Blewspaper is a magazine-style WordPress block theme built entirely on the Full Site Editor. Designed for newspapers, blogs, and content-heavy publications, it delivers a professional editorial experience without relying on any page builder or third-party plugin.

Key Features

Full Site Editor Native — Every template and template part is editable directly in the WordPress Site Editor. No shortcodes, no widgets, no legacy systems. Pure block-based architecture from header to footer.

Sticky Header with Off-Canvas Navigation — A clean header bar with site logo, contribute button, and search trigger. The hamburger menu slides in a full-height panel with navigation links, social icons, and copyright notice. The header animates into a sticky position on scroll.

AJAX Comment System — Custom-built comment section with threaded replies, paginated loading, and honeypot spam protection. Comments submit via AJAX without page reload. Includes a sticky comment form that stays visible while scrolling through the discussion thread.

Social Sharing — Post-level sharing links for Facebook, Pinterest, X, and LinkedIn with view count display. Icons are lightweight SVGs with no external dependency.

Featured Video Section — Responsive video embed with a vertically-rotated heading alongside the player, creating a distinctive editorial layout.

Horizontal Category Slider — A scrollable row of category chips with navigation arrows. Responsive breakpoints adjust visible slides from 4 on desktop down to 1 on mobile.

Post Snippet Cards — Multiple layout variants for post listings including full-width grids, sidebar compact lists, and home page cards with featured image, category, author, date, and excerpt.

Author Box with Social Links — Displays avatar, name, bio, and social media links sourced from WordPress user meta fields. No per-block configuration needed.

Sidebar Widgets — Tag cloud, custom archive with category listings, editors choice grid, and numbered post lists with image thumbnails. Multiple sidebar variants for different page contexts.

Search Modal — Full-screen overlay search with animated scale-in transition and dedicated close button.

Post Navigation — Previous, next, and random post links with customisable labels via the block sidebar.

Newsletter Subscription — Built-in email subscription form integrated with Mailchimp API.

Contact Page — Dedicated template with contact form and Google Maps embed.

Design Tokens — Centralised CSS custom properties for colours, spacing, typography, borders, and transitions. Change the entire colour scheme by editing five variables.

Performance — No jQuery dependency. Vanilla JavaScript for all interactions. Lightweight SVG icons. Google Fonts loaded via CSS import.

Requirements

WordPress 6.4 or higher, PHP 7.4 or higher.

• Full Site Editor block theme — no page builders or legacy widgets
• 26 custom blocks under the blewspaper/ namespace
• Sticky header with scroll-triggered animation
• Off-canvas hamburger navigation with social links
• AJAX comment system with threaded replies and honeypot spam protection
• Paginated comment loading without page reload
• Social sharing for Facebook, Pinterest, X, and LinkedIn
• Post view counter with formatted display
• Featured video section with rotated heading
• Horizontal category slider with responsive breakpoints
• Multiple post snippet card layouts
• Author box with social links from user meta
• Search modal with animated overlay
• Previous, next, and random post navigation
• Tag cloud and custom archive widgets
• Editors choice post grid
• Newsletter subscription with Mailchimp integration
• Contact form with Google Maps embed
• Centralised design token system with CSS custom properties
• Responsive design with desktop-first breakpoints
• Zero jQuery dependency — vanilla JavaScript only
• Lightweight SVG icons with no external libraries
• Google Fonts: Source Sans Pro, Lato, PT Sans
• WordPress 6.4+ and PHP 7.4+ compatible

• WordPress 6.4 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• Node.js and npm (only if rebuilding custom blocks)
• A Mailchimp API key (only if using the newsletter subscription feature)

Installation

Download the theme zip file. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme. Select the zip file and click Install Now. Activate the theme once installation completes.

Editing Templates

Go to Appearance > Editor to open the Full Site Editor. All templates (Home, Single Post, Archive, Search, 404, Contact) and template parts (Header, Footer) are fully editable. Click on any block to modify its settings in the sidebar panel.

Setting Up the Header

The header includes the site logo, hamburger navigation, contribute link, and search trigger. To change the site logo, go to Settings > General or edit the Site Logo block directly in the Site Editor.

Author Social Links

Go to Users > Profile. Scroll down to the Contact Info section where you will find fields for X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub, and Pinterest URLs. Fill in the URLs and the Author Box block will display them automatically on posts.

Post View Counter

Post views are tracked automatically via the blewspaper_post_views post meta field. The Social Share block displays the formatted count alongside sharing links.

Newsletter Subscription

The Subscribe Form block connects to the Mailchimp API. Add your Mailchimp API key and list ID in the theme settings to enable email subscriptions.

Rebuilding Blocks

If you need to modify any custom block, navigate to the our-blocks directory in the theme folder. Run npm install to set up dependencies, then npm run build to compile the blocks. The source files are in our-blocks/src and the compiled output goes to our-blocks/build.

Design Tokens

All colours, spacing, typography, and transition values are defined as CSS custom properties in assets/css/tokens.css. To change the brand colour, update the --color1 variable. To change the background, update --color4. All components reference these tokens automatically.