Videozoom has been our video theme since 2011 — and Videozoom 5.0 is the biggest update it has ever had. It’s a full redesign: a new default look, a new slider, a rebuilt mobile experience, and a faster, cleaner, modernized codebase under the hood.
If you’re on an existing site, nothing changes until you want it to — your current style stays exactly as it is. If you’re starting fresh, here’s what you’ll find.
Meet “Editorial”: the new default style
The headline of this release is a brand-new theme style called Editorial — a minimal, black-and-white video magazine. Thin and bold typography (Inter Tight), hairline borders, a wider 1400px layout, big 16:9 video cards, and a navigation bar that pins itself to the top as you scroll.
It’s the default for new installs. Existing sites keep whatever style they’re using today — switch anytime in Theme Options → General → Theme Style, where the classic Dark and Light styles are still right there beside it. Read the docs →
Dark mode, with a toggle your visitors control
Editorial ships with two color schemes, and a Dark Mode toggle in the header lets visitors switch between them. Their choice is remembered on their next visit.
You decide what first-time visitors see: Dark, Light, or System — which follows the visitor’s own device preference. Set it in Theme Options → General → Default Color Scheme, and turn the toggle itself on or off from the same screen. Read the docs →
A cinematic slider
The featured slider has a new default look, Cinematic: full-width, with the featured image blurred into the background and the video and text laid over it. The previous boxed design is still available as Classic.
Under the hood the slider now runs on Swiper, which means proper touch and mouse dragging — on the main slider and on the thumbnail carousel. In the Editorial style that carousel is a draggable 16:9 rail with captions, and it’s visible on mobile too. Navigation arrows now sit over the video on every screen size, with pagination dots below. Read the docs →
Theme Options you can actually see
Small change, big difference: Theme Style, Slider Style and Default Color Scheme are now visual pickers with layout previews instead of dropdowns. You can tell what “Cinematic” means before you pick it.
Options that only apply to Editorial are hidden when you’re using another style, so the screen stays clean.
A mobile menu rebuilt from scratch
Videozoom used to have two separate mobile menus. 5.0 replaces them with a single hamburger button and accordion submenus at any depth — clean, predictable, and it works the way people expect.
There’s also a new optional Mobile Menu location under Appearance → Menus. Assign a menu there and it shows on phones instead of your Main Menu — handy if your desktop navigation is too deep for a small screen. Read the docs →
Updating from 4.x? The Top Menu no longer appears inside the mobile menu. If you relied on that, add those items to your Main Menu or assign a dedicated Mobile Menu.
Faster, by subtraction
A lot of 5.0 is about what we removed. The jQuery FlexSlider, mmenu, Superfish, FitVids and Modernizr libraries are gone — roughly 150KB of legacy JavaScript and 2,300 lines of CSS. Dropdown menus are now pure CSS with keyboard support. Footer widget columns use CSS grid, so spacing is even at any column count.
And things load only when they’re needed: slider assets only on pages that show the slider, the video lightbox script only when that option is on, and icon fonts are no longer loaded on the front end at all.
Everything else from recent updates
If you haven’t updated in a while, 5.0 lands on top of a busy few months:
- Video Background on Hover — a short clip plays when visitors hover a post thumbnail. Upload an MP4 or trim one straight from a YouTube or Vimeo URL. (4.3.2) — docs
- Capture Frame as Featured Image — pause a self-hosted video in the editor and set that exact frame as the post’s Featured Image. (4.3.1) — docs
- Grid / List toggle for visitors, a YouTube-style Modern grid, a video lightbox, and a choice of video player style. (4.3.0) — docs
Updating
Videozoom 5.0 is a free update for all license holders — you’ll see it under Dashboard → Updates, or grab the ZIP from your WPZOOM account.
One thing to do afterwards: clear the cache in any caching or optimization plugin, since so much of the front-end code changed.
New to Videozoom? See the demo or read the documentation — and let us know what you build with it.
