PressGrid — WordPress Theme

A production-ready, security-hardened WordPress theme engineered for high-traffic news and magazine websites.

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✦ Overview

PressGrid is a fully open-source WordPress theme built for the demands of modern news operations. It ships with a visual Layout Builder, 6 advertisement zones, a secure font upload system, CSS variable theming, OpenWeatherMap weather integration, Frankfurter ECB forex ticker, and full WordPress.org Theme Review compliance — all with zero JavaScript dependencies beyond WordPress core.

📖 Full Documentation → 🔑 API Setup Guide →

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⚡ Key Features

Category	Details
Performance	Lighthouse 95+, deferred JS, lazy images, no_found_rows, Redis-compatible transient cache, preconnect hints
Security	Nonces, capability checks, WOFF2 MIME validation, security headers, author enumeration block
Layout Builder	8 configurable homepage sections with enable/disable, layout type, category, and post count
Ad System	6 ad zones with mobile/desktop visibility, async load, and wp_kses() sanitization
Customizer	CSS custom property theming with live postMessage preview — 6 color controls
Typography	Secure .woff2 font upload (MIME-validated, 1MB cap, random rename, .htaccess protected)
Weather	OpenWeatherMap widget — sidebar + top bar mini widget, 5-day forecast, geolocation, Bulgarian UI
Forex Ticker	Frankfurter ECB rates — auto-activates when a Business/Finance section is present in Layout Builder
Reading UX	Progress bar, estimated read time, native share buttons, related posts, back-to-top button
SEO	NewsArticle schema, Open Graph, Twitter Cards, breadcrumbs, canonical tags
Accessibility	WCAG 2.1 AA — skip links, ARIA labels, focus-visible, semantic HTML5
Compatibility	WP Super Cache, W3TC, LiteSpeed, WP Rocket, Redis, Memcached
Standards	GPL-2.0+, PHPCS WordPress Coding Standards, WP.org Theme Review compliant

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📦 GitHub Repository Info

Repo Name:

pressgrid

Repo Description:

Production-ready WordPress theme for high-traffic news & magazine websites. Layout Builder, 6 Ad Zones, OpenWeatherMap, Frankfurter forex ticker, CSS variable Customizer, security-hardened, Lighthouse 95+, vanilla JS, GPL licensed.

Topics / Tags:

wordpress wordpress-theme news-theme magazine-theme layout-builder
customizer advertisement-zones performance security-hardened
vanilla-js gpl lighthouse accessibility wcag schema-org
openweathermap frankfurter forex weather

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🗂️ File Structure

pressgrid/
├── style.css                   # Theme header + complete CSS (~22KB)
├── functions.php               # Setup, enqueue, transients, SEO, schema, preconnect
├── header.php                  # Sticky nav, breaking ticker / forex ticker, logo
├── footer.php                  # Widgets, nav, developer credit
├── index.php                   # Fallback archive template
├── front-page.php              # Layout Builder homepage
├── single.php                  # Single post — progress bar, share, related posts
├── archive.php                 # Category / tag / author archives
├── page.php                    # Static pages
├── search.php                  # Search results
├── comments.php                # Threaded comments + form
├── sidebar.php                 # Sticky sidebar widget area
├── 404.php                     # Custom 404
├── API-GUIDE.md                # API setup guide (Google Fonts, OWM, Frankfurter)
│
├── inc/
│   ├── security.php            # Headers, XMLRPC toggle, font upload security
│   ├── customizer.php          # All Customizer controls + CSS variable output
│   ├── typography.php          # Secure .woff2 upload admin page
│   ├── ads.php                 # 6 ad zones, wp_kses sanitization, rendering
│   ├── layout-builder.php      # Layout Builder + Security settings admin pages
│   ├── weather.php             # OpenWeatherMap integration + Customizer settings
│   └── forex.php               # Frankfurter ECB forex ticker + business section detection
│
├── template-parts/
│   ├── content/
│   │   ├── post-card.php       # Reusable post card component (with hover animation)
│   │   └── none.php            # No results state
│   └── layout/
│       ├── hero.php            # Hero grid (1 large + sidebar cards)
│       ├── latest-posts.php    # Latest posts — grid-2/3/4 or list
│       ├── category-grid.php   # Category grid (transient cached)
│       ├── trending.php        # Trending by comment count (cached)
│       ├── editor-picks.php    # Editor picks random (cached 30min)
│       └── newsletter.php      # Newsletter CTA section
│
├── assets/js/
│   ├── main.js                 # Nav, lazy-load, progress bar, share, back-to-top (deferred)
│   └── customizer-preview.js  # Live CSS variable Customizer preview
│
├── languages/
│   ├── pressgrid.pot           # Translation template (182 strings)
│   ├── pressgrid-bg_BG.po/mo  # Bulgarian translation
│   └── pressgrid-en_GB.po/mo  # English (UK)
│
├── screenshot.png              # 880×660 theme screenshot
└── readme.txt                  # WordPress.org compliant readme

