PressGrid

Core Features

PressGrid v2.0.0 combines classic editorial newspaper design with engineering discipline. Every feature is purposefully built for modern news operations.

Prerequisites

Setup

Method 1 — WordPress Admin Upload

1. 1
   UploadGo to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme. Select pressgrid-v2.zip and click Install Now.
2. 2
   ActivateClick Activate on the theme page, or go to Appearance → Themes.
3. 3
   Configure ColorsGo to Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Colors to adjust the default red/black palette.
4. 4
   Add Social LinksGo to Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Social Media and add your Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram URLs.
5. 5
   Build LayoutGo to Appearance → Layout Builder and configure homepage sections — including the new Opinion section.
6. 6
   Set Up MenusGo to Appearance → Menus. Assign menus to Primary, Footer, and Secondary locations.

Method 2 — WP-CLI

wp theme install pressgrid-v2.zip --activate

Method 3 — FTP

# Unzip and upload to:
/wp-content/themes/pressgrid/

Architecture

Appearance → Customize

All visual settings are managed through the WordPress Customizer with live preview via postMessage CSS variable transport.

Color Panel

Social Media Panel New in v2

Set social profile URLs at Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Social Media. Configured URLs render as icon links in the black top bar.

Layout Options

Typography

PressGrid v2.0.0 ships with a full editorial font stack loaded from Google Fonts. Three font roles are defined as CSS custom properties:

Appearance → Layout Builder

Configure the homepage at Appearance → Layout Builder. Each section can be independently enabled, assigned a layout type, source category, and post count.

Available Sections

Appearance → Theme Ads

Manage all ad placements at Appearance → Theme Ads. Each zone is independently configurable with HTML or ad network tags.

Ad Zones

Rendering in Templates

pressgrid_render_ad( 'sidebar_top' );
pressgrid_render_ad( 'header' );
pressgrid_render_ad( 'footer' );

Appearance → Font Upload

PressGrid v2.0.0 ships with a complete editorial Google Fonts stack. For custom brand fonts, upload a .woff2 file via Appearance → Font Upload.

Secure Upload Process

1. 1
   Upload fontSelect a .woff2 file (max 1MB). MIME type is validated against WOFF2 magic bytes before saving.
2. 2
   Set family nameGo to Appearance → Customize → Typography and enter the font-family name (e.g. MyFont).
3. 3
   Apply to elementsCheck: Body, Headings, Menu, or Buttons. The fallback stack (Georgia / Arial) is always preserved.

Appearance → Menus

Navigation Locations

Widget Areas

Engineering

Transient Cache Strategy

Query Optimization

• No query_posts() — All queries use WP_Query directly
• no_found_rows: true — Skips SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS on cached queries
• Post ID caching — Only IDs stored in transients, query reconstructed from cache
• Indexed columns only — No meta_query on unindexed keys
• Pagination everywhere — No unbounded loops on archive templates

Hardening

• ✓Every $_POST goes through wp_verify_nonce() + current_user_can()
• ✓All output escaped with esc_html(), esc_url(), esc_attr(), wp_kses_post()
• ✓Ad HTML filtered through wp_kses() with strict allowed-tags whitelist
• ✓Font upload: WOFF2 magic-byte validation, 1MB cap, random filename, protected dir
• ✓Security headers: X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy
• ✓WordPress version removed from head and all feeds
• ✓Author enumeration blocked via /?author=N redirect
• ✓Login error messages genericized to prevent username enumeration
• ✓No eval(), no direct DB queries, no obfuscated code
• ✓Direct file access blocked: if(!defined('ABSPATH')) exit; in every PHP file
• ✓Optional XML-RPC disable at Appearance → Theme Security
• ✓All functions prefixed pressgrid_ — no global namespace pollution

Security Headers

X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
Permissions-Policy: geolocation=(), microphone=(), camera=()

Search & Discovery

Structured data and social metadata output automatically on every applicable page type.

