Features • Requirements • Installation • Auto-updates • Screenshots • Theme Options • FAQ • Roadmap • Branches & Releases • Development • Support
High-performance custom WordPress theme for technology, gaming, and news portals. Built around a strict zero external plugins philosophy — every feature is bundled into the theme itself and exposed through an 11-tab admin panel.
Note
Status: Production-ready. Continuously evolving via feat/fix releases.
- ✅ Self-contained architecture — no third-party plugin dependencies for core functionality. Markdown rendering, syntax highlighting, charts, and all features ship inside the theme itself.
- ✅ After the first manual install, the theme automatically checks GitHub for new releases every 24 hours. When a new version is published, the standard WordPress "Update available" notice appears — one click updates the theme, exactly like themes from the official repository.
- ✅ Write posts in Markdown syntax (similar to GitHub READMEs) and have them rendered automatically through Parsedown. Code blocks are highlighted via Prism.js, loaded only on single posts to preserve performance.
- ✅ Every feature is exposed via a dedicated tab — Dashboard, General, Images & Media, Performance, Security & Privacy, Integrations, SEO, Monetization, Statistics, Maintenance, and Backup. All settings are documented inline with contextual help for each option.
- ✅ Native Content Security Policy (Report-Only + Enforce modes with custom origins editor), login protection (rate limit + hide URL via configurable slug), HTTP security headers (X-Frame-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy), XML-RPC disabled in four layers, and defense-in-depth
defined('ABSPATH')guards across all PHP files.
- ✅ Critical CSS inline with async stylesheet loading (per-template), automatic WebP/AVIF generation for uploaded images with
<picture>wrap, lazy iframe facade system for YouTube and Discord embeds, font preload of critical variants, WordPress bloat removal (emojis, Gutenberg CSS, generator meta), and a CDN-ready image URL filter for one-line activation of Cloudflare/Bunny/KeyCDN.
- ✅ Per-post view counter with automatic bot filtering and 30-minute IP deduplication. Dedicated Statistics tab with Chart.js visualizations: monthly growth, top posts, traffic trends. A 7-day activity chart is also embedded on the Dashboard for quick overview.
- ✅ One-click export of all theme settings to JSON. Import flow includes a structured preview before applying changes (shows added, modified, and removed keys). Restore from any prior export. All changes are audited locally — no external services contacted.
- ✅ Reading time estimate on every post, Sticky Table of Contents (FAB-style on long posts), Related Posts at the end of single posts (algorithm based on shared categories and tags), Author Bio Box with social links, and Search Suggestions with debounced AJAX autocomplete.
- ✅ Dedicated print stylesheet that hides all UI chrome and ads, forces white background and high-contrast text, and shows external link URLs inline. Lighthouse Accessibility score of 100/100 on both mobile and desktop, with ARIA landmarks, skip-to-content link, and keyboard navigation on all interactive elements.
- ✅ Granular cookie consent banner with 4 categories (necessary, analytics, marketing, integrations), Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags, native sitemap (configurable), customizable
robots.txt, Schema.org JSON-LD for posts and Organization, and HTTP 503 maintenance mode that preserves SEO.
- ✅ Built-in support for GitHub Sponsors, PayPal (with QR code), and PIX (with QR code and copy-paste key). Discord server widget. Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, Facebook Pixel, TikTok Pixel, Plausible, and Umami integrations. Eight social network links. Ad zones for AdSense — page-level banners (728×90, 320×100) and a sticky sidebar slot (300×600) via panel, plus a generic ad/banner widget for free placement — and a global header script slot. Donations and the Discord server widget are configured as WP widgets (Appearance → Widgets).
Important
✔️ WordPress 6.0 or later (tested with 6.9.4 and 7.0) ✔️ PHP 8.0 or later (CI-verified 8.0–8.3 compatibility via PHPCompatibilityWP, actively tested on 8.3) ✔️ MariaDB 10.5+ (or MySQL equivalent) ✔️ HTTPS strongly recommended (required for CSP, secure cookies, and modern browser features)
There are two ways to install the ReloadeD theme on your WordPress site.
