Introduction
This page is broken up into two sections: WordPress Functions and Added Functions. The WordPress area covers functionality already provided by WordPress. This section links heavily to WordPress's own documentation area. The Added Functions area is documentation concerning the custom functionality added to WordPress.
You can access the WordPress admin area by going to your-website/wp-admin. (www.example.com/wp-admin/)
WordPress Functions
Posts
Here are the basics for creating a post in WordPress. It's in this section that you will add blog posts, news, articles, and anything else that gets updated regularly. You can read more extensively about Posts here.
- Click the Posts tab
- Click the Add New Sub Tab
- Start filling in the blanks
- As needed, select a category, add tags, and make other selections from the sections below the post. Each of these sections is explained below.
- When you are ready, click Publish
Pages
Adding and editing pages are essentially the same as adding and editing posts. However, there are some things to note:
- If you create a page that is not the child of another page (making it a main page), it will likely show up in the main navigation of your site, so create pages with some caution.
- WordPress has several types of pages you can create, all with different templates.Depending on how your site was build, they may require additional instructions, provided to you via email.
Menus
Since WordPress 3.0, WordPress has added the ability to create and manage navigation menus from right within WordPress.
To access the ability to create new menus, Go to Appearance -> Menus. Once you're there, you can read WordPress's own extensive documentation on creating menus Here.
Some Notes:
- You must have WordPress 3.0 or higher to use these menus
- Your WordPress Theme must have custom menus activated.
- If you don't have WordPress 3.0+ or want to enable custom menus on your theme, Manifest Development offers a WordPress Tune Up service or WordPress Support that will do that and more for you.
Media
Using the Media function allows you upload images, audio, and video files. There are several ways to upload media to your website. The simplest way to do this is to use the "Add Media" function on the post screen (beside the "Visual" and "HTML" tabs). Choose the appropriate button depending on whether you are adding photos, videos, audio, or miscellaneous media (e.g. PDF files).
In the "From Computer" area of the screen you need to upload the desired image file. NOTE: Before hitting the "Upload from Computer" button it is recommended that you select the "Browser Uploader" instead of using the default Flash Uploader. After selecting the "Browser Uploader", hit the "Browse..." button and choose the desired image file on your computer. Then, hit the "Upload" button. Your image file is now on your web server.
Make sure you give the image an appropriate title, as well as a relevant description if desired. Choose the desired alignment and size, and hit the "insert into post" button. Your image is now inserted into the post at the location where your cursor was last active.
Every time you upload an image to your web server it is added to the "Gallery" of images that are available for that blog. If you want to insert the same image into another post go to the "Gallery", hit the "Show" link, and then follow the same instructions to insert that image into another location or post.
You can read more about the media functions of WordPress here.
Links
Adding a link is much like adding a post or a page- there is an area for a name, the link, a description, and the category. To add a link, go to Links->Add New and fill out the information. To read more about links in WordPress, click here
There are also ways to edit and reorder links, as shown in the screencast linked below.
Users
You can add a user by Clicking the User tab and then the "Add New" sub tab. You can read about the different user roles here.
Comments
Comments allow people reading the blog on your site to voice their opinions. WordPress gives you full control over the comments portion of your website, from allowing them to moderating them. To control how you want your site to handle comments, you can go to Settings->Discussion and check off the appropriate boxes. You can also moderate the comments posted
- Go to Comments
- Mouse-over a comment to show more options. You can choose from:
- Unapprove: The comment will no longer display on the site, but will stay in the admin panel.
- Spam: The comment will be removed from the site and marked as spam. Any future comments from the same user will also be marked as spam.
- Delete: The comment will be deleted but not marked as spam (usually used to moderate inflammatory or otherwise unnecessary remarks).
Read more about Comments in WordPress here.
Moderating Comments from the Dashboard
More Information
To read more extensively about WordPress and it's functions, you can view the WordPress Quick Start Guide and the entire WordPress Codex.
Plugins
Contact Forms
For Contact forms, the plugin Contact Form 7 is used. It's very well documented Here. You should start on the Getting Started page.
cformsII
An alternative plugin for more feature rich contact forms is cforms II. For extensive documentation on how to use cformsII, you can log in to your WordPress site, and on the left hand side, go to cformsII->Help!. Here you will see explanations of the types of form elements, how to build a form, how to insert it into a page, and much more.
Podcasts
For podcasts, PodPress is used. To add a podcast, you start off just like adding an image or other media into a post.
- Click the audio icon (
) and select your file to upload (keep in mind that most servers have an upload limit. Manifest Development's has an upload limit of 7MB). - Once the file is uploaded, click the "File URL" button and copy it the URL that appears. X out of that box.
- Scorll to the bottom of the post, under "Podcasting." Click "Add File."
- Paste the URL you just copied into "Location."
- Now, fill out the rest of your post (title, etc.) and click, "Publish."
Calendar
More Information Coming Soon. For now you can visit the official website of the Events Calendar
Photo Galleries
Coming Soon. For now you can visit an introductory site for the Photo Gallery Plugin here. Installing and Configuring Gallery in most cases, will already be done for you. What will be most useful is Image Management.