NewsArticle JSON-LD

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "NewsArticle",
  "headline": "Article title",
  "datePublished": "2024-01-01T00:00:00+00:00",
  "author": { "@type": "Person" },
  "publisher": { "@type": "Organization" }
}

Other SEO Features

• Open Graph: og:title, og:description, og:image, og:type, og:site_name
• Twitter Cards: summary_large_image with auto-featured image
• Canonical <link> tag on every page
• Semantic HTML5: header, main, article, nav, aside, footer
• Post reading time estimation in meta
• Breadcrumb navigation with schema-ready markup

Developer API

Key Public Functions

pressgrid_breadcrumbs();
pressgrid_post_meta( $post_id );
pressgrid_render_ad( 'sidebar_top' );
pressgrid_get_category_label( $post_id );
$q = pressgrid_get_hero_posts( 4 );
$q = pressgrid_get_trending_posts( 6 );
$q = pressgrid_get_editor_picks( 4 );
$q = pressgrid_get_category_posts( $cat_id, 4 );

Filters

i18n / l10n

All user-facing strings use text domain pressgrid. A .pot template is included in /languages/.

WP-CLI

# Generate fresh POT file
wp i18n make-pot . languages/pressgrid.pot --domain=pressgrid

# Compile PO to MO
msgfmt languages/pressgrid-bg_BG.po -o languages/pressgrid-bg_BG.mo

Modular Architecture

Calling with Args

# Category grid with custom args
get_template_part(
  'template-parts/layout/category-grid',
  null,
  array( 'layout' => 'grid-3', 'category' => 5, 'post_count' => 6 )
);

# Opinion section filtered to a specific category
get_template_part(
  'template-parts/layout/opinion',
  null,
  array( 'category' => 7, 'post_count' => 4 )
);

Child Theme Override

# Copy at same relative path inside child theme:
child-theme/template-parts/content/post-card.php
child-theme/template-parts/layout/opinion.php

Infrastructure

Manual Cache Clear

delete_transient( 'pressgrid_hero_posts' );
delete_transient( 'pressgrid_trending_posts' );
delete_transient( 'pressgrid_editor_picks' );
delete_transient( 'pressgrid_cat_grid_' . $cat_id );

History

• New design system — Classic newspaper aesthetic: black/white/red palette (#cc0000 primary, #1a1a1a black), replacing previous blue-accent palette
• Font stack — Playfair Display (headings) + Barlow Condensed (UI/nav) + Barlow (body) via Google Fonts
• Top bar — New black strip with current date left and social icon links right; URLs configurable in Customizer
• Masthead — Centered newspaper-style logo with split-colour name and em-dash tagline
• Hero section — Rebuilt as 3:2 newspaper grid: full-bleed image with gradient overlay caption left, three thumbnail sidebar items right
• Trending section — Rebuilt as 3-column tab block combining Trending Now, Editor's Picks, and Video in a single bordered unit
• Opinion section — New Layout Builder section: 2-column grid with post image, title, and author byline with red arrow
• Sidebar — New sidebar.php template with ad zones, primary/secondary widget areas, and built-in newsletter email widget
• Social Media Customizer panel — New pressgrid_social section for Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, Instagram URLs
• CSS overhaul — Full rewrite (~32KB) using newspaper-appropriate spacing, typography scale, and CSS custom properties
• Footer — Black background, 4px red top border, 4-column widget grid
• Layout Builder expanded — 8 → 9 sections with the addition of opinion
• Color defaults updated — All Customizer defaults reflect the new newspaper palette

• Full theme architecture: Layout Builder, Ad Zones, Customizer
• Security hardening: headers, MIME validation, nonces, escaping throughout
• Transient caching for hero, trending, category, editor picks
• NewsArticle schema, Open Graph, Twitter Cards
• Vanilla JS: nav, lazy load, dropdowns, smooth scroll
• WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance
• WordPress.org Theme Review guidelines compliance
• GPL-2.0-or-later license