Hey everybody!
It’s been more than a couple months since I purchased Tagdiv’s Newspaper Theme from the Envato Market. I have to confess, I’ve been really happy with my purchase. There were no issues with the theme, everything worked (and is working) perfectly fine. The responsive layout is awesome. The theme looks fabulous in all resolutions and the support forum is very welcoming and kind. I believe I must thank tagdiv for that.
Since a couple of months using the theme, given that the next version of Newspaper (5.0) is approaching, I thought I could may be chip in a few more suggestions, minor bug-fixes and ideas that will help the theme achieve greater appeal. Please let me know if I am at all helpful:
A Few Bugs:
1. As I mentioned earlier in another post, the big slider with background is malfunctioning on mobile devices, if using a boxed layout. I’d really love to see this fixed:
2. The default slider requires all images to be at least 1024px wide to show properly on all devices. Since such large images are hard to come by easily, I’d really love it if the slider is made compatible to work with smaller images as well, something like what Revolution Slider does.
Some Features:
3. A Magazine Stack: Since many people running Newspaper are magazine sites, I think it will be nice to add a “Magazine” stack to Newspaper, with functionalities such as the Newsmag slider, smart sidebar, carousel sliders for posts, a sleeker look mimicing Newsmag, etc. Given that Newspaper is more popular (and costlier) than Newsmag, I think it’s probably a good idea.
4. A Better Mega-Menu: I’d really love some additional work done on the mega-menu used by Newspaper 5, so that it is as feature-rich as Newsmag.
5. Additional Customizability: It’ll be great if the Theme editor comes forth with more customizability, with the ability to customize the looks of the main menu, ios slider, social counter, etc.
6. A Responsive theme editor: I was a bit taken aback when I noticed that the WP Booster theme editor is not mobile or tablet responsive. I’d love to see that fixed.
7. A few other suggestions mentioned here: https://forum.tagdiv.com/topic/a-few-suggestions-for-the-upcoming-version-of-newspaper/
8. A Sleeker, more modern look all around. I’d really appreciate it, and I think so will everyone else, if you could power Newspaper 5 with a more modern look, with features like post carousel slider, multiple featured sliders, etc., you know, just to keep in touch with time.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to consider my suggestions. Hope I am not imposing. 🙂
Also, I think you might appreciate this:
If you try loading the Newsmag demo theme with a resolution higher than 1400px, the theme goes haywire, sidebar and blocks cascade themselves hapazardly and the theme turns unusable. I was first inclined to by Newsmag, but seeing this issue, I purchased Newspaper instead.
My version of Newsmag works just fine up to 1980px wide ….
http://massachusettsnewswire.com …
what browser / platform are you using ?
I tried both IE11/Win64 and Chrome. No problem.
Do you have the same issue in testing my BETA site revamp above?
I moved from Woo Canvas to Newsmag and still tweaking the above (not yet fully optimized for pagespeed for example or all block elements, or the footer, footer logo, etc.). I cannot replicate the issue you are referring to. (I am running monitor at 1920×1200 – with dual Apple 23-inch IPS Cinema Displays on my main workstation here …)
Hi Chris,
I am using the latest version of Chrome. Also, I checked with both my PC and my laptop, same problem. I found the issue in your version of Newsmag as well.
Here’s what happens:
On increasing the resolution beyond 1400px, the two-column content blocks surprisingly become one column, thereby leaving white spaces to their left. Since most content blocks you’re using are already one-column, the issue isn’t very prominent. However, I noticed the same issue on your version in the last six articles of the first content block.
I really would have bought Newsmag, if there wasn’t this issue. Hopefully, Tagdiv will introduce some magazine features in Newspaper 5, thereby solving my issue.
Odd… I wonder if its a chrome plugin …
I cannot duplicate that in latest chrome with width all the way from 1400 to 1900 screen width.
Zoom is different issue than browser width.
I don’t really have any plugins, so I don’t think that’s the case. Also, i couldn”t replicate the issue with any other theme on Envato, just Newsmag.
BTW, Chris, did you like my original suggestions? What do you think of including a magazine stack in Newspaper 5? Is there any other suggestion you’d like to add?
I am anxious to know what everyone thinks of my ideas.
Hi,
We plan to add features like smart lists and smart sidebar on Newspaper v.5, we’re working on it. We also plan to add the page Mega Menu (Travel – on Newsmag).
The Big Grid issue is on our list, we’ll fix it in a future update, it appears when you zoom-out on the browser.
Thank you, Emil G.
Some good suggestions; I’m kind of expecting the “next” version of Newspaper to have the same benefits of existing theme, updated grid options, and some of the “tricky” things baked into Newsmag. Obviously there would be no point in simply doing everything like Newsmag. I also think Newspaper should have more focus on “newspaper” layout things, like the L.A. Times, and less of a magazine focus — although that is kind of nonsense to even say in terms of online publishing. Seems like there would still be some differentiation …. perhaps Newspaper will generally remain the “wide body” and Newsmag thje “narrow body” — perhaps Newspaper will include option to do both, although the if/then statements on that would be insane! 🙂
Of course, with a newspaper focus, you need more “localized” things and with a magazine you need more “national” things.
It will be awesome to see what they come up with next 🙂
For our purposes, I’m kind of shifting everything to Newsmag for now.
@neotrope
Glad to know you liked my suggestions. Ever since I have bought Newspaper, I’ve been wondering why Newspaper, with a higher price and greater popularity, lacks some of the more interesting features of Newsmag. Since it is costlier, it should be a complete suite, right? I personally feel that this can all be soilved with one clck, by simply including a “Magazine” stack to Newspaper, so that even existing Newspaper users can run Magazine sites, without having to purchase Newsmag all over again. Of course, there’s gotta be some differentiation but I think given its price and popularity, Newspaper should be “better” than Newsmag, not vice versa. Let me know what you think.
Well, Newsmag is a couple of months old (2015) and contains many of the things they’ve learned the last 16 months with Newspaper. Newspaper was launched over a year ago, so it is more mature in terms of support for things like forums and multi-site stuff.
Newsmag has some of the things people wanted for Newspaper, but which didn’t fit with the wide screen responsive framework they moved to with NP4.
So, in terms of “where they are” …. think of Newspaper as being 4.0 tech and Newsmag being 4.5 tech with some beta aspects. Newspaper 5.0 would have best of both, while being different from Newsmag. Newspaper has more of a broad use focus, and Newsmag has a more narrow focus (I don’t mean layout).
So, because Newspaper is more mature — it’s ironically more difficult to move to the new grids, tricky bits, and whatnot while retaining compatibility with ALL the stuff people are using it for like forums, and multisite and buddypress, et al.
What’s really awesome is that folks who bought 4.0 would get 5.0 free, where that would not be the case in the software world.
Yes indeed. I am really hoping for some major features, like you said, the tricky bits, in Newspaper 5. Seeing Tagdiv’s history and everything, I think it’ll be great!
