- NewspaperWP Rocket and Newspaper Theme: Optimization Guide
- TutorialsFrom WPBakery to tagDiv Composer
- TutorialsOffset Feature
- TutorialsWhat is Ajax preloading?
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Hi Simon,
Thank you for the detailed explanation and clarification regarding the current category filter behavior inside Cloud Templates and Flex/Grid blocks.
Your explanation actually helped me better understand the design philosophy behind the system and also why our setup behaves differently from what Newspaper normally expects.
I think part of the reason is that I still approach content structures from a more relational/database-oriented mindset. My background goes back to older database systems like dBase II/III/IV, BASIC, DOS scripting, Excel VBA/macros, etc. Because of that, I naturally tend to think in layered logical relationships rather than purely in single-category archive structures.
So in my head, the logic becomes something like:
IF current category = Regio Gouda
THEN include:
Regio Gouda (the regional page + the region category)
Zuid-Holland (one of the 12 provences of the Netherlands + the region category Gouda)
regional/national shared pool (one category showing on all regionpages)
AND exclude:
Binnenland (the general page and category for nationwide news without a specific regional topic)
rather than simply:
“display current category archive”.
That is probably where my expectations differed from how Newspaper internally handles Cloud Template category logic.
Our setup is also somewhat unusual in scale and structure for a single-site WordPress installation:
1 VPS-based installation
Ubuntu + Apache2 + Plesk Obsidian
16 vCPU / 60 GB RAM / 2 TB storage
single WordPress site
67 main sections/pages
57 dynamically related regional structures
55,000+ news posts since 2017
40,000+ featured images through Google Drive (WPMF Cloud addon)
database approx. 740 MB
site files approx. 600 MB
WP Rocket + Redis Object Cache
approx. 79,000 unique visitors monthly
approx. 325,000 pageviews monthly
Performance remains extremely stable:
GTMetrix A / 100%
Core Web Vitals all green
SEO 100/100
average TTFB around 55ms
So for us, the discussion was never really about performance gains. The static regional pages already perform extremely well.
The real motivation behind the Cloud Template migration was primarily:
maintaining one centralized template instead of maintaining 57+ manually structured regional landing pages.
Your explanation now makes it much clearer why our relational regional/province logic does not fully align with the intended behavior of _current_cat inside Cloud Templates.
To be honest, I actually appreciate the clarification because it confirms that the behavior we observed was not random or broken, but simply outside the normal archive-oriented design philosophy of the system.
Thank you again for the insights and technical clarification.
Best regards,
Egbert van den Bosch
Regio Online Nederland
Hello,
using flex block to display only posts from 1 category : is there a way to ask this flex block to display only posts from 1 category AND to display only posts (still same category) from today (not old ones) ?
thank you
Hello tagDiv Support,
We are currently migrating a large regional news platform to Cloud Templates and are running into a query/filtering limitation that we are unsure how to solve correctly within Newspaper / tagDiv Composer.
Our setup is somewhat unusual, so I will explain it carefully.
Current Site Structure
We operate a Dutch regional news platform with approximately 57 regional categories.
Examples:
Regio Gouda
Regio Rotterdam
Regio Drechtsteden
etc.
Articles are intentionally assigned to multiple categories simultaneously.
Example article structure:
Regio Gouda
Zuid-Holland Province Category
Sometimes Binnenland (National)
Sometimes another regional umbrella category
This multi-category structure is required editorially and for SEO/distribution purposes.
What We Are Trying To Achieve
We want to replace static regional landing pages with dynamic category archive pages using Cloud Templates.
Example:
Instead of:
https://regioonline.nl/regio-gouda/
We want to use:
https://regioonline.nl/category/regio-gouda/
with a Cloud Template assigned to the category.
The goal is:
show posts from the current region
ALSO show related province-level content
BUT still prioritize/display correct regional content
WITHOUT manually configuring 57 static pages
The Problem
Inside Flex Blocks / Big Grid Flex blocks, the queries behave differently between:
Static pages using manual “Multiple Terms Filter”
Dynamic category archive pages using Cloud Templates
Example:
On the static page:
the block correctly shows a Zuid-Holland province article
But on the Cloud Template category archive:
the same block instead shows another regional article
Even though both posts contain overlapping categories.
