Full AMP support in Newspaper theme ?

Hello,

AMP is coming up rapidly and is growing super fast. Google is pushing AMP pages heavely, especialy in Google News.

Especialy when you run a newswebsite, AMP becomes more and more important.

I use AMP for WP now, which works fine, but it wont show the source field bij default. This is s premium function. I dont like paying 50 dollars a year for just a source field.

Since this is a newspaper theme, can we expect full AMP support in the next coming updates? I really hope this is high on the agenda, for all the news writers out here.

Thanks!

The Automattic AMP plugin works very well, we’ve been using it since AMP was in BETA.

Hey Chris,

It works, but the customization is extremely limited. You cant really make AMP pages an extention of the Newspaper theme/your website. It look a lot different. I use AMP for WP (because you can customize a lot more) and Amit made it look as much as possible. But i cant add a source field there. For that, i have to buy the premium version, which costs me 50 dollars. Thats a lot of money for just a source field, which is all i need. Yet, its crucial when you run a professionel newswebsite.

Since AMP is really upcoming now and its pretty clear its here to stay, it would be great to fully integrate AMP support in the theme itself. Many themes on Theme Forest support AMP already. I see there are a lot of people asking for it in previous topics also. TagDiv should really make this a priority now.

• This reply was modified 8 years by Eric V.

You can simply add a custom field using something like ACF, then load that into the footer of the AMP template. I do that to include our text-based ‘related stories’ shortcode; which gets added to footer via the normal AMP includes command for the Automattic plugin. So simple to do that kind of stuff for free if you read up on it. You can also simply edit the AMP template and add the “if field populated print it here” type of thing.

Food for thought anyway. 🙂

Chris, Amit just told me ACF is a premium function in AMP for WP. So this is not an option either. This is excactly why TagDiv need to bring an update soon. For all news publishers using newspaper this is very important.

PS. i hope the support team will look at the time of my first post for replying though.

• This reply was modified 8 years by Eric V.

Thanks Simion!

Please bring it to the table of suggestions. Many topics about this here on this forum.

Thanks!

We’ve been a news publisher since 1981, and were one of the first sites in Google News 12 years ago. Started using WP for news portals with version 1.5.

ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) is a free plugin to make custom fields with more granular control including shortcodes and if/then usage of custom fields and formatting options. The PRO version adds more options and support, but not necessary for most things.

The Automattic AMP plugin by same folks who make WordPress allows you to ‘hook’ into the template via function, or modify the template to include whatever you want.

Both are free to use. No cost, no ‘premium’ functions, etc.

Food for thought anyway — we do it on our 15 news portals right now, all in AMP. 10 in Google News and BING News; 2 in Apple News.

Just feedback on the topic as long time AMP user and early adopter when it was first in BETA.

Hey Chris,

Sounds good man. Nice to hear all this. Thanks for the input. Interesting.

Do you have an email address for me? I wanna ask you some questions, also about Google News.

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 8 years by Eric V.

I’ve found Automattic AMP to be extremely limited as to be virtually useless. I’m finding that AMP for WP is much more customisable. There are a few glitches there too, but I can live with them for now and probably beat them into submission.

I also support other people’s requests for AMP pages to be built into the native Newspaper theme (if and when feasible). Seriously, Newspaper is such a great theme on so many levels and it would really give TagDiv a decided advantage over all other themes by offering an AMP feature.

Cheers

I think a more recent post stated that they would be including that in a very soon upcoming version; I think the priority at the moment has been
a) PHP 7.2 test/update code
b) updates/enhancements to the TD Composer plugin
c) bug fixes from the major update to recent version of Newspaper
d) additional prep for big changes coming to WP in WP5.

I believe AMP support is in the mix, according to some of the TagDiv theme folk support posts on the topic. 🙂

Keeping in mind that AMP support doesn’t fix existing content/html issues (e.g., inline HTML), https issues, or push for upcoming http/2 support as a metric on the usability/best practices audit in Chrome. Using the AMP plugin *now* is a good learning curve on basic fixes needed for baseline AMP compliance, regardless of solutions used.

( I don’t work here. Just a webdev dinosaur ! (rrr!) )

And, since the landscape keeps evolving … good to read up on what is *actually* happening with the AMP format “right now” vs where it was in 2016 when we started with it:

e.g., some of the latest wonk
https://www.ampproject.org/docs/reference/components/amp-story

https://searchengineland.com/amp-stories-new-accelerated-mobile-pages-format-google-291907

• This reply was modified 8 years by simchris.