Documentation

WordPress Basics

All content in WordPress comes from Posts and Pages.

When you’re writing time-based content such as news or events, you write a Post. News posts automatically appear in reverse chronological order on the page. Event posts appear in chronological order of upcoming event times. Posts can be organized using Categories or Tags.

Pages, on the other hand, are for content such as “About Us,” “Contact Us,” etc. Pages have no chronology, and are often used to present information that is always applicable. You can use Pages to organize and manage any amount of content. Pages are very similar to Posts in that they both have Titles and Content. Pages, though, cannot be associated with Categories and cannot be assigned Tags. The organizational structure for Pages comes only from their hierarchical interrelationships.

Your site may use Posts for other types of content that are not necessarily date/time dependent, but that benefit from being able to use categories or tags. See your own site’s documentation for details.

WRITING POSTS AND PAGES

Many of the same procedures apply to Posts and Pages. This section often uses the word “post” to mean “post or page”. When describing something that only works in one or the other, it is noted.
The short version:

Log in to your WordPress Administration Panel.
Click Add New under Posts or Pages.
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 Preview, Save As Draft, or Publish (page will be live immediately). See below for details.

Title: The title of your post or page.
Editing Area: The big blank box where you enter your writing, links, links to images, and any information you want to display on your site. You do not need to use HTML tags, but can type directly into the Visual Editor (make sure Visual is selected on the upper right of the editing area). Click the button that looks like rows of buttons to reveal the second row of buttons. If you paste content from another program, such as Microsoft Word, use the Paste as Plain Text or Paste From Word buttons to avoid pasting extraneous invisible tags that could break your site.
Preview: Allows you to see how your post will look before officially publishing it. If your site structure does not require this post to appear on its own page when it’s live, the Preview may not accurately reflect what it will look like on your site.
Publish Status: Shows three states for the post: Published, Pending Review, and Unpublished. A Published status means the post has been published on your site for all to see. Pending Review means the draft is waiting for review by someone else prior to publication. Unpublished means the post has not been published and remains a draft. If you select a specific publish status and then click the Save button, that status is applied to the post. For example, to save a post as a draft, select Unpublished from the Publish Status drop-down box, and then click Save. You can see all posts organized by status by going to Manage under Posts or Pages.
Permalink: After you save your post, the Permalink below the title shows the potential URL for the post. The URL is generated from your title. You can manually change this, which you may want to do if it’s very long.
Save: Allows you to save your post as a draft rather than immediately publishing it.
Publish: Publishes your post on the site. Posts only: you can edit the time when the post is published by clicking the Edit link above the Publish button and specifying the time you want the post to be published. By default, at the time the post is first auto-saved, that will be the date and time of the post within the database.
Tags (Posts only): The only tag that pertains to your site is the word “home”. If you would like the post you are writing to appear on one of the home page “teaser” sections, type “home” (don’t type the quotes). This is not necessary for Event posts; the home page will display a certain number of upcoming events regardless of tag.
Categories (Posts only): Check the category for this post. For Events, you don’t need to check the category; entering a date and time in the Event Editor will automatically assign the Events category.
Parent (Pages only): This establishes the page hierarchy for your site. Selecting the correct Parent page will insert the link to that page in the proper place in the navigation menus. For instance, if you are making a new page called “Directions” that should be in the “About Us” menu, the parent of “Directions” should be “About Us.”
Template (Pages only): Unless your own site documentation tells you to change this, it should be left “Default Template”.
Order (Pages only): Establishes the order the link to this page appears in your navigation menu. It is much easier to change this using the “My Page Order” screen (found under “Pages” in the menu).
Event Editor (Posts only): If the post is to be an Event, enter a date and time to start and end (or check All Day instead of entering a time). This will assign your post to the Events category.
Custom Fields: Custom Fields allow you to enter additional information that pertains only to your site. Only those Custom Fields that we have set up for you will appear on your site. See your own site documentation for details.

There may be other items on this screen that you will not need, such as Trackbacks, Comments, etc. You can hide things you don’t need by clicking Screen Options on the upper right of the screen, and then unchecking the items you don’t need.

Most of the modules on this screen can be moved. If you hover your mouse over the title bar of a module you’ll notice the 4 arrow cursor appears to let you know it is movable. Click on it, hold down the mouse button and start dragging the module to a new location. As you drag the module, notice the dotted gray box that also moves. This box indicates where the module will be placed when you release the mouse button. The same modules can be expanded and collapsed by clicking once on their title bar.

EDITING POSTS AND PAGES

In the Edit screen under Posts or Pages, you can see a list which you can sort or filter in various ways. Clicking Edit under a post or page leads you to the same page where you wrote the post or page, and you can make changes (remember to save). Check out Quick Edit for shortcuts to many settings.

INSERTING IMAGES

There are 2 steps involved to inserting an image into a post or page. First, the image file must be uploaded. The second step is to actually insert the image into the post or page in the appropriate location.

Click the “Upload/Insert” button at the top of the visual editor. 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, select the desired image file or files. Then, click the “Upload” button. Your image file is now on your web server. Modify the title and alt text as needed. Then, to insert it into the post, click 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 collection of images that are available for that post. Click the “Gallery” tab to view all images associated with that post, or “Media Library” to see all the images in the site.

Site-Specific Documentation

This document serves as a supplement to the WordPress Basics document, adding the functionality that is specific to your site.

Quick Links: The Quick Links can be edited under Links. The link Name is what appears on the page. The URL is the destination of the link. Link Categories are entirely unrelated to Post Categories. For this site, there is a Link Category for each page, named for the Permalink for that page. To assign a link to a specific page, check the category that corresponds to that page. For instance, if you want your link to appear on the Broadcast, Cable & Professional Video page, select the “broadcast” category.
Product Spotlight: Enter the Product Spotlight as a Post with category Specials. The latest post in that category will display as the Product Spotlight on the home page.
Case Studies: Enter a Case Study as a Post with category corresponding to the page that will display the case study. The latest post in a category will display in full on the page corresponding to the category. “Previous” case studies under that category will be listed as links below it. Since the date of the case studies are never displayed, you can modify the post date to affect the display order. Upload an image, but do not insert it in the post — it will be positioned on the page automatically. Put the location in as custom field “Location”. If you would like the box to be labeled something other than “Case Study”, put the alternate label in as a Custom Field “alt_box_head”. If you do not enter a value for “alt_box_head”, the box will be labeled “Case Study”.