1 - Download the latest reloaded.zip from the Releases page.
2 - In your WordPress admin, navigate to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
3 - Select the downloaded reloaded.zip file and click Install Now.
4 - Once installation is complete, click Activate to apply the theme.
1 - Download and extract reloaded.zip locally.
2 - Upload the extracted reloaded folder to your server's wp-content/themes/ directory.
3 - In your WordPress admin, go to Appearance → Themes and click Activate on ReloadeD.
Note
After activation, the theme's control panel becomes available under ReloadeD in the WordPress admin sidebar (positioned right below Dashboard).
Tip
Beta channel users: to get pre-release builds with features in active testing, download the reloaded.zip from a release tagged as Pre-release on the Releases page. See Branches & Releases for the channel model.
After the first manual install, the theme automatically checks GitHub Releases for new versions every 24 hours. When a new stable release is published, the standard "Update available" notice appears on Appearance → Themes — one click updates the theme, exactly as if it came from the WordPress.org repository.
The auto-updater is built into the theme itself, with no external dependencies:
- 🔹 Queries the public GitHub API anonymously (no token required, no telemetry)
- 🔹 Compares the
Version:header instyle.cssagainst the latest GitHub release tag - 🔹 Downloads the binary
reloaded.zipasset attached to each release (not the auto-generated source tarball) - 🔹 Ignores pre-releases by default — only stable releases from the
masterbranch trigger update notices - 🔹 Renders release notes (rendered from Markdown) in the standard WordPress "View version details" modal
Tip
Use the Check for updates button in ReloadeD → Dashboard → Theme Updates to force an immediate check without waiting 24 hours. Useful right after a new release is published.
Note
Screenshots below reflect the sandbox at reloaded.com.br. Production version with real content will be added once the portal is live.
| Dashboard | Theme Updates card | Backup & Restore |
|---|---|---|
| screenshot soon | screenshot soon | screenshot soon |
| Statistics | CSP Reports | Frontend Home |
|---|---|---|
| screenshot soon | screenshot soon | screenshot soon |
After activation, the theme's control panel is accessible via ReloadeD in the WordPress admin sidebar. All settings are organized into 11 dedicated tabs.
Read-only landing page with current state at a glance — feature status badges, quick metrics (24h views, posts, comments), 7-day activity chart, theme update status, and quick action shortcuts.
Core theme behavior — UI controls, date formatting, and content presentation.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Back to top button | Floating button at the bottom-right for quick page-top navigation | ON |
| Top bar | Header strip with date, latest news ticker, and social links | ON |
| Featured image control | Per-post toggle to hide the featured image when reading (ideal for video posts) | ON |
| Comment accessibility | Adds labels and autocomplete attributes to the comment form | ON |
| "Read More" button text | Custom text for the excerpt button | Empty |
| Date format | PHP-style date format string | Empty |
| View counter | Per-post view tracking (1 IP = 1 view per 30 minutes, bots auto-filtered) | ON |
Image processing and next-generation format delivery.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Image hard crop | Forces exact crops on uploaded images for banner/card alignment | ON |
| JPEG quality | Image quality in % (WP default is 82). Lower = faster, less fidelity | 90 |
| Next-gen formats | Generate WebP and/or AVIF on upload (auto-detects Imagick/GD capabilities) | ON (AVIF) |
| Format mode | avif, webp, or both — controls which next-gen formats are generated |
avif |
| Regenerate attachments | One-click batch processor for existing Media Library images | — |
Technical optimizations — rendering, asset loading, and WordPress bloat removal.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Markdown | Enable Markdown syntax in posts (rendered via Parsedown) | ON |
| Code highlighting | Prism.js for code blocks (loaded only on single posts) | ON |
| Critical CSS | Inline above-the-fold CSS per template + async load main stylesheet | ON |
