Volt – Magazine / Editorial WordPress Theme (News / Editorial)

Volt theme for WordPress is designed for magazine, news and editorial ventures. With content and readability being the primary goal, the theme is designed with flexible layout pattern and decent space for advertisements. The theme introduces a layout swapping option that will let you move the content in desirable location, and is helpful when you are experimenting with visual hierarchy and user eye pattern. Backed with custom widgets, visual short codes, exclusive widget areas and custom page templates, the theme is envisioned to provide you more flexibility and ease-of-customization for your next editorial project.

Now available in two formats

  • Volt with Timthumb: Images are resized using the timthumb script. Check live preview 1.
  • Volt with Native WP Thumbnails: Images are resized using native WP Thumbnails feature. (Timthumb removed completely) Check live preview 2.

Key Features

  • Clean design, WordPress 3.3 Ready
  • 2 Theme Formats (one with timthumb, and another with WP Thumbnails)
  • Supports Languages with RTL orientation. (rtl.css included)
  • Mobile version of CSS included for SmartPhones (Portrait + Landscape).
  • 3 Layout styles
    – Three Columnar: 460px content + 300px Sidebar A + 140px Sidebar B
    – Two Columnar: 620px content + 300px Sidebar A
    – Two Columnar: 780px content + 140px Sidebar B
  • Layout swapping for content area and sidebars
  • jQuery Cycle Slider via short code (Available in 3 sizes with unlimited usage)
  • Content driven Home page. i.e. The sidebars will use widgets, whereas the content area can be populated using short codes and custom markup. (The home page slider, post lists, etc are populated using visual short codes). You can create as many such pages as you require.
  • Two jQuery powered multi level dropdown menus (supported via WP 3 .0+ Menus)
  • Built in social sharing buttons for single posts. You can hide or show them individually via theme options. (No plugin required).
  • Inline advertisement areas for single posts. (Can be set global for all posts, or can be set individually per post). Short codes supported in these advertisement areas.
  • 7 widget areas (one for the header, two for sidebars and four in footer)
  • Exclusive widget area usage per page and post. (Create new widget areas from pages and use them on page or post)
  • WP custom background
  • 5 color schemes for navigation menu
  • Visual short codes with options panel
  • 15 Custom page templates for archives and different sidebar pages (Unlimited usage)
  • Simple theme options panel
  • Custom page and post options panel
  • 10 custom widgets (flickr, twitter, social icons, mini slider, content slider, recent posts, popular posts, recent comments, custom categories, mini folio)
  • Built in ajax/php contact page template with form validation
  • Built in style support for contact form 7 and WP pagenavi plugin
  • Single post features include author bio, related posts and 5-level threaded comments with gravatar support
  • Inline advertisement blocks for single posts. Managed via post options panel
  • Style elements like accordion, tabs, toggle, notification boxes etc.
  • PrettyPhoto image display
  • Timthumb image resize for images
  • Language localization support (Sample .po and .mo files included)
  • Sample dummy data in .txt and .xml format for easy setup. (Individual xml for pages, posts and all content)
  • Step-by-step guide and detailed documentation for theme installation and configuration
  • Supported on all major browsers
  • Javascript fallback functionality (All JS effects degrade gracefully upon non-availability of javascript).

Update Log

Jan 06, 2012: Version 1.4

  • Added CSS for Languages with RTL orientation.
  • Added Mobile version CSS for SmartPhones with portrait and landscape orientation.
  • Added a short code for posts with big thumbnails left aligned.
  • Files to add/replace:
    rtl.css
    smartphone.css
    footer.php
    includes/shortcodes/shortcodes.php
    includes/shortcodes/js/posts_sc.js

Dec 23, 2011: Version 1.3

  • Added an optional theme without timthumb. Now you can have native WP Thumbnails.
  • Added two more templates for default category/archive/tag/author pages.
  • Single post advertisements made global. You need not update all posts. Same ad can be shown on all posts. Each post can override the global ad, and can have it’s own ad too.
  • Short codes enabled for advertisement areas in single post. You can also hide ads per post.

Dec 18, 2011: Same Version 1.2

  • Changed h2 tags on post headings to h1 on entire site.
  • Added CSS styles for different advertisement blocks. (Check the advertisements page on live preview). Sample code is included in final download.
  • Fixed a sidebar bug for single post and pages. Now they will show default sidebar if no sidebars are defined.

Dec 17, 2011: Version 1.2

  • Added multi columnar layout for blog. You can now create a two columnar layout with sidebar A or sidebar B.
  • Added advertisement blocks above and below single post content. Can be managed via post options panel, per post.
  • Fixed a validation issue for prettyPhoto rel attribute.

Dec 13, 2011: Version 1.1

  • Added social sharing buttons for single posts.
  • Added a navigation menu on top section for pages.
  • Added multiple sized sliders for use on different layout pages.
  • Added more post list short codes to show 4 columnar and 5 columnar list.
  • Added visual short codes to insert these sliders and posts.

How to install updates?

  • Take a backup of your old files that you have modified. (Generally style.css, or some other core files).
  • Download the latest theme and replace the old one on your server.
  • Re-implement your custom changes inside the files that you modified.

Sources and Credits

I have used images for live preview from the following artists, as listed:

30928442@N08
pinksherbet
pinkpurse
37873897@N06
53370644@N06
ana_cotta
andrewmalone
arndw
aussiegall
burtoo
d2k6
galant
hamed
nanpalmero
smanography
wolfworld
31064702@N05

The above mentioned images are copyrighted to their respective owners, and are Creative Commons-licensed for commercial use, adaptation, modification or building upon. The images are used for demo purpose and are NOT included with the download. I am grateful to all these artists/photographers for providing the content for use under ‘Creative Commons Attribution’ for the community.

Social networking icons by KomodoMedia.

Thank you for stopping by and browsing my theme. If you have any questions related to the theme, you can ask on the comments section, or drop me a mail from my profile message box. I’d be glad to respond to your queries.