jambr
Hi, not sure if this helps, I had same issue on install… may not apply to you

1) to setup social icons, use the appearance > widgets and then drag the [tagdiv]social widget to the Top Right (social) sidebar; open and put in your URLs, select icon type (e.g., type 1,2,3,4 — which will vary the style by color, white, black); “save” then go look

2) for the main menu, to add a “home” icon you have to create or update your menus under appearance > menus … in my case the “primary” menu I added a new menu item called “Home” per normal WP menu setup then when you go to edit the actual menu item on right side, there will be option to use an icon in place of text. (The icons “enhance” the normal WordPress menu editor; unlike some crappy themes, this doesn’t rewrite and break the whole WP menu system; so, you’re basically setting up a custom menu item and then using an icon vs text).

If you’re saying you don’t see *any* icons when you go to do that, then it’s possible your install was incomplete, and may be missing the sprites included in /theme/images/

Not sure if that helps. I just popped in here while waiting on some automated stuff, not wanting to work. I’m not part of the tech support crew. 🙂

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

Just for a point of reference on our test site under development, with 1.7.2, and no caching or tagdiv/optimizer plugin enabled. This is neither a complaint, nor solution, just an indicator of another look at “speed” on a “typical” review article page online, based in U.S.

Test article page
http://ga-ga.com/785/discwatcher-watching-films-at-home-spring-2013-a-good-day-to-die-hard/

Google Page Speed = 96 / YSlow 73* (desktop; not showing mobile results)
Page load time: 6.46s
Total page size: 2.19MB
Total number of requests: 106
*NOTE: huge number of “errors” due to GOOGLE ads/cookies/etc. with embedded YouTube video and two AdSense ads (top/right) and social media crap. Unrelated to theme.
PAGE HAS: 3 large images in article; two content blocks right side with 3 thumbnails each (6 images) and the 2 related content items below story. Total 11 images plus gravatar, and 2 logos.

14 images, 2 ads, youtube video; Google Page Speed “96” — not too shabby!

Main issues have to do with Google elements, and social media stuff. One javascript file could be compressed; YSlow hates the @style load of CSS via child theme (sigh). Images could be slightly more compressed (option to set compression level via functions file?).

For those looking at Google Page Speed vs “load time” or “payload” … ALWAYS test your “page speed” with AdSense stuff removed or you will always get upset with any WP site ranking/rating/testing. In our case, the above “96” with Google Page Speed is pretty amazing, frankly. 6 second load time, not so much (anything over 4 sec would be considered “bad” these days), but caching plugin and CDN may help with that immensely. Yslow pretty much “demands” a CDN for top speed ranking.

Our goal is 3 sec. max time for a page like that (avg 2.6 sec would be acceptable based on how some of our other sites work) and if/when I get to that, I’ll share our method of optimization, if anybody will want to know.

— PLUGINS:
* all jetpack OFF
* WP-Optimize (speed up your DB by optimizing it!)
* Akismet with site license
* Limit Login Attempts (a must!)
* Regenerate thumbnails
* WordPress SEO by Yoast
* bare minimum tagdiv provided plugins (e.g., animated GIF resize)

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

+1
realistically with the new Page Speed push for mobile speed optimizations and such, and Google’s new asynchronous support for AdSense now working properly, typically the AdSense code should be async by default.

I find the Yoast plugin works best for our sites. We used to have our own batch of custom functions, hooks and plugins; and the Yoast one has worked best for us.

Marius while you’re there, also note that long article titles “run into” the <h1> title as there isn’t enough line height for the crumbs div if it breaks into two lines.

Hi
most modern themes have moved to using the built-in thumbnail system in WordPress which uses the “featured” post to tell the system which image should be used for the thumbnail. Older themes (including many I still use like “Canvas’) use both the “featured” method with alternate timthumb method which would grab “first image placed in post.”

However, there is an awesome plugin called “regenerate thumbnails” which can make new thumbnails *and* make all them the featured image.

If you end up with two images on posts, you need to deactivate the “show featured images” in the Newspaper theme customizer (this is what I did). So, for new posts I place my main image, and any additional images into post as per old skool way, then on right side under featured image select the one I want to appear on home page and indexes, and most of the time in social media, and then you’re set.

see: http://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

One note; with some social media they will “scrape” images from page, and *not* ironically from the META data. I run into this with Facebook posting every day, and Twitter will tend to grab the first image found in the META.

Always look at your META data (view source). For example, if you have 3 images in your post, the first one in the META may be used as default, based either on which is posted first into the story/article, or by name/numerical depending on your setup.

