Dynamic News Documentation

Welcome to the Dynamic News theme documentation. These instructions explain how to configure the theme options and setup the front page template.

Since it is the same procedure for every theme, this tutorial does not explain how to install the theme. If you need help with the theme installation or the upgrade from the free version, please visit the Installation section.

Table of Contents

Configure Theme Options Set up Social Icons Set up WordPress core features Set up Magazine Front Page template Configure Featured Post Sliders Theme Specifications

Configure Theme Options

Dynamic News supports the awesome Theme Customizer. You can configure all theme settings on your WordPress admin panel → Appearance →

Customize on the “Theme Options” section.

Dynamic News adds a “Theme Options” section to the Customizer containing following sub sections:

General SettingsChoose the theme layout and sidebar position.

Header SettingsUpload your own logo image and turn on header content like search field and social icons.

Post SettingsDecide between full posts and post summary and configure featured images of posts.

Featured ContentSet a tag to feature your posts. Featured posts are displayed on the post slider.

Theme Colors (only in PRO Version)This section let you choose the font and background colors of various theme elements.

Theme Fonts (only in PRO Version)Change the text, navigation and title fonts easily in this section.

Social Icons

Social icons are easy to add with Dynamic News. We simply use custom menus for social icons.

Set up WordPress Features

The theme supports several WordPress core features you know:

Custom Menus (Theme Navigation) Widget Areas Custom Header Image Custom Backgrounds Featured Images Page Templates

Set up front page template

If you’d like to have a home page with the magazine-style layout like the demo website, follow these detailed instructions:

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Create a new static page

Go to Pages → Add New to create a new static page, or edit an existing page. Change the page template of your selected page to the Magazine Front Page template from the Page Attributes box.

Set Magazine Front Page Template as Front Page

If you want to use the Magazine Front Page as your homepage, go to Settings → Reading and set “Front page displays” to “A static page”. From the dropdown menu, select the homepage you created earlier. You can learn more about setting up a front page here.

Add Category Posts Widgets

After you created your Magazine Front Page homepage, go to Appearance →

Widgets and set up your Magazine Front Page widget area.

Dynamic News comes with three different Category Posts widgets geared to creating a magazine-style site, but you can also add any other widget you like.

Category Posts Columns

This widget displays the latest eight blog posts from two configured categories: Category Left and Category Right. The first post of each category is displayed with the excerpt, followed by two further posts in small boxes.

Category Posts Boxed

This widget displays the latest four blog posts from a configured category in a boxed layout, like in the screenshot below. The latest post is highlighted on the left column and displayed with the excerpt, and the right column displays three additional posts.

Category Posts Grid

This widget creates a two-column grid layout, showing the latest blog posts from a category you select. You can also specify the number of posts to be displayed.

Demo Setup of Magazine Front Page widgets

Take a look at this infographic to see the Magazine Front Page setup of the demo site:

Featured Images

The Magazine Front Page template makes heavy use of featured images as thumbnails. The featured posts slider and all category posts widgets will look as intended when your posts have featured images.

If your existing posts have already had featured images, they may look disformed because they do not match the new required sizes for the front page template. In order to fix that you have to regenerate your thumbnails.

Your uploaded featured images should have a minimum image size of 880×280 pixels in order to look good at any screen size. The slider will show a grey image placeholder in case you haven’t set a featured image.

Configure Featured Post Slider

Dynamic News supports a beautiful Featured Posts Slider which displays the latest posts with a tag you’ve configured. You can activate the slideshow on the Magazine Front Page template or the normal blog index.

To set up the slider, go to Appearance → Customize, and add a tag under Tag

Name in the Featured Content section. The slideshow will then display all posts which are tagged with that keyword.

Next, activate the slider on the Magazine Front Page template or on the blog index by checking the box in the Customizer, in the Theme Options section.

Theme Specifications

1. The main content column width is 860.2. The Featured Images used on posts are 860x280.3. The Featured Images used on the Slideshow are 880x290.4. The thumbnails used on the Magazine Front Page template are 420x140

(big thumbnails) and 90x90 (small thumbnails).5. The Custom Header image will display at a maximum width of 1340

and a flexible height (default height = 200).

All measurements in pixels.

 

Thanks for using the Dynamic News WordPress theme.