Here’s a good start. It’s how I’ve added some opacity to the body on my site – InsideTheStar.com. This will get you started and may do the whole thing. You’ll have to check it out once applied and find any gaps, if there are any.

.td-post-template-3 .post,
.td-post-template-4 .post,
.td-post-template-6 .post,
.td-post-template-7 .post,
.td-post-template-9 .post,
.td-post-template-10 .post,
.td-post-template-11 .post {
  background-color: transparent !important;
}
.td-post-template-3.post,
.td-post-template-4.post,
.td-post-template-6.post,
.td-post-template-7.post,
.td-post-template-9.post,
.td-post-template-10.post,
.td-post-template-11.post{
  background: transparent !important;
}

.td-post-template-default article,
.td-post-template-1 article,
.td-post-template-2 article,
.td-post-template-5 article,
.td-post-template-8 article {
  background-color: transparent !important;
}

.td-post-template-8-box,
.td-main-content-wrap,
.td-category-grid,
.td-category-header {
  background: transparent !important;
}

Add those four rules to your Custom CSS in the theme panel.

Static? Nah. I run multi-author so static is never an option for me. WordPress handles that aspect pretty well.

I tried FeedWordPress on your recommendation of it a while back. Just to have a page of RSS content from other sites on the same subject. The plugin was going through some rough times back then. A new update started deleting random posts from the database. I was backed up so it wasn’t a big deal once I removed it, but it led me toward curation a nice aid for authors.

Within the next 2 years I’ll be into a setup similar to yours; multiple sites feeding a main site.

Custom coding something to work with what I need isn’t a bad thing. It’s like you said, all a matter of having the time to do it.

Getting that specific often requires access to the site, not just a static screenshot. Post a link to a page on your site and you’re far more likely to receive help with this customization.

Newspaper v.6+ is only certified to work with the following 3rd party plugins:

• WP Super Cache – caching plugin
• Contact form 7 – used to make contact forms
• bbPress – forum plugin
• BuddyPress- social network plugin
• Font Awesome 4 Menus- icon pack, supported in the theme menus
• Jetpack – plugin with lots of features *it may slow down your site
• WooCommerce – eCommerce solution
• WordPress SEO – SEO plugin
• Wp User Avatar – Change users avatars

Happy to take a look at the conflict but need a working example to go on.

To answer your last question, yes there is a way to disable the built-in lightbox. Turn it off for each image in posts and for featured images from the settings panel.

I think I usually take the sissy way out and just avoid the mods that put me in a position of changing things twice. Is that sad or what? haha

Need to get familiar with the new API. Although it’ll be a while before it touches on the areas I tend to modify, like the default sharing buttons. Between the API as a plugin and the Custom CSS settings, the child theme is becoming more irrelevant.

Speaking of jaded, color me jade regarding WordPress in general. I’ve been branching toward so-called lightweight CMS solutions like Bolt CMS and as it turns out, it puts WP to shame on performance, function, and customizability for a news site not dissimilar to those you run. But that’s for another topic.

Just going along to get along for now. Gonna get that parent theme going again. It’ll fix my block 18 thumbnail issue too.

Here’s the code from paste bin:

add_filter('wpseo_title', 'td_wpseo_title', 10, 1);
function td_wpseo_title($seo_title) {

	// outside the loop, it's reliable to check the page template
	if (!in_the_loop() && is_page_template('page-pagebuilder-latest.php')) {

		$td_page = (get_query_var('page')) ? get_query_var('page') : 1; //rewrite the global var
		$td_paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1; //rewrite the global var

		if ($td_paged > $td_page) {
			$local_paged = $td_paged;
		} else {
			$local_paged = $td_page;
		}

		// the custom title is when the pagination is greater than 1
		if ($local_paged > 1) {
			$post_id = get_queried_object_id();
			return td_wp_title(get_the_title($post_id), ' - ');
		}
	}

	// otherwise, the param $seo_title is returned as it is
	return $seo_title;
}

Child themes are a nice way to do things without the fear of being overwritten on update. For those who use the UI to update, can’t beat it. I typically try to not use @import or includes if at all possible, to reduce http requests, so I like to copy the parent style.css into the child style.css and remove the imports. Keeps things smoother and accomplishes the same thing.