There *does* seem to be a bug with the Pinterest share button not showing anything (using button in theme below each post). However for us the Twitter, Facebook and G+ do work properly. Also remember ANY image which is “linked” in the article will generally *NOT* be used as an image in social media (or Google News), as most of the ‘bots can’t determine if that is an advert or not (ads are commonly linked, while an editorial image is *not* linked to anything).

Not sure if that helps anybody, just the behavior I’ve seen.

Just heads up to folks worrying about page speed, one great resource you may already be aware of is my friends at GT in Canada who built a neat testing tool years back, here: http://gtmetrix.com/

Paste in any page URL from your site, such as a post page, and it will tell your speed scores with Google PageSpeed and Yahoo Yslow – but also give you suggestions on various things you can fix; particularly useful is looking at number of calls for some plugins that “dial out” for avatars, social media, etc.

Keeping in mind that most WP themes may have too many calls to CSS files, and some plugins add more, which they shouldn’t (I’ve got one called ‘external links’ right now, and not using any of the CSS in the plugin, but he still loads another style sheet, not needed – having to bug him to remove that …) …

Anyway… it’s a good reference to some of the issues folks run into prior to optimization. YOu can create free account, then run a scan, and then when you tweak, you can come back and rerun test, and see improvements over time.

It’s more useful than running Google Page Speed insights, as it actually provides tips and exmaples on how to actually address each issue, along with explanations – which Google does in a roundabout or confusing way or not at all (meaning Google penalizes your page speed for their own AdSense content … which is hilarious … “you should fix this” – and it’s their content that needs fix!).

I’ve spent 3 months optimizing our main business site (not using WordPress) which has been an adventure; now starting on the WordPress stuff.

I can tell you from experience that Radu and co are doing an amazing job with optimization within the confines of the WordPress setup which inherently has numerous flaws for SEO, like the method for CSS redirect used in the child themes (WP core devs keep using a method not recommended by the rest of the universe … for example).

So, there is a *lot* going on with WP, which *no* theme maker can fully address, only tweak and you need to research common problems and workarounds for *ALL* WP based installs when concerned with Page Speed.

For instance, I do *NOT* use JetPack myself as it “phones home” all over the place and slows things down. SO, every little spinning widget and flashing light and cannon blasting all slow down the page. If you want the most speed with WP, you need to have the simplest layout possible, ala Newspaper, for this kind of site, and then optimize the heck out of all your images, minimize anything that calls out to other sites (like FB comments box), certain JetPack things, and anything that doesn’t run in async with javascript, and avoid plugins which add more CSS style sheets and can’t inherent code, or properly write custom CSS into the head INLINE, not as yet another external style sheet!

Just some suggestions, somebody may find useful as a WP user since 2005, and webdev since 1994.

Hi, Radu
that does make the most sense; especially since Yoast already creates and registers a Twitter field with label “put userid without @” … it would make more sense to have your functions to create a separate “twitter URL” field (or just “twitter”) if one doesn’t already exist. Obviously you would think that WP core would have the top five web properties already included in the core user setup by now (!).

(and fixed my profile not to show my company name on the forum and went with last name … ! not that anybody cares … )

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

Note … I also have the “force rules” turned OFF in Yoast.. which can sometimes conflict with everything else vs helping ….

Well… you may have some other plugin that creates or registers a “twitter” field for managing that data.

In my case I’m using Yoast SEO, NOT using Jetpack, and in my user’s account setup, I put in the full URL, and it shows up on both the author page and the posts with correct link.

by way of example:
see this old article on the site in progress to revamp with Newspaper:

post:
http://publishersnewswire.com/2013/08/29/PNW2766_163853.php/whilly-bermudez-talks-new-illustrated-childrens-book-wb-10-good-things/

note link on page is:
Tweets by tophersimmons

on author page/index
Tweets by tophersimmons

and on the post in the head meta data, note the bug

<meta name=”twitter:site” content=”@neotrope”/>
<meta name=”twitter:domain” content=”Publishers Newswire”/>
<meta name=”twitter:creator” content=”@https://twitter.com/tophersimmons”/>
<!– / Yoast WordPress SEO plugin. –>

In my user account I have this in the twitter field:
Tweets by tophersimmons

I’m using the latest version of WP, latest version of Newspaper.

Only plugins I’m using are Yoast, WP-Optimize, our house ad module turned off, and I think we have Recaptcha running. Maybe something else, but it escapes me at the moment.

Glad to help!

heh … I should probably use my real name Christopher Simmons vs the company name, too, right? 🙂

– Chris

Hi, Irajabi …
simply go to user > setting > and in the Twitter field put the FULL URL to the twitter account, like https://twitter.com/tophersimmons … this way the URL will work on the author page and the author box on the post page.

It will break the YOAST SEO twitter field, which it looks like the theme rewrites/overwrites at the moment.