| Iframe facade system | Replace heavy iframes (YouTube, Discord) with lightweight placeholders | ON |
| Disable native emojis | Remove WordPress emoji script (modern browsers render emojis natively) | ON |
| Disable Gutenberg CSS | Remove Gutenberg block styles globally (recommended with Markdown) | ON |
| Hide WP version | Remove the <meta name="generator"> tag from the source code |
ON |
Hardening features and LGPD compliance — bundled into one tab.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Content Security Policy | Native CSP with Report-Only and Enforce modes, custom origins editor, REST endpoint for browser reports | Report-Only |
| Login protection | Rate limit failed attempts (configurable threshold + window) plus optional hide-login slug | ON |
| Trusted Proxy IPs | CIDR allowlist for header-spoof-safe IP detection (Cloudflare ranges hardcoded) | Empty |
| Cookie banner | Granular consent for 4 categories (necessary, analytics, marketing, integrations) | ON |
| Cookie banner text | Custom HTML for the banner (basic markup allowed) | Default LGPD message |
External analytics and marketing pixels (all opt-in, gated by cookie consent).
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Google Analytics | Tracking ID (e.g. G-XXXXXXX) |
Empty |
| Microsoft Clarity | Project ID for heatmaps | Empty |
| Facebook Pixel | Pixel ID | Empty |
| TikTok Pixel | Pixel ID | Empty |
| Plausible / Umami | Self-hosted analytics endpoint and domain | Empty |
| Discord server widget | Configured in the ReloadeD: Discord widget (Appearance → Widgets) — server ID, lazy-load facade and facade logo. Placement enables it | — |
| Social networks | 8 channels (Discord, Telegram, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, Twitter/X, Facebook, WhatsApp) | Empty |
Open Graph, Twitter Cards, Schema.org, sitemap, and meta verification.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Open Graph meta tags | Generate OG and Twitter Card tags for social previews | ON |
| OG fallback image | Default image used when a post has no featured image | Empty |
| Custom verification meta | Free-form textarea for Pinterest, Yandex, Facebook Domain, Naver, etc. | Empty |
| Native sitemap | Toggle the WordPress native sitemap output | ON |
robots.txt |
Custom rules appended to WordPress defaults | Empty |
Page-level and sticky ad zones. Donations (GitHub Sponsors, PayPal, PIX) and the sidebar-top ad moved to WP widgets — ReloadeD: Support the Project and ReloadeD: Ad / Banner (Appearance → Widgets), placed and ordered freely.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Global ads script | <head> global tag (e.g. AdSense Auto Ads) |
Empty |
| Top banner — desktop | Header banner for large screens (728×90) | Empty |
| Top banner — mobile | Header banner for small screens (320×100) | Empty |
| Sidebar sticky banner | Sidebar slot that follows scroll (300×600) | Empty |
Per-post view tracking and traffic analytics with Chart.js visualizations.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| View tracking | Master switch for the entire stats system (when off, no tracking and no UI) | ON |
| Monthly growth chart | Bar chart of views per month over the last 12 months | ON |
| Top posts ranking | Configurable list of most-viewed posts with their counts | ON |
| Activity trend | 7-day views per day chart (also embedded on the Dashboard tab) | ON |
Maintenance mode with developer bypass — preserves SEO via proper HTTP 503 status.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Maintenance mode | Block visitors and show a "back soon" page (returns HTTP 503 to crawlers) | OFF |
| Developer password | Bypass password stored as bcrypt hash. Access via yoursite.com/?rd-dev-login |
Empty |
| Maintenance message | Custom HTML message shown on the block page | Empty |
Export and restore all theme settings — perfect for staging-to-production sync.
| Setting | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Export settings | Download a JSON file with all theme configuration | — |
| Import settings | Upload a JSON file with structured preview of changes before applying | — |
| Restore from prior export | Browse and restore from any previously generated export | — |
Note
Can I use this theme on multiple sites?