Not too sure how that would work for the functions file, but my assumption is that it would break it based on the same reasoning you gave. Maybe not with the new theme.

Of course, given that the child theme is having other issues, and since I’m never opposed to more speed (GT Metrix score of 91 without a caching plugin so far – W3TC encrypts my pages for some reason and displays the code), I’m thinking about switching back to the parent theme. My custom CSS is all in the theme panel anyway, and my edits to header.php and td-module-single.php are pretty basic.

If I could just find a way to speed up the loading of ads from AdSense through AdZerk then I’d be blazing along. Your tips certainly help in the meantime.

Want to borrow some of mine? Because they’re figuring it out just fine. Even gotten a couple of compliments on it.

For the sake of being thorough, here are the screenshots showing my explanation clearly:

BEFORE (using -15px) –

AFTER (using default -24px) –

Notice the .vc_row style in the bottom right in each version.

This is what you should have:

.vc_row {
  margin-left: -24px;
  margin-right: -24px;
}

But you actually have yours loading on the page as -15px for each. It’s shrinking the overall width of the container, which forces the parts of the grid to stack like that.

You can enter the above CSS rule in the Custom CSS editor or you can have whoever fix that in their custom code, as that’s how it got changed to begin with. If you’re trying to change the width of the page container, you need to resize the grid elements to work with the narrower width as well. Highly unlikely to have any other cause. You might try reuploading the child theme from the latest version of Newspaper to make sure it’s up to date.

I would check the child themes style.css for the source of modification, since it’s best to remove the mod than to add another mod to counter it.

Good luck.

I agree with @alin_vlad. If you don’t want to use a plugin and don’t understand the code to do it, you need to hire a developer for the work because it’s not a support issue.

Good luck.

Use the Super Socializer plugin. You can turn off the other features and the Facebook comments integration is among the best I’ve seen. Quick, goes in the right place, and you can use that along side WordPress comments too, with either WP or FB comments being the loaded default. Free plugin. Just search for the name in your dashbaord.

Hope it helps.

Use the built-in ads system. Works for anything, even static images, it just does extra stuff compatible with AdSense when it’s used.

Unless you want to be more specific about the problem, of course…

It’s not the same problem then as mine only happens when the child theme is enabled, but yes, those two rules will work with the child and parent themes.

Looking at your site, I’m not seeing the issue appear on Chrome and desktop. I do see that you need to regenerate your thumbnails though. It’ll fix the skewed images. Regenerating your thumbnails may just fix the problem you’re having, so you should try that before adding any custom CSS rules.

Use this plugin to regenerate your thumbs: Regenerate Thumbnails

I know the plugin isn’t updated much and says it’s not compatible with newer versions of WordPress, but it works just fine with 4.2.2. I used this plugin to regenerate all my thumbs earlier this week. It took a long time because there were almost 3,000 images to regenerate, but it worked great.

I never used v6, just went straight to v6.1 and am waiting until the next release after v6.2 since I’m sure one is coming very soon to fix that title issue you experienced. But it’s been happening the whole time, on both the main and development sites I run.

I can’t figure out why, though. The child theme is so bare and includes nothing to alter the images at all. There’s likely a function somewhere in the parent theme that is causing it, but the developers are the only ones who know for sure.

Here’s a patch to hold us over until they fix the child theme issue. In Advanced CSS enter these values:

Desktop –

.td_block_18 .td-column-2 .td-module-thumb {
  height: 378px;
}

iPad Landscape –

.td_block_18 .td-column-2 .td-module-thumb {
  height: 350px;
}

That fixes the problem in a backwards way and keeps everything responsive for all devices. Hopefully we can get a true fix soon, though.