Important Technical Detail
We discovered that:
category_ids behaves differently from normal category archives
category__in and internal TagDiv query handling appear to override or merge unexpectedly
multi-category posts are handled differently inside Cloud Templates versus static pages
While inspecting the theme code, we also noticed references to _current_cat handling internally in td_block.php, but we could not find official documentation about whether this value is actually supported for Flex/Grid block filtering in Cloud Templates.
We also tested custom filters through:
td_shortcode_to_args
td_data_source_blocks_query_args
inside the child theme.
However, this caused unstable or inconsistent behavior, especially with:
Big Grid Flex blocks
Flex blocks
mixed category/province logic
We reverted these changes because we do not want to maintain custom query modifications that could break after theme updates.
Our Main Question
Is there an officially supported way in Newspaper / tagDiv Composer to achieve the following:
For a category Cloud Template:
dynamically use the CURRENT category
include additional province categories
optionally exclude national categories
while preserving predictable ordering and matching behavior in Flex/Grid blocks
WITHOUT custom core edits.
Example desired logic for “Regio Gouda”:
Include:
current category (Regio Gouda)
province category (Zuid-Holland)
national regional pool category
Exclude:
Binnenland
And this should work dynamically for all regional categories.
Additional Question
Does Newspaper internally prioritize:
category_ids
category__in
queried object
tax_query
current archive context
in a specific order inside Flex Blocks / Big Grid Flex blocks?
Because it appears that archive context may override manually configured multiple term filters.
Final Question
Would you recommend:
using Cloud Templates for this setup
OR
keeping static regional landing pages
given this multi-category architecture?
We would really appreciate technical guidance or best practices from your side before rebuilding all regional pages again.
Thank you very much.
Hi,
That is the ajax categories dropdown and you can enable it with the tagDiv Composer, select teh block, and under the filter tab https://prnt.sc/qAfYuYDPheOu
https://forum.tagdiv.com/flex-block-settings-guide/ -https://prnt.sc/qCmOZRfESaSw
Hi,
I believe Ether is a misunderstanding, only the pages have the option for Unique Articles and this can be set from wordpress editor (classic editor or Gutenberg) from Page Template setting – https://forum.tagdiv.com/unique-articles/
For blocks, settings like offset and filters can be used https://forum.tagdiv.com/flex-block-settings-guide/
Thank you!
How to enable these tabs in Flex Block 1.
Selected Filter > More From Author,
In the Multi Author box I placed the author ID number
In tagdiv composer it brought up the two articles that author has provided.
Save.
View Page.
it’s blank, no articles.
Not sure why.
Hi, thanks for the reply.
My question is not about thumbnails in Flex Blocks.
I am asking specifically about the Featured Image size in the Single Post Mobile Template.
Does selecting “Full – 1920px” in the mobile template include the full 1920px file in the HTML srcset? Or does the Mobile Theme generate its own srcset?
I need to know which setting guarantees that Google Discover sees an image ≥1200px in the HTML.
Hi,
Based on your screenshot, I understand that you are referring to the thumbnails used in Flex Blocks. These allow you to choose the specific thumbnail format for each block individually.
Please make sure that the thumbnail size you want to use is enabled in the Theme Panel. After that, you should regenerate the thumbnails so the required thumbnail version is properly created and available for use.
Normally, when an image is uploaded and the thumbnail size is already enabled, the thumbnail is generated automatically. However, if that thumbnail size was enabled only after the images were uploaded, the corresponding thumbnail version does not exist yet. In that case, the block will use the full-size image instead.
To resolve this, you will need to use a thumbnail regeneration plugin to generate the missing image sizes.
-> https://forum.tagdiv.com/theme-thumbs/
-> https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/Regenerate+Thumbnails/
Thank you!
Hi,
The SELECT SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS wp_posts.ID are used for rows and blocks (our theme stores the settings from rows and elements in database and the mentioned sql is one of those that make a request to them).
– how to use the Flex Blocks cache option
– use a cache for database, object cache should help.
– reduce the number of rows (rows and inner rows) from pages and cloud templates.
