Steam – Responsive Retina Review Magazine Theme

A review site fills up with articles fast and becomes unreadable: the best content gets buried, readers don't know what to read first, and every rating looks like a stray opinion. Steam is built to bring order to that chaos with carousels, rankings and a built-in rating system.

Why a review site needs more than a blog

Anyone publishing reviews has a problem an ordinary blog doesn't: readers arrive looking for a conclusion (what to buy, what to watch, what to avoid) and leave if they can't find it at a glance. Also, a review from last month can be more useful than yesterday's. Steam tackles this with AJAX filters that sort the listing by most recent, highest editor rated, highest user rated, most viewed, most commented, most liked or most awarded, without reloading the page.

Carousels and rankings to drive the front page

• Trending: a carousel with AJAX filter controls to show what is moving right now.
• Sizzlin': rotates the articles you choose.
• Top Ten: ranks posts by several metrics within a timeframe you define.
• Featured and sidecar: with hover navigation buttons, also in a side carousel.
• Slider Revolution jQuery: a layered slider for the header.

The carousels support embedded video and three pre-defined layouts (small, medium and full-width). You can hide the ones you don't use from the options.

The rating system Steam includes

Scores can be displayed as stars, numbers, percentages or letter grades, with weighted criteria. Editor ratings, user ratings or both are supported, and you can rank all reviews by either. Users can write detailed reviews from the comments, and the total score updates live with AJAX. It includes Google rich snippet and schema.org integration for reviews.

How each type of site uses it

A single review publication

You get the three main layouts (right sidebar, left sidebar or full-width), the Top Reviewed, Reviews and Trending Articles widgets, and the related posts engine with five algorithms to choose from.

A portal with several thematic sections

Steam works with minisites: a one-click minisite builder, minisite directories (two types, four styles, two layouts) and a mega menu that loads posts for each minisite, category or tag. The page builder lets you compose the front page, archives and standard pages, unique for each minisite.

A community or a shop with editorial content

It is compatible with BuddyPress and WooCommerce, and the sticky top bar offers login, account and register. It adds an awards and badges system defined by you, and live views and likes stats.

Design and performance details

It is built on Bootstrap, with validated HTML5, retina ready, responsive from 1140 px down to mobile, and icon fonts to lighten loading. It includes 630 Google fonts, 130 icons, unlimited sidebars, 30 footer layouts, its own ad network (supports Google AdSense and others), fields for Analytics, custom CSS and JavaScript, and an options importer and exporter. It is translatable with a .po file.

Demo images are not included

The demo photos don't come in the download: the demo XML contains placeholders, so you'll have to add images you have the rights to use. It is also a design from another era (based on Bootstrap 2.x and browsers such as IE9 and IE10), so don't expect the current block editor: check in the demo that it fits you.

Frequently asked questions

Is it useful for anything other than reviews?

Yes, as a magazine or blog with carousels and rankings, but its strength lies in the ratings and filters.

Can readers give scores?

Yes: you can enable the editor rating, the user rating or both.

Can I place ads?

Yes, with its own ad network, compatible with Google AdSense and other vendors.

Does it support a shop?

It is compatible with WooCommerce, but its strength is editorial content, not the shop.