FlagshipDiode
- Free
- Magazine
- 4 styles
- WordPress 7.0+
- PHP 7.4+
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Overview
A dark, engineered block theme for tech news and gadget reviews: hairline grids, mono metadata, one electric accent, score rings, scorecards and a live version log.
Diode is built for sites that test things and report on them: tech news, gadget and app reviews, developer news and newsletters about AI and consumer tech. It is dark by default, drawn with 1px hairlines like a spec sheet, and set in Sora for headlines, Inter for reading and Fira Code for every date, kicker, badge and score. One electric accent (blue) marks what is live, what is recommended and what you can click.
Made for reviewers
- Reviews first. Score rings, criteria bars drawn as segmented meters with mono values, pros and cons, a verdict and an "Editor's choice" tab.
- Scorecard and specs. A three-product comparison table, a two-column spec table and a "test bench" table for your method, all editable core tables.
- Deals. A row of deals with prices and an honest "Affiliate link" label on each.
- Changelog. Live updates styled as a version log: time in mono, key events as tags.
- Terminal front page. The breaking ticker under a prompt, the lead headline typed large with a blinking cursor, a bento grid of the newest stories, the top-rated review as a spec sheet and a launch board.
- Keynote hero. A looping background video (a slow pan over fibre-optic light) under the live story.
- Everything a newsroom needs. Live blogs that update while readers watch, story formats, bylines, key points, corrections, sponsored labels and filters.
Built in
- Patterns: 37, including five heroes (terminal, spec sheet, bento, keynote video, launch board), scorecard, specs, deals and changelog sections, stories, video and photo sections, forms, membership pitch and full pages (About, Contact, Videos, Gallery, Landing).
- Templates for the home page, single stories in every format, sections, tags, authors, search and 404, plus Landing page, Wide page and Front page (no title).
- Style variations: Default (electric blue on near-black), Phosphor (green CRT), Ultraviolet (violet) and Paper (white, black and red), each with its own light and dark tones (Paper is light only).
- Forms, galleries with a lightbox, featured video, gentle motion, reading progress and share buttons, light and dark schemes. No page builder.
Questions
Do I need a plugin?
Live updates, review scores, section colors, sponsors and author profiles are entered with the free Secure Custom Fields plugin; Diode offers to install it with one click. Without it every page still displays, but the extra fields can't be edited.
How do I run a live blog?
Open the story, set "Live coverage" to Live in the story's details and add entries (time, title, text, key event). Readers on the page see new entries without reloading. Set it to Ended when coverage is over.
How do I give a section its color?
Posts → Categories → edit the category and choose its color (and an optional image). Cards, kickers and the section page use it.
Where do messages from the forms go?
Every message (tips, contact, newsletter) is saved under Messages in the dashboard and emailed to the site's admin email address. Change the recipient under Messages → Settings or in the form block's settings.
How do I get the demo newsroom?
Appearance → Import demo imports "Coastal newsroom": six sections, fourteen stories (live, breaking, reviews, opinion, video, gallery, sponsored), the Home, Reviews, About, Standards and Contact pages and a menu. You can remove it again from the same screen.
How does dark mode work?
The moon/sun button in the header switches between the light and the dark edition and remembers the choice on that device; until then it starts dark. The Paper style variation is light for everyone.
Can I turn off the animations?
Visitors who ask their device for reduced motion get a calm site automatically (the ticker and the background video stop). To remove an animation from a block, open the block's Motion panel in the editor.
All versions
- 1.0.0WordPress 7.0+ · PHP 7.4+ZIP · 2.3 MB
- First release.
SHA-256
6b6c567622bb8786cd1c97dbfef25fad4e918a6c6b4b0ff763928444226996fd
Credits
Diode WordPress Theme, (C) 2026 Symelo LTD. Diode is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL.
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Symelo Theme Kit (inc/kit) and the Symelo magazine foundation (inc/foundation) License: GPLv2 or later (C) 2026 Symelo LTD
Schibsted Grotesk License: SIL Open Font License, 1.1 (assets/fonts/schibsted-grotesk/OFL.txt) Copyright 2023 The Schibsted-Grotesk Project Authors Source: https://github.com/schibsted/schibsted-grotesk
Source Serif 4 License: SIL Open Font License, 1.1 (assets/fonts/source-serif-4/OFL.txt) Copyright 2014 The Source Serif 4 Project Authors Source: https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-serif
Images in inc/foundation/demo/images used by Diode: headphones (technology-8), fiber-light (technology-3), radio-dish (technology-11), wind-farm (technology-6), glass-tower (architecture-4); the others belong to the shared demo set. Photographs from the WordPress Photo Directory (CC0). The keynote video (assets/videos/fiber-pan.mp4) is a pan over fiber-light, made by Symelo LTD and distributed under the GPLv2 or later. Fonts: Sora (SIL OFL 1.1), Inter (SIL OFL 1.1) and Fira Code (SIL OFL 1.1), bundled in assets/fonts with their licenses. Video assets/videos/harbour-loop.mp4 and its poster: made from the harbour image above Source: Symelo placeholder library (https://symelo.com/tools/placeholder-images), (C) 2026 Symelo LTD, distributed with the theme under the GPLv2 or later
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