Yes. The theme is licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later, so you can install it on as many sites as you want, modify it freely, and even redistribute modified versions as long as they remain under a GPL-compatible license.
Note
Does the theme work without an internet connection?
Yes. All rendering, security, and admin features work fully offline. The only network-dependent feature is the auto-updater, which silently fails (no errors thrown) if GitHub is unreachable — the theme continues to function with the currently installed version.
Note
How do I disable auto-updates?
There is no built-in toggle to disable them — the auto-updater is considered a core feature. If you really need to disable it, comment out the
require_once for inc/mod-self-update.php in functions.php. Be aware that you will lose update notifications and have to upgrade manually thereafter.
Note
Can I use a child theme?
Yes — standard WordPress child theme rules apply. Create a child theme with
Template: reloaded in its style.css header, override templates and styles as needed, and your customizations survive parent theme updates.
Note
Why no readme.txt in WordPress.org format?
The theme is distributed exclusively via GitHub Releases, not the official WordPress.org theme repository. The
readme.txt format is a requirement for wp.org submission only — this README.md covers all the equivalent information in a more flexible format.
Note
How do I report a security issue?
Please email finallf@reloaded.com.br directly instead of opening a public GitHub issue. Include a description of the vulnerability, affected versions, and reproduction steps if available. Responsible disclosure is appreciated — you will receive an acknowledgment within 48 hours.
Note
What languages is the theme available in?
The theme is English-first, with full Brazilian Portuguese translation (
pt_BR.po / pt_BR.mo) shipped in the languages/ folder. WordPress automatically loads the appropriate translation based on the site language setting. Additional translations are welcome via Pull Request.
Note
How can I contribute new features?
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full workflow. In short: fork the repo, create a feature branch from
beta, commit using Conventional Commits (the release pipeline relies on commit prefixes for version bumps), and open a Pull Request targeting beta.
ReloadeD evolves continuously. Active items and proposed features are tracked on the Issues page. Major directions on the horizon include a native newsletter system, public REST API for headless usage, and additional integrations (Mastodon, Bluesky). See the Releases page for what has shipped recently.
The project follows a two-channel release model managed by semantic-release. Releases are generated automatically from commit messages following the Conventional Commits specification.
| Branch | Channel | Use case |
|---|---|---|
master |
Stable | Production-ready releases. Recommended for live sites. The auto-updater follows this channel by default. |
beta |
Pre-release | Early testing of new features. Tagged as Pre-release on the Releases page and ignored by the auto-updater. |
Only certain commit types create a new release:
| Commit type | Triggers release? | Version bump |
|---|---|---|
feat: |
✅ Yes | Minor (1.2.0 → 1.3.0) |
fix: |
✅ Yes | Patch (1.2.0 → 1.2.1) |
Breaking change (feat!: or BREAKING CHANGE: footer) |
✅ Yes | Major (1.2.0 → 2.0.0) |
chore:, docs:, ci:, style:, refactor:, test:, build: |
❌ No | — |
Each release publishes a reloaded.zip file ready for WordPress installation (see Installation) — folder structure wrapped in reloaded/, dev-only files excluded. Download from the Releases page.
The CHANGELOG.md is regenerated automatically from commit history with each release.
ReloadeD is built with PHP 8.0+ on the WordPress framework, SCSS with the modular @use system, and vanilla JavaScript — no JS frameworks. Development tooling uses Composer (for PHPCS/WPCS lint) and npm (for Sass compilation and Critical CSS extraction), but neither is required at runtime — the theme ships with everything pre-compiled.
1 - Clone the repository into your local WordPress installation:
cd wp-content/themes/
git clone https://github.com/Finallf/theme-reloaded.git reloaded 2 - Open the reloaded folder in your IDE. The repository ships with .vscode/settings.json (workspace settings) and .vscode/extensions.json (recommended extensions) — VS Code offers to install the recommended extensions on first open.