/*CHRISTOPHER's CUSTOM MODS - slim version */

remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wp_generator' ) ;
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link' ) ;
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'rsd_link' ) ;
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'feed_links', 2 );
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'feed_links_extra', 3 );
remove_action('wp_head','print_emoji_detection_script',7);
remove_action('wp_print_styles','print_emoji_styles');

function no_errors_please(){
return 'You appear to be up to no good. Please stop now!';}
add_filter( 'login_errors', 'no_errors_please' );

function remove_cssjs_ver( $src ) {
if( strpos( $src, '?ver=' ) )
 $src = remove_query_arg( 'ver', $src );
return $src;
}
add_filter( 'style_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 10, 2 );
add_filter( 'script_loader_src', 'remove_cssjs_ver', 10, 2 );

add_filter( 'jpeg_quality', create_function( '', 'return 50;' ) );

This is the combined block of code (including the emoji removal mentioned above) that goes at the END of the functions.php file.

@neotrope Not sure why you said that code can’t go into the child theme. I’m running the child theme and inserted this into the functions.php file inside the child theme directory and it’s working spectacularly. Do you mind elaborating on why you emphasized that so much?

Thanks for codes @neotrope and @fudoki

Not sure how this helps since this applies without any modifications to the child theme, but it only happens when the child theme is active. Switching to the parent theme only removes this grey bar and the resizing.

Try this in your Custom CSS:

.td-video-play-ico {
  display: none;
}

You could go further and use the Advanced Custom CSS sections in the theme to hide only on the device widths where it doesn’t show up right anyway.

Hope it helps.

There is this line of CSS. In Inspector, if I disable this line, the block shrinks and fits perfectly. As you can see, this piece of code is mixed in with a bunch of media queries and even has some comments in it for responsive design, but it doesn’t appear to be within a media query itself.

I can change that value to height: 378px; but since the problem isn’t occurring on a duplicate of the site, I’m thinking there is another problem and manipulating these value only disguises it.

I definitely do not want to hide problems on the site. So I’m hoping you guys can tell me what’s causing the thumb to resize in the browser. I’m not running any caching plugins and have cleared my browser cache repeatedly; it’s not that.

At a loss for the next step, though.

Thanks.

Don’t freak out, guys. And does anyone have a screenshot of the problem? Harder to fix what can’t be seen.

Glad I hadn’t updated yet.

Thanks.

The documentation you’re looking at is for Newspaper v.4.6.2 and older, but you have v6.1 installed. Newspaper 6 is a very different theme. Use the documentation link on the right side of each forum page here for Newspaper 6 and you’ll get what you need.

Use the proper Page Template for your homepage (Default).

Sure. Happy to help.

The share links are opening in the same window because you have altered the code and somehow broken the default behavior. Newspaper comes with share links that open in a popup. Use the original files to revert the remaining links back to their default state.

Free WhatsApp WordPress Plugin
Use that plugin for WhatsApp integration, or search for others.

The classic Facebook and Twitter buttons can be removed from the theme settings panel. Go to Post Settings > Sharing to administrate those options.

Time to add mine into the mix here. I just updated so I’m using Newspaper v6.1 and the child theme.

Inside The Star

I opted to go for sleek design attributes and dug apart the default styles. Features include:

• Transparency on all container backgrounds
• Full size fixed background image representing my site’s primary subject (Dallas Cowboys NFL Team)
• Custom widget title blocks
• Custom link colors on post templates with darker headers
• Custom sharing buttons; removed default Pinterest button and replaced with a Reddit button
• Using Open Sans and Roboto in a few places like menus and widgets, and using Merriweather for content and some titles, but Oswald for all headings and most titles.

I’m pretty pleased with how it came out and, of course, thanks go to tagDiv for revamping the theme in such a way that this was so easy to do. Seriously loving the speed of the theme, even with ads and outside javascript like an audio player loaded.

Comments and feedback welcome.

In the database, under wp_options table, this row had the issue: wpb_js_groups_access_rules

Thinking back on it now, it’s possible that my whole problem could’ve been solved by adjusting the VC settings for which shortcodes to show. It didn’t occur to me to check that before everything else, so who knows.

Anyway, if anyone else has the same problem, start there.