Paladin – A Newspaper Theme Package for YOOtheme Pro
We have some breaking news for you! Here is Paladin – our new YOOtheme Pro theme package for WordPress and Joomla. It's a modern newspaper website perfect for regional daily news publications. We started working on Paladin over a year ago, and while it took us a while, we are very proud that as of today, YOOtheme Pro is able to create such a complex, dynamic newspaper website. It's by far the biggest and most complex YOOtheme Pro theme package we've ever built. It comes with 14 content-rich page layouts, great looking styles and a well-thought-out content structure that show the full potential of YOOtheme Pro. Intrigued? Then grab a coffee, and let's get going.
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Page Layouts
Paladin comes with 14 (!!) complex and content-rich layouts which are all based on a typical newspaper five-column layout. They can easily be loaded from the layout library with just a click. Here is a walk-through of all the highlights.
Home
Politics
Sports
Technology
Science
Entertainment
Post Category
Post Index
Post
Post Daily Brief
Post Opinion
Post Video
Post Slideshow
Post Gallery
| Page | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Home | Page | The Home page starts with the breaking news alert followed by headlines which are in the news. Featured news are presented with their related posts that offer more coverage on the topic. Most popular news can be found in the sidebar. Next is a prominent featured news section from a trending category with further coverage. It's followed by all main categories and their latest posts with the opinion and video sections in the middle. |
| Politics | Page | The Politics page starts with headlines which are in the news followed by featured posts and their related news. There are latest opinions as well as a prominent video section. Next comes an overview of all subcategories in the slider followed by handpicked subcategories with their latest news. The page ends with 10 most popular posts and a link to the Politics archive. |
| Sports | Page | The Sports page starts by featuring one news in a prominent hero section with related posts for more coverage. It's followed by news headlines. Further featured posts are presented underneath with opinion posts shown in the sidebar. There are also a prominent video section, an overview of all subcategories in a slider, latest posts from selected categories as well as most popular news. |
| Technology | Page | Just like the previous page, Technology starts with one featured news followed by the news headlines and other featured news. Popular reviews are shown in the sidebar. Next comes the prominent video section, the subcategory slider and latest news from selected categories. |
| Science | Page | The Science page starts by featuring one news in a full-screen hero section with its related news. There are also other featured news with popular posts in the sidebar followed by a video section, the subcategory slider and several subcategories with their latest posts. |
| Entertainment | Page | Entertainment also starts with a full-screen hero section. It is followed by featured news, a video section, the subcategory slider and latest news from selected categories. The page ends with a list of popular news. |
| Post Category | Template | Used for Business and Travel pages, the Post Category template starts with a featured news section followed by a list of all posts from the category. |
| Archive | Template | The Archive page shows a list of all news. There is a subnav to filter news by category and a link back to the parent category. |
| Post | Template | The Post page starts with the title, excerpt, meta information and the image followed by the post content that uses a page break navigation. There are also related news und latest posts from the category at the bottom. |
| Post Video | Template | The Post Video page shows a video instead of the post image. It plays automatically while the post itself usually has no further content. Latest videos are presented in a slider below. |
| Post Slideshow | Template | The Post Slideshow page is a usual post, but it shows a slideshow with a thumbnail navigation instead of the post image. Latest posts only show slideshow and gallery posts. |
| Post Gallery | Template | The Post Gallery shows a prominent gallery section instead of the post image. Images and their description text appear side by side. Additionally, images can be opened in a lightbox slideshow. The page ends with latest slideshow and gallery posts. |
| Post Opinion | Template | The Post Opinion page is a post which shows more information about the author. It shows the author avatar, biography and links to social media profiles. The page ends with a list of related news and latest opinion posts. |
| Post Daily Brief | Custom Post | The Daily Brief post has an individual layout. It shows a list of manually curated daily news in a chronological order followed by latest news. |
Functional Tags
Newspapers usually have a complex content organization, and Paladin is not different. We use functional tags to display posts in specific page sections, for example the Breaking News and In the News sections shown at the top of the page. Additionally, they are used to assign templates to specific posts, for example Gallery or Video posts use a slightly different template than the default Post. This is a great example of what is possible with just WordPress or Joomla and YOOtheme Pro core features.
