I love the theme and am just now learning the ins-and-outs of it. In trying to design a consistent plan for the look of the ‘front page.’ As a news site, most of the content will change often but I want to have stationary columns for a few contributors (editorial, etc.). I’ve figured out how to do the sticky post with a stationary headline and excerpt from the article but I can’t figure out how to do a ‘page’ where I can have a navigation button taking readers to a page that contains a variety of specific content, i.e. Local News, Global News, Opinion Editorial, etc. I’m not very technical but my thinking is that this would be like having several ‘pages’ that operate like a blog. Or, do I design each page with (sticky) columns and add content, the most recent of which stays at the top of the column…? This may be the wrong forum for my question. Maybe I have to operate several blogs which are linked to with headlines on the ‘front page’ or.. can I make the navigation buttons links to other blogs? :/ thanks-
Hi Rebecca, looking at your site I think you’ve figured out the best approach with the use of categories for each section. That said you can certainly link your navigation anywhere you like using a custom menu.
How can I change the size of the slider on the home page?
Download Simple Custom CSS WordPress plugin and activate it then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add the following CSS codes,
If you want to adjust the height of the slider, you can add this sample code,
.cycle-slideshow{height:400px;}.slides{height:350px;}
But if you want to adjust the width of the slider, you need to adjust the width of the main container because the slider’s width is dependent on the main container. To adjust the width of the container, you can add this sample code,
#container{max-width: 120.4rem;}
I would like to be able to place a picture of our school mascot on the right hand side of the front page in the header. Could you let me know if it is possible and how I might be able to accomplish this.
This level of customization is beyond what we can get into here in the comments. If you need professional help with this we recommend Elto or Codeable.
Hello Dev, I like your theme.
but I want to ask you something ..
may I remove “image slider” ? if you permit, can you tell me how to remove it ..
Make a child theme first and copy index.php file to your child theme then remove the slider wrap from line #4 up to line #70.
Thank you Dev 😉
one other question for you: how can I make sure the title of the website fits on one line? Currently, the last word is on the second line. Is it possible to change this?
Thanks for the help!
Cherry
You can download Simple Custom CSS WordPress plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add this code,
#site-heading{margin-right:0;}
Thanks, Kris! That worked beautifully.
Hi Charles
I hope this is a quick and simple question to answer:
I’ve created categories and subcategories, and even sub-sub-categories, and while I don’t have content for them yet, I did create one or two test posts just to see how they appear in the sidebar. If I make a post and tag a category, and make another post and tag a subcategory, both posts appear on the sidebar at the same level. Am I wrong in imagining that the subcategory posts and sub-sub-category posts should be indented from the category posts? Part of me is thinking I should be making my categories as pages if I want to organize my posts that way – what do you think?
Many thanks
Cherry
Hi Cherry, you are correct to imagine that sub-categories should indent, but I’m sorry to report that they don’t at this time. I’ve added this to the list of things we need to address in the next version. I can’t promise a delivery date, but it is something we will address. Sorry that isn’t the answer you were looking for.
Hi Charles, thank you for the quick response. If that’s the case, is there a downside to using the pages as my categories, with that same parent and child categorization? I.e, can I delete the category sidebar and file posts under specific pages, while still allowing them to show up on the sidebar under recent posts? Thanks again!
Hi Cherry, I’m not sure I follow you on this as static pages won’t list your posts in a given category. Can you elaborate on what you mean?
Sure – if I list my categories as pages across the top, could I then list my sub-categories under those parent tabs, and tag each post to a sub-category (or sub-page). So, I guess I’m wondering if I can make it so that when someone clicks on a sub-page, they’ll be taken to a list of those posts tagged to that page. Does that make sense?
Hi Cherry, I see what you mean…yes that is totally possible. In the main header navigation you can absolutely link to you categories and sub-category pages. I gather you are familiar with the menu management under Appearance > Menus.
That said, I’ve just realized something that I had forgotten about…if you use the Categories widget, you can check the option that says “Show hierachy” and your sub-cats will be indented.