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🚀 Installation

Option 1 — WordPress Admin

1. Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme
2. Select pressgrid-v2.5.0.zip → Install Now → Activate
3. Configure at Appearance → Customize, Layout Builder, Theme Ads

Option 2 — WP-CLI

wp theme install pressgrid-v2.5.0.zip --activate

Option 3 — FTP / Manual

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

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⚙️ Requirements

Requirement	Minimum	Recommended
WordPress	6.3	6.7+
PHP	8.0	8.2+
MySQL / MariaDB	5.7 / 10.3	8.0 / 10.6+
Browser	ES2017+, CSS Grid	—

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🎨 Customizer

Navigate to Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Colors to set your brand palette. All colors are output as CSS custom properties on :root with live postMessage preview.

Setting	CSS Variable	Default
Primary Color	--pg-primary	#1a73e8
Secondary Color	--pg-secondary	#0d47a1
Accent Color	--pg-accent	#e91e63
Background Color	--pg-bg	#ffffff
Text Color	--pg-text	#212121
Link Hover Color	--pg-link-hover	#0d47a1

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🏗️ Layout Builder

Appearance → Layout Builder — Configure 8 homepage sections:

Section	Default Layout	Description
hero	hero-grid	1 large featured + sidebar cards
latest_posts	grid-3	Most recent posts
category_grid	grid-4	Posts from a category (cached)
trending	list	By comment count, last 7 days
editor_picks	grid-4	Random featured posts (30-min cache)
newsletter	newsletter	Newsletter CTA section
custom_html	custom_html	Free-form HTML (wp_kses_post)
ad_block	ad_block	Renders between-posts ad zone

Tip: Assign a Business or Finance category to any section and the top bar Breaking News ticker will automatically switch to the Frankfurter forex ticker — no configuration needed.

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📢 Advertisement System

Appearance → Theme Ads — Manage 6 zones:

Zone	Location	Typical Size
header	Below sticky navigation	728×90
sidebar_top	Top of sidebar	300×250
sidebar_middle	Middle of sidebar	300×600
in_article	Above article content	Responsive
between_posts	Homepage ad block	Responsive
footer	Above site footer	728×90

Each zone: enable/disable toggle, HTML/JS ad code input (sanitized with wp_kses()), desktop/mobile visibility, async load option.

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🌤️ Weather Widget

Powered by OpenWeatherMap (free API key required).

Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Времето

Feature	Details
Current conditions	Temperature, feels like, hi/lo, humidity, wind, clouds
5-day forecast	Daily icons + temps in a compact row
Top bar mini widget	☀️ 7°C · Sofia — hidden on small screens
Geolocation	⊕ button — detects user location, no data stored
Cache	30 min (current) · 1 hour (forecast)
Language	Bulgarian day names, translated UI

👉 How to get a free OpenWeatherMap API key →

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💱 Forex Ticker

Powered by Frankfurter — free, no API key, ECB data.