3 - Activate the theme via Appearance → Themes in the WordPress admin.
4 - (Optional) Install dev dependencies for lint and tooling:
composer install # PHPCS + WordPress Coding Standards
npm install # Sass + Critical CSS extractorSCSS source files live in sass/. Two compilation paths are supported:
- 🔹 VS Code extension (Live Sass Compiler) — auto-compiles on save when VS Code opens. Settings versioned in
.vscode/settings.json. - 🔹 CLI via npm — for editors other than VS Code or CI usage:
npm run sass:build # one-shot compile
npm run sass:watch # watch and recompile on saveBoth produce the same assets/css/style.css output (committed to the repo, so end-users don't need any build step).
Note
Brand color tokens are defined in sass/base/_variables.scss. Primary palette: #031CFF ($brand-blue-dark), #00A8FF ($brand-blue-light), #151515 ($dark-bg). Typography: Inter and Poppins (self-hosted in assets/fonts/).
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
style.css |
Theme header (auto-bumped by semantic-release on each release) |
inc/ |
PHP modules — every feature in its own mod-*.php file (36 modules) |
lib/ |
Third-party runtime libraries (Parsedown, Prism, Chart.js) — single file each, no nesting |
assets/css/ |
Compiled CSS (generated by Sass, committed) |
assets/js/ |
Vanilla JavaScript (no build step) |
assets/fonts/ |
Self-hosted woff2 fonts (Inter, Poppins, JetBrains Mono) |
assets/img/ |
Brand assets and theme images |
sass/ |
SCSS source files (modular @use structure) |
docs/pt-BR/ |
Documentation in Brazilian Portuguese (architecture, modules, panel, CSP, etc.) |
languages/ |
Internationalization (.pot, .po, .mo) |
tools/critical/ |
Node-based Critical CSS extractor (dev tool, excluded from release ZIP) |
.github/workflows/ |
CI/CD pipelines (semantic-release + PHPCS lint on push) |
.vscode/ |
Versioned workspace settings and recommended extensions |
.editorconfig |
Editor consistency rules (4-space indent, LF, UTF-8) |
Follow the Conventional Commits specification on commit messages — the release pipeline relies on commit prefixes (feat:, fix:, etc.) to determine version bumps. See Branches & Releases for which types trigger a release. Full contribution workflow in CONTRIBUTING.md.
If this project has helped you in any way, consider buying me a coffee! Your donation helps keep the updates and documentation current.
🇧🇷 Se este projeto te ajudou de alguma forma, considere me pagar um café! Sua doação ajuda a manter as atualizações e a documentação.
| 🌎 GitHub Sponsors |  |
 PayPal |
|---|---|---|
| You can support me through GitHub Sponsors.  |
🇧🇷 Escaneie o QR Code: |
Click or scan the QR code: |
🇧🇷 Ou utilize a Chave Pix (Copia e Cola):
25d1d528-df10-4005-bb28-2acf89706243
Note
Full contribution guide: CONTRIBUTING.md
1 - Fork the repository.
2 - Create a feature branch from beta:
git checkout -b feat/my-feature
3 - Make changes and commit using Conventional Commits:
git commit -m "feat: add custom widget for related posts"
4 - Push to your fork:
git push origin feat/my-feature
5 - Open a Pull Request targeting beta (or master for critical hotfixes only).
Tip
Before opening a PR, recompile the SCSS (npm run sass:build or via Live Sass) to keep assets/css/style.css in sync. Since the compiled CSS is committed to the repository, untested SCSS changes can break the visual layer for everyone.
The following tools and technologies were used in the construction of this project:
💜 Thank you to everyone who contributed to the improvement of this project 😊
Finallf |
semantic-release-bot |
Warning
This project is licensed under: GPL-2.0-or-later license.