Hi Charles – thanks so much for your help! Your theme is great and for a first time domain owner, I really enjoy working with it. Thanks again, Cherry
Hi Kris, just a follow-up question. I got the overlapping words again when I checked my blog today.
The active plug ins are: Add Meta Tags, Akismet, BJ Lazy Load, Duplicator, Jetpack, Quick Adsense, W3 Total Cache, WP Smush.it
By any chance, do you know which one is the problem?
I think BJ Lazy Load is causing the jQuery conflict. Try deactivating it and don’t forget to delete cache.
Kris, thanks for your quick reply! It happens to me some times and not others. However, my friend said that every time she tries looking at my website, it happens.
So to make it better, I should decrease the amount of plug-ins?
It might help but we cannot be sure what plugins are causing the conflict.
Hi, another question. Thanks for solving the earlier problem btw!
So several of my readers have told me that when they load my blog, the first page/index -static page? The post title lines overlap making it difficult to read. For me, it happens on occasion and I refresh to make it go away. However, some of my readers have commented that even refreshing does not help. Additionally happens on ie, mozilla, chrome.
I already checked your website and it seems everything is going fine. The posts in the homepage are being displayed using jQuery masonry. If the problem still occurs, there is a possibility that there is a jQuery conflict that prevents the masonry not working well. Usually the conflicts occurs when there are lots of WordPress plugin installed in your website.
Charles: I just fixed the issue by editing content.php and this line:
<a href="” rel=”bookmark” title=””>
I changed from medium to full.
Problem solved.
Hi Jutta, glad you solved the problem. Can I ask, have you been setting a featured image for each post?
Hmmm, actually that’s not the problem, I wish it was! The image is the same image used on the posts as on the post excerpt, only resized by the theme. If you click on any full post you will see the image is perfect and not scaled. The post excerpts and category images (same image as used on the full length post) are distorted. This has to be a setting in the theme somewhere. I also tried regenerating thumbnails after uploading a larger image but this did not fix the scaling issue which shows the distortion is due to the theme settings.
The home page was changed from two column layout to single column, and my guess is that the theme is still trying to generate thumbnails for the home page posts.. however the images in the categories summary are also scaling. 🙁
Thanks Kris! here is the link, I’d appreciate it if you could please delete the link after checking the site: [redacted]
If you look at the images on the homepage posts as well as on any of the categories, you will see that all post images are distorted/scaled. Whereas images on single posts behave normally. I am happy to send you the WP admin details if you let me know your email.
Cheers!
Hi Jutta, this is because the original image you uploaded is too small. That first image for instance is only 300×199 in size. Any image will always look pixelated if you stretch it. You need to start by uploading images which are atleast as big as the space you want to fill. Hope that helps.
@Kris, after setting up the home page to show single a row of posts, the post images are distorted/stretched. Looks like the grid layout still thinks the images are thumbnail size, instead of showing the full sized post image.
I would really love to find a fix for this to continue using this great theme. Many thanks for your hard work and advise!
Can you give me a link of your website?
Hello, I have installed this theme and have not messed with ti in the editor. I recently realized that the categories indexing pages have an issue. No matter how many times you click on page 2, 3, 4, etc after you click on the broader category, the page doesn’t change. How do I fix this?
Hi DF, thanks for letting us know about this…there does seem to be a bug which manifests when the default permalink structure is used. We’ll see releasing a fix for this, but in the meantime you can ‘fix’ it by going to Settings > Permalinks and choosing the “Post name” option. Sorry for the inconvenience and I hope that helps.
Thanks for the fix!
Great theme, nice work!
Wondering if it would be possible to show posts in a single row on the homepage instead of the two column layout? What file would I modify for this? Thank you so much.
Download Simple Custom CSS WordPress Plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add this code,
.grid-box{width:100%;margin:0 0 40px;float:none;}
Thanks Kris! That did it.
Last thing, promise: Would it be possible to replace the slider with a full width static image? Would I edit index.php and remove the slider code, then add in an image in its place?