– reduce the number of blocks.
Thank you!
Hi,
Unfortunately, for the moment, that is the only Ajax filter that the theme has on flex blocks that is similar to what you need.
The theme also has filters and sorting for taxonomies – https://forum.tagdiv.com/filters-sorting-taxonomies/
This does not do what I want. The flex block has a category of all posts in that category. Now I want to add a filtered sort that only includes the block’s category and adds a filter of geographic sorting.
Hi,
The theme provides an ajax filter that can be used on flex blocks and I see that you have it for one block on your site – https://prnt.sc/jeBp92on7Kme
Flex Block Settings Guide – those can be set on all blocks and flex blocks – https://prnt.sc/cNBP9jSCewY8
I hope this will help you!
https://naturecoaster.com
I run a regional site and would like to offer the ability to sort posts by location (category: county, subcategory: city) These posts are categorized by topic (categories). Right now, when I post, I select a topic category and a location category with my vision being that topics are displayed in flexboxes and counties or cities are available as a selection by ajax menu. I am not a coder. Can anyone help me with how to achieve this in a simple sort of way?
Hi,
I will forward this to our developers, and they will check it out.
Also, I want to let us know that using a mobile page/template will still load teh tagDiv Composer and cloud library (because those are used to create those pages and cloud templates for the mobile version). Normally, this option should be used when you need to have different content on mobile pages and mobile templates, maybe a smaller page with fewer elements, blocks, and for a different layout. Having the same layout and content will be better to use the responsive version, instead of the mobile page/template.
Here are a few additional recommendations you can try. For some users, all themes work without issues, while for others, only certain ones function properly. This can vary depending on the extra plugins in use, as well as any caching or optimization plugins installed.
-> Footer delayed load https://prnt.sc/FS34hBno40sx (under the theme panel > footer > footer delayed load)
-> MINIFY INLINE CSS and AGGREGATE INLINE CSS – https://prnt.sc/en14t6CQChM- (under the theme panel > block settings> inline css)
-> Don’t load on mobile/desktop, this option is only on the cloud header for HEADER MENU https://prnt.sc/udlAW4icvSPP on HEADER MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/9pKnilQdWyex on MOBILE MENU https://prnt.sc/ff7fRQvTnaXt and on MOBILE MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/Mm-4mbC4WB68
-> Flex Blocks cache – https://forum.tagdiv.com/use-flex-blocks-cache-option/
Also, it is recommended to use a good cache plugin and even Cloudflare (CDN)
Thank you!
Hi,
I’m using the Newspaper theme and I have a question regarding pagination on category pages.
On my category template I’m using Flex Block 1. In the block settings I can only see AJAX‑based pagination options (Load More, Infinite Load, Next/Prev). However, I would like to use classic numbered pagination instead, for example:
1 2 3 4 …
This is important for SEO, because numbered pagination allows Google to crawl and index deeper category pages (/page/2, /page/3, etc.), while AJAX loading does not.
My question is:
Is there any way to enable traditional numbered pagination on a category page that uses Flex Block 1?
Do I need to switch to a different block or template, or is there a setting that disables AJAX and restores standard pagination?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Here is an example of my category page where I would like to enable standard pagination:
https://polishexpress.eu/category/uk/
Hi,
The caching option is available only for Flex Blocks. For standard blocks (from the tagDiv Standard Pack), this option is not available.
From what I can see, your website is currently using an older demo (not a PRO demo). This means it relies on standard templates rather than cloud templates, which comes with both advantages and limitations.
One of the main drawbacks is that these templates offer fewer customization options. Additionally, the CSS and JavaScript files are loaded across the entire website, even if certain elements are not actively used—simply having the plugin enabled is enough for them to load.
Thank you – that is really helpful.
I can’t seem to get here: https://forum.tagdiv.com/use-flex-blocks-cache-option/ – if I open my post template I don’t see anything w flex blocks? I tried also on my home page where i use Block 3 but don’t see caching there either.
Hi,
Here are a few additional recommendations you can try. For some users, all themes work without issues, while for others, only certain ones function properly. This can vary depending on the extra plugins in use, as well as any caching or optimization plugins installed.