The forex ticker automatically replaces the Breaking News bar when the Layout Builder has an active section targeting a Business or Finance category. No configuration required.

Appearance → Customize → PressGrid: Валути (Forex)

Setting	Default
Base currency	EUR
Target currencies	USD, GBP, BGN, CHF, JPY
Business category slug	Auto-detected (business, biznes, бизнес, finance, финанси…)
Force always on	false

Feature	Details
Data source	European Central Bank via frankfurter.app
Update frequency	Once daily (weekdays ~16:00 CET)
Cache	6 hours
API key required	No

👉 Frankfurter API docs →

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📖 Single Post Features (v2.5)

Feature	How it works
Reading progress bar	Thin red line at top of viewport, JS-driven, single posts only
Estimated read time	str_word_count / 200 — shown in post meta
Share buttons	Web Share API (mobile) + copy-to-clipboard fallback + LinkedIn — zero external JS
Related posts	3 posts from same category, random order, no plugin
Back-to-top button	Appears after 400px scroll, smooth scroll, pure CSS + ~8 lines JS

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⚡ Performance Architecture

• Transient caching — hero, trending, category grid, editor picks (5–30 min TTL, cleared on save_post)
• no_found_rows: true on cached queries — skips SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS
• Post ID caching — only IDs stored in transients; query reconstructed from cache
• Preconnect hints — <link rel="preconnect"> for Google Fonts, OpenWeatherMap, Frankfurter (conditional)
• Deferred JS — <script defer> strategy for all theme scripts
• Native lazy loading — loading="lazy" + decoding="async" on all non-LCP images
• LCP optimization — fetchpriority="high" on hero image
• No render-blocking resources — all scripts in footer or deferred
• No jQuery, no Bootstrap — 100% vanilla JavaScript
• CSS Grid + Flexbox — no CSS framework overhead (~22KB unminified CSS)
• Redis/Memcached compatible — set_transient() uses object cache backend when available

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🔒 Security Hardening

• ✅ Every $_POST / $_GET — wp_verify_nonce() + current_user_can()
• ✅ All output — esc_html(), esc_url(), esc_attr(), wp_kses_post()
• ✅ Ad HTML — wp_kses() with strict allowed-tags whitelist
• ✅ Font upload — WOFF2 magic-byte validation (0x774F4632), 1MB cap, random rename, .htaccess protected directory
• ✅ Security headers via wp_headers filter — 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 errors genericized — no username enumeration
• ✅ No eval(), no direct DB queries, no obfuscated code
• ✅ Direct file access blocked in every PHP file
• ✅ Optional XML-RPC disable — Appearance → Theme Security
• ✅ All functions prefixed pressgrid_ — no global namespace pollution
• ✅ All external API calls server-side only (wp_remote_get) — browser never contacts APIs directly

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🌐 SEO & Schema

• NewsArticle JSON-LD on all single posts (auto-generated)
• Open Graph — og:title, og:description, og:image, og:type, og:site_name
• Twitter Cards — summary_large_image with featured image auto-population
• Canonical <link> on every page
• Breadcrumb navigation — semantic, accessible
• Semantic HTML5 — <header>, <main>, <article>, <nav>, <aside>, <footer>
• Reading time estimation displayed in post meta
• Pagination rel="prev" / rel="next" via WordPress core

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🌍 Translation

Text domain: pressgrid — .pot file included in /languages/ (182 strings).

Bundled translations:

Locale	File	Status
bg_BG	pressgrid-bg_BG.po/mo	Complete
en_GB	pressgrid-en_GB.po/mo	Complete

# Generate 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

Compatible with Loco Translate and WPML.

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🔑 API Integrations

All external API calls are made server-side (PHP). The visitor's browser never contacts these services directly.