Yes you can do that but make sure to create Child theme first and make a copy of the index.php then on your child theme index.php file, you can now remove the slider code, then add in an image in its place. For more information of creating child themes, you can check this links,
Hi! I appreciate that you’re taking time to answer questions about your theme – and I have one if you don’t mind. How do I get rid of the slider function at the top? I just want a simple blog where I can display posts one on top of the other with the newest one at the top. The sidebar is cool – I’ll utilize it. I just don’t want the slider and large headlines at the top. I already have a website – I’m trying to design just a personal blog where I can share quick thoughts, photos, etc — and I just want it to be simple. I don’t see any way to turn off the slider…. Thoughts? Thank you!
Hi Bill, glad you like the theme. We had the same question a while back…try this: https://wpdevshed.com/themes/the-newswire/#comment-101434
Hope that helps.
Thank you Charles! I actually solved the mystery.. it was a Twitter plugin collide. Removed the plugin and works great now. 🙂 I have one other dilemma however: Trying to center the menu and nothing seems to be working. I have tried:
#div.menu {
display: inline-block;
text-align: center;
}
#div.menu > ul {
display: inline-block;
text-align: center;
}
#div.menu ul li, div.menu-top ul li {
display: inline-block;
text-align: center;
}
.. but doesn’t seem to work. Could you please advise what elements I would need to address to center the menu? Thank you so much.
Try this code,
nav[role="navigation"] div.menu > ul, div.menu > ul{text-align:center;}
nav[role="navigation"] .menu ul li{display:inline;float:none;}
nav[role="navigation"] .menu > ul li a{display:inline-block;}
p.s Just read another comment about marking posts as sticky to show only selected posts in the slider. This works, however I am still getting a title that cuts off underneath the slide to the next post, instead of the standard image/thumbnail link as on your demo.. 🙁
Hi Lotus, can you provide a link to your site so we can check it out?
How put the logo in the center and replace the slider for image?
Thanks!
For the logo, you can download Simple Custom CSS wordpress plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add this code,
#site-heading{display:block;text-align:center;margin-right:0;}
In replacing the slider for image, create a child theme first and make a copy of the index.php file. Then edit it and remove the code inside slider wrap and add your image inside that wrapper.
Hi Charles, absolutely love the site. Was wondering if it’s possible to hide the slider on the main regular version of the site, but to leave the slider intact on the mobile version? Thanks in advance for your help. Craig
Download Simple Custom CSS WordPress Plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and add this code,
#slide-wrap{
display:none;
}
#content {
margin-top: 30px;
}
/*you can change the max-width size*/
@media only screen and (max-width : 599px) {
#slide-wrap{
display:block;
}
#content {
margin-top: 0;
}
}
Is there any way to customize the size of the slider box on the main page? I’d like mine not to be as large while still being prominent. Thanks!
The size of the slider is 100% x 600px (width by height). The width of the slider is relying to the width of the container. If you want to make the size smaller then you can add this code,
#slide-wrap{width:80%;margin:0 auto;}
. But if you want to make the size bigger then you should change the width of the #container. You can download Simple Custom CSS WordPress plugin then go to Appearance -> Custom CSS and the CSS code.I found how to change the width using that, but how do I edit the height? Thanks!
For the height, the CSS code will look something like this,
#slide-wrap{width:80%;margin:40px auto;height:400px;}
.slides,.cycle-slideshow{height:400px;}
Just discovered Newswire today and immediately switch over from a paid theme. Frankly, it’s simple and I haven’t found better paid themes. I’d gladly paid for a premium version. We have transitioned well over 1500 posts and I haven’t had any issues thus far. I’m about to fix some Google structured data issues on site and will let you know if I need any ‘Developer wisdom.” Thanks for the awesome theme!
P.s. I could very well become a paying customer of WPdevshed.
Hi Ally, Thanks for the feedback. I’m really glad you like the theme. I am aware that the theme doesn’t fully support all microformats and structured data, but happy to try and help if we can.