h2 tag is optional not required for SEO, only suggested as it’s a second level headline for use on pages/posts … you can use h2 tags anywhere in your pages or posts…

I often use them as subheads below the image in posts, or at top of page.

I generally use h3 tags for section heads in posts, or chapter starts, etc. h3 is also the common level used for sidebars, and various other headline elements in the theme.

Many folks do. We’re using speed booster, APC, and mod_pagespeed with server side caching on our system right now. Be aware of the recommendations in the theme docs regarding setting up a cache plugin.

Yes…. you can upgrade to 3.9.1 without going to 3.9 first … it’s the same as 3.9 with some fixes. 🙂

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

HI, if memory serves, as with most themes, it writes the new custom CSS into the header of the live page. Put some custom CSS in panel, then check the header section of a post page file to see 🙂

I use a couple of custom CSS things on our sites, only because in some versions of theme and our setup some stuff like the today’s date color setting didn’t work, and I also use Disqus but wanted some more spacing between the banner ad and start of the comments module. Was easy to just put those there than go back to the main css.

In the old days themes would often have a custom.css file to put custom code, particularly with child themes. However, “redirects” of CSS files from child theme kind of made that a fools errand for SEO. (Google doesn’t like the style redirects.)

Common method for any minor custom CSS stuff is to put into the header anyway, after call to main CSS file.

But perhaps Marius,Emil,Etc. may have better answer to that.

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

Hi..
I went through this with my own optimizations of the theme over the past 8 months or so. In our case we add a number of things to the functions.php file, take couple of things out, and for a couple of things we went ahead and edited the style.css file directly, and then minified it when uploaded. I think we also have to edit the main post file each time to make author visible on post (*SIGH*), and also change the prefix for hit counter since we’ve been using a custom field for many many years.

It did make site faster, just be sure to keep a cheat sheet of what you’re changing, and keep separate set of files as back up obviously. Minification helped the most, and if you’re only doing two or three over-rides for CSS in theme panel, it won’t impact anything; meaning you could just minify the style.css, put your couple of CSS overrides in the theme panel and call it a day. If you have 20 changes… yes, likely worth adding to the main style.css.

Downside is I tend to skip every couple of updates since I’m not doing anything with jetpack, buddypress, bbpress, WMPL, logins, social counter, woocommerce, where there have been some updates to help those type of users.

Hi, sorry … didn’t intend to start a roundtable… 😉

The different colors for menu choices isn’t a bad idea — some themes pull this from custom category color.

Note that some of the sites referenced, like “The Guardian” are *OLD* templates and not responsive and will likely soon be completely redesigned. Here is BETA of their new site:
http://www.theguardian.com/us?view=mobile# — note it is following the NEW thinking in search boxes (click, then search appears), being adopted on most major sites (at least here in the U.S. and U.K.). No multi-color menus, no weather boxes.

For the search box — one YES suggestion, would be option to have an entry box in the theme panel to swap out the maginifier CSS, to insert a Google Search service box, for those who wish to use Google for site search vs WordPress.

Ironically, many of the theme updates are to fix issues with added features requested by users.

Disagree with some of these:
most people don’t look at weather on websites anymore since it’s on their cellphone. 5-10 years ago this was popular… now? Not so much.

If you have your breaking news on homepage, category page, tag, right side of each post, a news ticker now is a bit gimmicky unless you have breaking news every 5-10 minutes. 99% of major news portals no longer have this.

Full search bar – many people don’t search “on” the site anymore; and MOST designs for websites have gone to the search only appearing when clicked (NY Times, LA Times, etc.)

“Readers” start on home page. Anecdotal visitors come from search engine search, not from searching on site.

Just my thoughts. All of these “bloat” elements really slow down the site, page load, pagespeed, and most have to be removed for mobile, so, not super useful to most people.

Comments based on our news portals online 15 years, updated daily. Your mileage may vary.

PERSONALLY: I would like to see an update to ensure all the underlying elements are 100% up to date and 100% solid for a newspaper theme, and would like to see the author element on by default on post pages which is industry standard practice – this is more important to us than more bbpress, woocommerce, supermenus, etc. Speed, reliability, consistency.

You can manually update from 3.8 to 3.9.1 without an in-between step.

First step to try:
Be sure to LOOK at your actual on post meta data by doing “view source” in your web browser to debug anything not properly set, such as title, description, permalink, OG tags, default image, etc.

This is usually from you changing your permalink structure and not creating 301 redirects to the original content; or you have something being loaded from your site out of the Newspaper folder which is not found. Often reinstalling theme will fix this kind of thing, as a file didn’t fully upload the first time.