API	Key required	Cost	Cache	Used for
Google Fonts	No	Free	Browser	Playfair Display, Barlow fonts
OpenWeatherMap	Yes (free tier)	$0	30 min / 1 hr	Weather widget
Frankfurter	No	Free	6 hours	Forex ticker (ECB data)

👉 Full API setup guide with step-by-step instructions →

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🔧 Public Functions (Developer Reference)

// Output breadcrumbs
pressgrid_breadcrumbs();

// Output post meta (author, date, reading time)
pressgrid_post_meta( $post_id );

// Render an ad zone
pressgrid_render_ad( 'sidebar_top' );

// Get first category label HTML
pressgrid_get_category_label( $post_id );

// Get cached hero WP_Query
$query = pressgrid_get_hero_posts( 3 );

// Get cached trending WP_Query
$query = pressgrid_get_trending_posts( 6 );

// Get cached category WP_Query
$query = pressgrid_get_category_posts( $cat_id, 4 );

// Check if a Business/Finance section is active (for forex ticker logic)
$show_forex = pressgrid_has_business_section();

// Get exchange rates from Frankfurter ECB API
$rates = pressgrid_get_forex_rates(); // ['base' => 'EUR', 'rates' => [...], 'date' => '...']

// Get weather data from OpenWeatherMap
$weather  = pressgrid_get_weather();   // current conditions array
$forecast = pressgrid_get_forecast();  // 5-day forecast array

// Get estimated reading time in minutes
$mins = pressgrid_reading_time( $post_id );

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♿ Accessibility

• Skip-to-content link (.skip-link)
• All navigation has aria-label
• Mobile toggle with aria-expanded state management
• Keyboard-accessible dropdown menus with aria-haspopup
• focus-visible outline styles for keyboard users
• Sufficient color contrast ratios (WCAG AA)
• Semantic heading hierarchy on all templates
• Images require alt text — enforced via template functions
• Progress bar marked aria-hidden="true" (decorative)
• Share buttons with descriptive aria-label attributes

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📋 WordPress.org Compliance

• ✅ GPL-2.0-or-later license
• ✅ Proper theme header in style.css
• ✅ Text domain: pressgrid
• ✅ All strings translatable
• ✅ No upsells, no tracking, no affiliate links
• ✅ No obfuscated code
• ✅ No required plugins
• ✅ No admin nags
• ✅ No hidden backlinks
• ✅ Developer credit is removable
• ✅ readme.txt included
• ✅ screenshot.png included (880×660)

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📋 Changelog

v2.5.0

• New: Frankfurter ECB forex ticker — auto-activates when Layout Builder has a Business/Finance section
• New: OpenWeatherMap weather widget (sidebar + top bar mini widget, 5-day forecast, geolocation)
• New: Reading progress bar on single posts
• New: Estimated read time in post meta
• New: Native share buttons (Web Share API + copy-to-clipboard + LinkedIn, zero external JS)
• New: Related posts section after article content (same category, no plugin)
• New: Back-to-top button (appears at 400px scroll)
• New: Sticky sidebar
• New: Card hover animations (translateY + shadow)
• New: Open Graph + Twitter Card meta tags
• New: NewsArticle JSON-LD schema
• New: Breadcrumb navigation
• New: preconnect hints for Google Fonts, OpenWeatherMap, Frankfurter
• New: API-GUIDE.md — step-by-step API setup documentation
• New: bg_BG and en_GB translations (182 strings)
• Improved: Hero grid layout rewrite (flex, 3-item limit, category labels, thumb hover)
• Improved: pressgrid_post_meta() now includes read time and modified date

v1.0.0

• Initial release

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📄 License

PressGrid WordPress Theme
Copyright (C) 2024 Milen Stanchev

Released under the GNU General Public License v2 or later.

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👤 Author

Milen Stanchev
🌐 https://stanchev.bg/
🐙 github.com/stantchev

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PressGrid is an independent open-source project. No affiliation with WordPress.org or Automattic.