-> Footer delayed load https://prnt.sc/FS34hBno40sx (under the theme panel > footer > footer delayed load)
-> MINIFY INLINE CSS and AGGREGATE INLINE CSS – https://prnt.sc/en14t6CQChM- (under the theme panel > block settings> inline css)
-> Don’t load on mobile/desktop, this option is only on the cloud header for HEADER MENU https://prnt.sc/udlAW4icvSPP on HEADER MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/9pKnilQdWyex on MOBILE MENU https://prnt.sc/ff7fRQvTnaXt and on MOBILE MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/Mm-4mbC4WB68
-> Flex Blocks cache – https://forum.tagdiv.com/use-flex-blocks-cache-option/
Also, it is recommended to use a good cache plugin and even Cloudflare (CDN)
Thank you!
Hello,
“Performance Optimization
Among the most anticipated features are options to minify and aggregate inline CSS of blocks, accessible directly from the Theme Panel. Additionally, you can now hide the mobile menu and mobile search functions, offering a cleaner user experience on mobile devices.” – here is how you can enable those options:
-> Footer delayed load https://prnt.sc/FS34hBno40sx (under the theme panel > footer > footer delayed load)
-> MINIFY INLINE CSS and AGGREGATE INLINE CSS – https://prnt.sc/en14t6CQChM- (under the theme panel > block settings> inline css)
-> Don’t load on mobile/desktop, this option is only on the cloud header for HEADER MENU https://prnt.sc/udlAW4icvSPP on HEADER MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/9pKnilQdWyex on MOBILE MENU https://prnt.sc/ff7fRQvTnaXt and on MOBILE MENU STICKY https://prnt.sc/Mm-4mbC4WB68
-> Flex Blocks cache – https://forum.tagdiv.com/use-flex-blocks-cache-option/
“The Newspaper Theme has leveled up its performance by optimizing the Theme Panel’s color settings through CSS variables. Moreover, JavaScript files will only be loaded when they are needed, which should noticeably improve the website’s speed.” – yest this is apply as long you are using cloud tenmplates, so if you do not have the tagDiv STandard pack plugin in used (this is loading all css and js even if is not need), then it will load only the js and css that will be used on that page/template.
Also, it is recommended to use a good cache plugin and even Cloudflare (CDN)
Thank you!
Hi,
I checked the website, and now you have H1 enabled on the logo for the sticky menu on both desktop and mobile – https://prnt.sc/G0OOnxzhOmtk – https://prnt.sc/WHBtt6ZWZC43. Disable one of them or both in case you want to use the H1 element on a different element.
Also, each flex block has SEO tag option so you can adjust the H you want for that block – https://prnt.sc/BbWoI66d5I4X even the mega menu element has it – https://prnt.sc/Wu97fyuxm-xT
Hi,
To create a page like the one above, there’s no need to use Flex Block elements, as those are designed to pull in articles or custom post types (CPTs).
In your case, since you only want to display images and text, you can simply use the Image and Text elements. For the background color, you can set it at the row level, and for titles, you can use the Title element.
Hi,
This can be achieved by creating articles that use a featured video instead of a featured image. You can follow our step-by-step guide here:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/featured-image-or-video/
To display these articles on the homepage, a simple approach is to assign a specific category to them (for example, “video” or a similar). Then, add a block or grid element and go to the Filter tab. From there, select the category used for those articles so they are displayed as desired.
Please note that using a Flex Block or Flex Grid will give you more flexibility and additional options for customizing the layout and settings.
Hi,
This situation can be resolved in two ways:
1. You can enable the Unique Articles option by following this guide:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/unique-articles/
2. Alternatively, you can use the tagDiv Composer. Select each block individually, then go to the Filter tab and choose the category from which you would like to pull articles – https://forum.tagdiv.com/flex-block-settings-guide/ – https://prnt.sc/FEGGusJieopy
I hope this will help you!
I am creating a Website for Mobile. I need to create Pages where each page will have 90% text and just a small image within it like an icon etc. Please advise which Flexblock should I use where I can mix Text and image in it. I need a free format so that I can put image anywhere within the text content.
