M-O-A
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Editor’s guide to WordPress

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WordPress is a much more intuitive platform than Joomla for editing and adding new content.   Because of the relative ease and speed to update a WordPress site, the overall web site should prove more dynamic.  We also hope in time to integrate some aspects of Facebook provided we can find the necessary expertise and FB experience from amongst our membership.

This new site by-and-large retains a similar structure as the Joomla site, with a Public menu on the LHS and a predominantly Members-Only menu along the top.

Basic WP has two types of  content: Posts and Pages.  You can tell whether an item is a Post or Page because Posts identify the author at the top and its category at the foot.

  • Posts are often brief and rather like diary entries but can be full articles.
    • A Post can be assigned to one or several different categories and thus appear in different parts of the web
      • Use of multiple categories is a key advantage over Joomla’s single category limitation.
      • Post Categories can have sub-categories, sub-sub-categories etc. but try to keep it simple
    • Posts contain text and/or  images, and are generated with a simple wysiwyg editor
      • The wysiwyg editor incorporates a media uploader and media library
      • Media includes images (which will be resized automatically on upload) and documents such as PDF files.
    • Posts will appear on the home page in date order, and can be individually made public or member-only
      • Older Posts can be made to appear at the top of the home page by making it Sticky
      • To do so, set the box found at the top right in Visibility: Public
      • This might be useful for e.g. keeping a Post advertising an event, a major brand announcement, or special discount
    • Posts can be individually made public or member-only by using the Content Permissions Window below the editing window
      • Don’t use the Visibility: Public options as this does not respond to different User Roles (subscriber, editor, administrator, etc)
    • Many Posts can be found via one or more categories via the LHS Public menu (Technical, Sailing, Maxi Yachts, etc).
      • An Administrator can add or remove items from the Top or LHS menus
    • Long Posts should normally have a “More” tag inserted from the Editor’s toolbar (2nd from right)
    • Content can be copy/pasted from Word and Excel either as Text-only or as formatted
      • You may find LibreOffice (open source & free) better than MS Excel for tabular data depending on your version of Excel.

 

  • Pages are for more static content, especially that may need to be updated from time to time (e.g. Committee listing)
    • Pages can be sub-pages of a parent Page, any of which can be added to the Top Menu (by an Administrator)
    • Sub-pages can be ordered manually at will
    • The Page Editor is virtually identical to the Post wysiwyg Editor/Media Uploader
    • Pages can be made public or member-only just like Posts
    • It is good practice to add a note to Pages saying e.g. “Updated following 2015 AGM”
    • Pages are often created as part of the Menu structure so be careful not to delete commands in [square brackets]!
WP is ideal for having multiple Editors as well as Administrators who can all be on line at the same time!  Members with their own log-in will be classed Subscribers.  [If we wish, we can also give a few members an Author class which allows them to create and edit just their own Posts.]
  • For Editors, we need to ensure log-in names are different to their visible name: e.g. my posts will show chris as author while I may log-in as chriseditor.
    • Once the new site is operational, Chris W will work through all log-ins to make sure visible names are not the same as the log-in names
  • If you can use a second web browser, you can run both an Editor’s and Subscriber’s session: e.g. Internet Explorer logged in as Editor, and Firefox or Chrome for not logged in.

 

Tips for using the Editor:-

  • Note the two tabs at the top right: Visual and Text,
  • Visual: use for most actions to get the wysiwyg toolbar (and click the RH tool to see the second row of buttons)
  • Visual: avoid using the Paragraph dropdown as it does not work reliably with many Templates (WP Themes)
  • Text: can be useful to check if you have had to delete a table or any html coding
  • When adding an link to another external web (chain-link symbol) always click the “Open in new tab or window” box

To receive Editor access, just email chris stating how you would like to be named on the Posts and Pages you create.  I will then set up your account and send you a simple password and login username.  You will then be able to change your password but as all websites are continually under attack, please never choose a password that you also use for other important tasks such as banking!