At least that happened to me once. I made the mistake of using my FTP software to decompress the zip, and files were missing.

Hi, Steven
you can actually add query strings remover code to your functions.php file, which many of us do. For those who don’t want to edit their functions file over and over the plugin is a great alternative 🙂

Main “trick” is clearing cache, turn OFF any cache, turn off anything like mod_pagespeed running for your hosted domain (if applicable) – before you do the upgrade.

Normally you should simply be able to replace all the files in the
/wp-content/themes/Newspaper

Hi @thor…
the guide from the install documentation is a good place to start:
https://forum.tagdiv.com/how-to-update-the-theme/

From the WordPress Codex – how to upload a theme
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes

Good tips – I’ll try these out once I’m back up to speed 🙂

Hi!
I’m actually working on getting my development blog back online.

I have been sick since first week of May with norovirus (stomach bug), which is finally going away. But I’m massively behind on everything due to not being able to concentrate as much. Friend in NJ had this bug for 4 weeks; another friend’s daughter had it for 6. I am almost at end of week 6, and not quite right….

It is my intent to republish all my various WordPress tutorials in one place for all to see in a concise manner, but allow some time on that please 🙂

And we got the alert today…. so new version in the wild!

@Lukao350
Hi, it’s almost impossible to fully remove all render blocking — most websites need to have some CSS load before the page … otherwise you get a flash of unstyled text – where page starts to load but is messed up, then the CSS loads and corrects – ugly.

So, with full optimization, you typically you will end up with one main CSS file, and one main JS file, as well as the other render blocking stuff will be external files (e.g., fonts from Google) that don’t load in “async” mode. The TagDiv Speed Booster plugin helps a bit – have you tried that yet ?

Groovy. I will go back to relying on the so far very reliable email alert from ThemeForest when there is an actual update to the theme 🙂

oh … hey… now I feel really stupid. 😉
You are correct. The version downloaded from Themeforest *this morning* (June 11) shows version is 3.8.4 and not 3.8.5 when looking in the main “all files” download.

I didn’t get an announcement from Themeforest of a new 3.8.5 version, so it’s possible there is a June 10 version which isn’t yet approved from TF, and that’s why one cannot yet download it?

In which case we may see a *new* download alert today and the files will be updated.

*d’oh*

It may be that TF updates that section at the time the update is uploaded, but NOT YET APPROVED by TF for download.

Um, well if you look at the changelog files it explains the changes. These are found in the download of the theme update from themeforest.

Always useful to explore the files and folders found in the theme download:

——————————————–
update_log.txt

[ V 3.8.4 ]
– fixed view counter + yoast incompatibility
– removed legacy code for backward compatibility
– added text title support to the row shortcode from the pagebuilder
– fixed missing animations from visual composer
– social counter plugin update
– visual composer plugin update

———————————-

changed_files_3.8.3_3.8.4.html

Here is a list of all the changes between v 3.8.3 and v 3.8.4

Modified files – 13 files
•functions.php
•header.php
•includes\plugins\js_composer.zip
•includes\plugins\revslider.zip
•includes\plugins\td-social-counter.zip
•includes\wp_booster\td_config.php
•includes\wp_booster\td_js_generator.php
•includes\wp_booster\td_page_views.php
•less_files\main.less
•less_files\menu-header.less
•style.css
•vc_templates\vc_column.php
•vc_templates\vc_row.php

New files – 2 files
•includes\plugins\td-speed-booster.zip
•less_files\pagebuilder\included_front_css_incomplete\page_builder_front.less

@thor

glad we could all help ! 🙂

You likely need to increase the z-index on the div to make the content layer higher for the ad to be clickable (not sure if this is correct).

You will likely want to look into some of the popular DHTML, Ajax, and Java resources sites, like the one I’ve used for a decade or more DynamicDrive, etc.

e.g. http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex15/index.html

Re, Font Awesome:
I think the theme uses the built-in icons from Bootstrap 3 (aka “Glyphicons”). Adding Font Awesome would slow down the site a little bit, even if loaded off the CDN.

Still, you could likely simply add this in the appropriate place:
(likely in the header section, and/or in the td speed booster plugin)

<link href="//netdna.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.1.0/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet">

Bootstrap 3 glyphs:
http://getbootstrap.com/components/

I think you could add a widget for posts, then use one of the modules for that sidebar for posts. Same idea as what I did for homepage sidebar, just doing it on the posts. Actually, I do something like this for “editor’s picks” on the sidebar for posts to highlight old content, from tag “editors picks” — this way I feature some interviews from past couple of years which are standout content, but not remotely current. Try it … nothing will blow up 🙂