So, right now in the META in the <head> it would have a bad twitter card link of

@https://twitter.com/tophersimmons

vs

@tophersimmons

but at least it would work “on the page” for the visitor.

I think Radu plans a fix for this in the next update.

🙂

This is definitely one of the items to go into the “FAQs” or “knowledgebase” when you folks get to that 😉

Hi, Radu
you’re awesome 🙂

BTW: the fix I ended up doing for the “featured image turning into a link” in post was this:

1) under theme customizer, for post, switching on “don’t show featured image”
2) place image in the post at top full size
3) select image as featured image, so it will do thumbnails (sometimes I miss timthumb!)

This way we’d see the main “featured” or “cover image” as we call them, and it would be grabbed by Google News, and not have the link on the image.

Small workaround, but was simplest fix. Obviously for some people that might be too confusing.

I’m basically using the theme on 2 live sites; one is a “real site” and one is a site we’re bringing back from the dead (old site, PublishersNewswire.com … home page not done, and still tweaking stuff and some content from early days is still stuck in a static container which needs stuff pasted into WP; and Ga-Ga.com … where we’re migrating content from couple of old orphan sites we had and also doing new content, and hope to have both up to speed for 2014 …). PNW is in Google News and has been live for “almost” 10 years, but was a bit neglected the past 18 months, so bringing it back to life, and yours is the third or fourth theme in 2.5 months, and looks like the winner 🙂 kudos!

Radu…
fyi, the original field added by YOAST, which I think gets over-ridden by your function, is this:

Twitter username (without @)

I think your functions overrides that to

Twitter

So, I think you are correct that simply using the same methodology as Yoast to just enter

Twitter username (without @) USERID

would be best 🙂

Looking at your site, I would guess it’s probably a conflict with the 5 ad widgets on the page, adding the floating social media box, and other stuff. You very likely have at least one conflict going on there, unrelated to the theme; including something breaking the menu when going to mobile site width in IE. I’d try turning some of that stuff off, then back on to see which one is causing the error, as I’ve not had that issue in very hard testing of the theme on a working site.

Sorry to butt in… waiting for a backup to run, so putting in my 2 cents here as a long time WP user and theme debugger 🙂

(I’m on IE10/Win7-64)

smartyseo… if you’re using old code you should go get new code as Google is migrating everything to async loading, and I had to do that with some of my really really old ads from, oh 2009 maybe ? Get new code and choose the “async” option when creating ad, then insert the codes for the new ad (I made mine things like 300×250 2014 in the AdSense panel to identify new ad). This solved the issue for me (see publishersnewswire.com – in progress converting from 10 year old site … ) … now if I could only figure out why Google keeps showing me Asian dating site banners when I’ve never been to any such site or even remotely an interest in importing a bride from Thailand (thanks Google… I think you have me confused with somebody else!) 😉

You may want to switch to one of the default themes like twenty-twelve temporarily, and then try turning off all the plugins you’re using. Also check your htaccess file to see if anything is in there that shouldn’t be. Also turn off or disable the “beta” speed booster plugin with the theme as that is only for advanced users willing to test “edge” applications. Not sure if this helps you or not – but I’ve been able to just switch theme to TwentyTwelve when I have bizarro issues, to at least keep the site live!

HI, Radu!
I figured you were likely taking a break. I’ve been working every weekend the past 4 months, and am about ready to take a mini-break myself 🙂

Need time to recharge the batteries, and to give the mousing and typing a break.

Note Google sometimes “delays” showing new ad units on a page until they verify it, or their system “checks.” I have this issue too when I redid my ad units with Newspaper, but it’s not theme related. Usually clears up in a few hours. But double check your code and the size.

Radu and folks…
I’m unable to change the title of this to

BUG: Twitter user setting incompatibility with Yoast SEO

however, this would be the correct issue; not as I originally entered it.

Need a solution for this as we either have broken author info for twitter, or a 404 error on every author post.

Hey iOSPortalSK:
Yup. Most of our sites are 1+ million page views, so we’re on top of that big time with anything we can do async or deferred or compressed (helps having our own dedicated dual xeon server, too). 🙂 Ironically, Google penalizes its own ad network in pagespeed tests, so often good for mental health to deactivate adsense when testing your pages for a raw number !

• This reply was modified 12 years by simchris.

Note:
for anybody running into this issue, and not using an SEO plugin …

in your user setting for author:

be sure to put in your info like so:
https://plus.google.com/1234567890/posts

with this theme do not do:
https://plus.google.com/1234567890/posts?rel=author

as the theme inserts for you in the footer the rel link for Google+, however if you add the rel=author, the theme will print this

https://plus.google.com/1234567890/posts?rel=author?rel=author

which will not pass the author link test back to your G+ page.

Hope that helped 🙂