Digital Nomad WordPress theme

Download Digital Nomad Theme from GitHub

Configuration

Watch this tutorial on YouTube or follow these steps to set up theme correctly:

1. Use child theme. I have uploaded one here.
   NOTE: Learn more about child themes on WordPress.org.
2. Under Widgets add menu/about text for Header sidebar. Use “Custom HTML” widget.
3. In Customizer set:
   1. Under “Site Identity” set square “Logo” and “Site Icon”.
   2. Under “Homepage Settings” use “Your latest posts” as homepage display.
   3. Under “Digital Nomad Options”:
      1. Set “Background Image For Header”
      2. Set “Background Image For Footer”
      3. Set “Default Featured Image”, image used in post archives when no feature image is selected.
      4. Select static “Archive Page” which will be used as an archive for all posts. Date archives are disabled by default and will return 404 if no archive page is selected.
      5. Enable “Infinite Scroll” for latest posts, categories and tags. Custom post types and custom taxonomies are also supported.
      6. Enable “Lazyload” for latest posts, categories and tags. NOTE: Images in posts are not natively lazy-loaded
      7. Set “Background Image For Next & Previous Pager” for <noscript> support.
4. That’s it!

NOTE: Every time you install new theme disable cache plugins since they add new layer of complexity. Turn cache plugins back on after everything is configured correctly.

Recommended Plugins

• reSmush.it Image Optimizer
  Digital Nomad theme relies heavy on images. reSmush.it is free service providing image size reduction based on several advanced algorithms. The API accept JPG, PNG and GIF files up to 5MB.
• Yoast SEO
  My favorite option when it comes to SEO plugin for WordPress. Yoast SEO generates sitemap.xml, sets page titles, creates metatags, etc.
• Code Syntax Block
  A plugin to extend Gutenberg code block with syntax highlighting.
• WP Super Cache
  Do not leave your site without enabled cache. WP Super Cache from Automattic does a great job.

Post-installation Actions

• Feature Requests
  Send feature request for Digital Nomad theme.
• Leave a review
  If you like Digital Nomad, review the theme on WordPress.org.

What theme does and does not

• Theme doesn’t require jQuery so (after additional optimization) you can easily reach out high score in Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
• Theme doesn’t support post-formats. I have personally never used this WordPress feature and that’s why I didn’t add support.
• Theme lacks built-in feature for GoogleFonts. Our motivation for working on open-source projects is mostly internal satisfaction, right? GoogleFonts harms my internal satisfaction. They mean additional requests, additional bandwidth, another privacy leak. I don’t like them, I don’t want them. But I understand that some of you like them, some of you want them. We can make a deal: Create a snipped code which can be inserted into child’s function.php and I will write documentation. If you read this sentence, so far nobody did so 🙂
• Theme supports navigation menus (first level only, no sub-items). You can also use short “menu/about text” in the header which can be hotlinked to various sections within or outside of the site. This is the preferred way of navigational hotlinking for the Digital Nomad theme.

Send me your translation

If you have translated the theme, please pass me the files and I will add them to the repo (and backlink you from this post). These people did so far:

• Mr.unclesam – Russian translation

@TODO

• Add native lazy-loading for post images.
• Add Medium like zoom for post images.

Theme was inspired by Pieter’s Nomadlist.com.

Some wise words on the end

It’s not in theme, it’s in the content! But good theme also helps.