Designing and developing great themes is a fun process but nothing happens exactly as planned. Our initial vision of a theme inevitably evolves into something very different by the time its complete. Luckily, it always looks better than what we had in mind. This is exactly how our newest theme – City Desk – came to fruition.
Wish you had an all-in-one newspaper theme? That’s the thought process behind this extremely powerful. option-filled theme. When we started to design City Desk, we didn’t want to create just another newspaper theme. Instead, we chose to focus on the following:
Some of the sleek features incorporated are due to our great community. Many members shared their expectations from a magazine theme and we went to work based on valuable input. The end-result is City Desk – an all-in-one WordPress newspaper theme.
Blog layouts are boring! The big players in the online news world have different layouts for categories, and now you can too. We have redefined the concept of inner page layouts with City Desk. You don’t have to display all your categories/tags/author pages in the classic blog format anymore. You have the option to use the unique magazine style to give each category a magazine / front page layout.
In addition to that, we have included 2 columns and multimedia gallery category templates as well. From the theme control panel, you can define any category to be displayed using any of these layouts.
Want more than just basic drop-down navigation menus from a premium theme? Well, we spent a good amount of time discussing this with some of our most active users and even revising it several times during the development phase. Now you can take advantage of Smart Navigation designed not only to provide easy navigation across your site, but also to encourage visitors to stay on your site longer. The Smart Navigation is a two-dimensional panel divided into sub-navigation items and the most recent entries within that topic.
Some of our users wanted to take advantage of large photos to showcase their articles, whereas others preferred a more conservative use of the featured area. We listened. With one click on the theme control panel, you can swap the large featured slider with an equally effective slider of a smaller size. You decide – no coding required!
If a beautiful front-page isn’t enough, and multiple category layouts haven’t got you convinced, then how about the ability to choose from two different post layouts? City Desk allows you to switch between two types of post layouts by simply adding a tag to the post. You can even decide what tag to use as the trigger to display posts with a Big-Picture layout which has a built-in function that will automatically retrieve all the photos in a post and display them neatly along with their captions. See examples below:
While our demo shows one header type, City Desk actually has five (5) header types. You can choose between the following:
Simply select the header type you want from the theme’s control panel. Easy – no coding required.
Running a news site requires content no matter where it comes from. We have taken into consideration that having your visitors involved in writing or submitting articles is a great way to create more engagement between your site and visitors. To make that easier for both parties, we designed a simple Sign Up and Contribute pop-up window along with a neat Author Badge widget. Both the Contribute and Author Badge widgets are optional and can be turned off with a single click on the theme options panel.
Got writers? The Gabfire community requested that columnists be recognized in a separate area on the front page. After all, credit should be given to your writers for their contributions. In that regard, we implemented a slider which is configurable to display a post of selected author(s) or standard entries.
As a standard Gabfire Themes feature, we have implemented our awesome media gallery module into City Desk too. You can post any media entries under multimedia custom post type and the theme will handle the rest.
Wish you had an all-in-one newspaper theme? City Desk is your answer. Competing with large online publishers privy to large budgets and staff is tough, so let City Desk give you the same website features and advantages. For less than the cost of a round of drinks, you can have a professional news or magazine site in no time.
See City Desk in action or purchase your copy today..
We love to design themes that are highly functional and used by successful websites throughout the web. In short, we are experts at harnessing the power of WordPress to make sites work as they should.
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Ljuba: 
Cosmo:
ericm Permalink
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Wow guys….truly fantastic work. You knocked this out of the park!
Simply outstanding.
daily theme Permalink
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Look great. The first of new year. Thanks.
Kreativ Theme Permalink
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This theme looks great for startup newspapers, but also for those that need to change their news websites … Nice one!
Tony Permalink
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Have most of your themes and have been waiting patiently for the next great move by Gabfire.
You have got another winner here!!
Ljuba Permalink
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Great theme Mehmet, Will be checking it
Thnx
Tutspress Permalink
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City Desk is unique. Great job guys.
Kalle Permalink
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Wow, guys, this looks amazing! Congratulations on a job VERY well done!
Lúcio Permalink
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Do you also will upgrade the other newspaper themes with some features from CityDesk, like Smart Navigation, for instance?
Just great newspaper theme.
Brigitte Jaeger-Dabek Permalink
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Well: What I see is great !! I am a quite happy buyer and user (2 years) of the advanced newspaper theme, and never thought about changing the theme. By today this new theme will be the winner of all your newspaper/magazine themes, congratulations Mehmet! Very well done!
Regards, Brigtte
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Thank you very much for nice comment Brigitte. I am glad that we were able to change your mind to replace your theme :)
Ed Sutherland Permalink
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City Desk is another winner. I love the ability to scale-down the front page image — I think the two-column graphic looks best inside. I’ll have to check how the design adapts to a tablet. Either way, another Gabfire goes on my to-buy list.
Daniel Permalink
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Loved. Default post template is beautiful, the post summary option is pretty useful. Category templates rocks.
I am currently using NewsPro, but think I will change to City Desk. Wonder only if I would be able to easily reduce the home elements (say, ending in the 728×90 banner), since I don’t have a great number of categories constantly updated.