Here is a list of all functional tags along with their description and usage.
| Tag | Template | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Opinion | ✓ | Used for editorial opinions |
| In the News | - | Used for today's news headlines which appear above the fold |
| Breaking News | - | Used for the breaking news which appears as an alert on the home page |
| Video | ✓ | Used for video reports, interviews, documentations or movie reviews |
| Slideshow | ✓ | Used for posts which have an image slideshow |
| Gallery | ✓ | Used for image galleries. |
| Review | - | Used for reviews |
| Daily Brief | ✓ | Used for a daily curated news ticker. |
| Daily Brief [DATE] | - | Used to show a post in the daily news ticker. |
A daily brief post is a curated news ticker which is continuously updated during the day. To achieve this we use a combination of Daily Brief tags. The general Daily Brief tag is used for the daily brief post itself which has an individual layout. Here the post author loads a list of posts with a specific Daily Brief [DATE] tag created every day, for example Daily Brief 2020-09-20. Whenever a new post is added, the author can give it the current Daily Brief [DATE] tag, and it will automatically appear on the Daily Brief page. The same process is repeated every day, creating a daily curated news ticker.
Style
Paladin is all about reading articles which is why we went for a minimal, flat style. Its heading font is both elegant and modern – a classic print newspaper font. The combination of thin typography, clear Sarif fonts, outlined buttons as well as saturated colors allow your visitors to focus on the content, which is the most important thing for a newspaper website.
In addition to the default style Paladin comes with 5 other style variations, each with a different beautiful color scheme. There two light styles with a grungy background, and three white styles. You can switch the whole look and feel of your website with just a click. Simply choose what fits your website best!
Light Green
Light Orange
Light Blue
Light Red
Light Darkblue
Header
Paladin uses the new Stacked Center C header introduced in YOOtheme Pro 2.2 where the logo is in the center, sign up und subscribe menu items are on the left and search and date modules are on the right and the navbar is below. The navbar also uses the Rail mode that adds a border above and under the navbar. Instead of the Home menu item, we used a home icon that automatically changes its color depending on the style.
Now let's go over a more technical aspect of the theme package.
Content Types and Custom Fields
Paladin comes with a fully functional demo website which has the most complex content structure we've built so far.
Post
Posts are grouped into different categories and further divided by their topics. Post categories have 4 custom fields used to show them on other pages.
| Category Field | Type (J) | Type (WP) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Image | – | image | Hero image for the category page |
| Intro Image | media | image | Intro image used to tease the category |
| Intro Image Alt Text | text | - | Intro image alt text |
| Intro Image BG Text Color | list | select | Text color depending on the intro image color |
The default Post has 16 custom fields. This includes fields for a subtitle, excerpt, images to show the post on other pages as well as optional video and gallery fields and related posts.
| Post Field | Type (J) | Type (WP) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intro Image | - | image | Intro image used to tease the post |
| Excerpt | textarea | - | Post excerpt |
| Subtitle | text | text | Alternative post title |
| Teaser Image BG Hero | media | image | Alternative image to tease the post |
| Teaser Image BG Hero Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Teaser Image BG Center | media | image | Alternative image to tease the post |
| Teaser Image BG Center Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Teaser Image BG Top | media | image | Alternative image to tease the post |
| Teaser Image BG Top Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Teaser Image BG Left | media | image | Alternative image to tease the post |
| Teaser Image BG Left Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Teaser Image BG Right | media | image | Alternative image to tease the post |
| Teaser Image BG Right Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Teaser Image BG Text Color | list | select | Alternative teaser image used in the home page slider |
| Teaser Image Portrait | media | image | Alternative teaser image used in the home page slider |
| Teaser Image Portrait Alt Text | text | - | Teaser image alt text |
| Video | media | URL | Video URL |
| Video Poster | media | image | Video poster image |
| Video Poster Alt Text | text | - | Video poster alt text |
| Video Length | text | text | Video length |
| Images | repeatable | repeater | A list of post images with image and image alt text fields |
| Related Posts | articles | relationship | A list of related posts |
Author
In Joomla the User has 4 custom fields to display the avatar, biography and social media links while in WordPress these fields are available by default.
| User Field | Type (J) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Image | media | User image |
| Image Alt Text | text | User image alt text |
| Description | textarea | User biography |
| Socials | repeatable | Links to users social profiles |
Free Quality Stock Images
Paladin comes with more than 440+ lovingly curated and free-to-use images. They can be found in the Paladin collection in the Unsplash library.
3rd Party Integrations
The Joomla and WordPress demo websites make use of several 3rd party plugins. We support Advanced Custom Fields, Toolset, Custom Post Type UI, WordPress Popular Posts, the Regular Labs Articles Field and more. For more information on all pre-installed and activated plugins, take a look at the installation documentation for Joomla and WordPress.
So these are the features of our new Paladin theme package for Joomla and WordPress. Now go ahead and explore it yourself. As always, let us know what you think in the comments below.
- Newspaper website with 280+ demo posts
- 14 page builder layouts
- 6 beautiful styles
- 1 content type and 28 custom fields
- 440+ lovingly curated and free-to-use images
- Powered by the YOOtheme Pro page builder
- Available as WordPress theme and Joomla template