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Yes Daniel, you can easily disable the sections below 728 ad spot via theme control panel.
Richard Dennis Permalink
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Mehmet,
City Desk is a solid winner !!! I expect this theme to be the best News Theme by years end.. The features, the function is simply stunning. I am glad to be back in the GABFIRE Family-
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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We will like to see you using this theme Richard (:
tarik zekraoui Permalink
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Bonjour,
Excellente Template. Gabfire est de plus en plus le maitre incontesté des templates wordpress pour les magazines et site d’actualités.
City Desk est génial.
Bonne continuation
Fabio Di Giorgi Permalink
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MAMMA MIA! I am very impressed with this theme. Watching him gave me new energy to upgrade my newspaper. The reasons for the success of Gabfire are in the capacity of the development team to create new products including all you need to customize without using plug-ins. Great Job Mehmet!…
I’ll buy it.
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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:) Thanks for very nice words Fabio. We really appreciate for your kind message.
paul velasco Permalink
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Have been with Gabfire since I launched my site back in 2008/2009
Advanced Newspaper was great – City Desk is a brilliant evolution.
In terms of support no one compares to Mehmet BoyLogik and the crew.
Thanks for your efforts
Tim Lavallee Permalink
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I LOVE this theme, but I just adopted Transcript and that suit my needs best right now for the amount of content we are able to produce. However are you able to work the Contribute and Author Badge/pop out and the columnists zone into other themes? Would you release either as a free or paid plugin to users? I would love both. I especially love the widgetized author bio. Thanks!
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Hi Tim,
Widgetized author bio is a part of framework and will be included into update of transcript theme. But contribute is a theme specific function. I doubt if we would ever release that function as a plugin or widget.
Tim Lavallee Permalink
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Thank you for letting me know. City Desk is my first choice for our next theme change! In the meantime I will look forward to the Transcript update :)
Vanguard Printing LLC Permalink
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Great newspaper theme layout! Thanks for sharing. I will take a look at this.
Nancy Permalink
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Very nice theme. For the nice features, there are no social buttons for users to follow on facebook and twitter etc
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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We have built-in socialize widget. You can add 14 different network links into any section on site including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr…
Sam Permalink
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Can anyone post a link to a live website using citydesk?
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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You can check YallaF1.com
Joe Permalink
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Does City Desk has all the features of Advanced NewsPaper; and
include “Category Based Ads Module.
Does users has the option of using three or two column layout.
Please comment.
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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City Desk and Advanced Newpaper are both built on same framework, they both have all the same functionality and features. The user can not select the layout of category. It is set by site admin on backend.
ariairan Permalink
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hello
very nice
I am very impressed with this theme
but i am new here and i have some problem can you help me?
anybody know what is this m : “The theme update script is in BETA state. Please do not use this script to update your theme before Alpha release. We strongly suggest you to update your theme manually”
i had enter API Key and after i had m : “Key Previously Activated For This Domain”
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Dear Ariairan,
Please use support forums for theme support, we do not provide support via comments. The key previously activated for this domain means your theme has been registered already, you do not need to re-activate it again.
Moha Permalink
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This is nice Theme for news sites Before I buy I Want to know whether it is possible to make the theme more clean by inserting spaces so that it becomes clean?
I am not good at editing css
thanks
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Hi Moha,
Can you please clarify what exactly you meant by inserting spaces?
Moha Permalink
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mehmet I mean on the frontpage of the theme I want it to be more clean so that all posts on the frontpage to have spaces between them like this site http://newsfountain.org/. and the title text to be bigger.
thanks
Moha Permalink
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any how I have purchased and joined gabfire themes users so I will let you know any assistance I need.
Thanks
Joe Permalink
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Any plans to make City Desk a mobile responsive layout?
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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It works just fine on my mobile Joe. If you would like to have a different theme for mobile browsers which loads faster with a simple theme, there are some WP plugins such as WpTouch and WordPress Mobile Pack.
abdurabb Permalink
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Very good design.. I love it
Niels Permalink
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Hi Mehmet – City Desk looks awesome! And got most of what a local media needs.
I have some questions:
* Will there be an event/calender function in the future?
* If not – or untill – can you reccomend a event/calender function/plugin that will work with the theme?
* How about the possibility of having a forum on the site?
* It looks like there will a need for a better ad-module – one that documents every single ad. Do you have any advice on this?
All the best
Niels
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Hi Niels,
We are not going to get into Event and Forum areas. Event Espresso and Mingle Forums will work just fine for you. As for ad module, you can use AdRotate plugin.
Tawanda Kanhema Permalink
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This came just in time for our next upgrade. Thanks guys for incorporating premium features into this theme. When is the next update?
Times of Assam Permalink
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Mehmet, we are using Adv Newspaper theme, and thinking to upgrade with City Desk.
Just want to confirm the price and the core issue. My concern is, whether I can opt for Photo gallery to view in the wide view gallery of the homepage or it is default to be taken from the news? If it takes the photos from Photo category, then its fine and we will buy it soon.
Mehmet Ozek Permalink
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Using theme control panel, you can set any of your category to be displayed in format of media gallery. So, as to answer your question, there is no problem to set your photo gallery category to display in this format.