CMS User Guide v1.5-GOR

7/31/2019 CMS User Guide v1.5-GOR

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Content Management System User Guide | WordPress Platform

Golden Oak Ranch | Disney

July 20th

, 2012

Guide Version 1.5

For WordPress 3.4


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VeloMedia CMS User Guide v1.5 | Page 2

Content Management System User GuideGoldenOakRanch.com is Proudly Built on the WordPress Framework

Table of Contents

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................. 2

Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3Using WordPress ............................................................................................................................... 3

Getting Started ..................................................................................................................................... 4

The Dashboard .............................................................................................................................. 4

Navigating the Admin Panels ........................................................................................................ 5

The Toolbar.................................................................................................................................... 7

Screen Options .............................................................................................................................. 8

Adding and Editing Content .................................................................................................................. 9

Understanding the difference between Pages and Posts ............................................................. 9

Creating Pages & Posts ................................................................................................................ 10

Page Attributes ............................................................................................................................ 12

Writing in a Post or Page ............................................................................................................. 12Formatting text using the Rich Editor ......................................................................................... 14

Text Styling Tips ........................................................................................................................... 15

Formatting text using the HTML editor ....................................................................................... 15

Adding links to your Posts & Pages ............................................................................................. 16

Adding Images to Pages & Posts ................................................................................................. 18

Setting Post & Page options ........................................................................................................ 21

Saving & Publishing your Post or Page ........................................................................................ 21

Creating and Managing Post Categories ..................................................................................... 23

Publishing Content Created by Other Contributors .................................................................... 25

Creating & Editing Locations ............................................................................................................... 26

Managing Forms ................................................................................................................................. 30Administrating Site Navigation ........................................................................................................... 36

Widgets ........................................................................................................................................... 36

Menus ............................................................................................................................................. 38

Defining a Menu .......................................................................................................................... 38

Adding Items to a Menu .............................................................................................................. 39

Deleting a Menu item .................................................................................................................. 39

Customising Menu Items ............................................................................................................. 40

Working with Multi-level Menus ................................................................................................. 41

Site Content Tips ................................................................................................................................. 43

Structuring a Site ......................................................................................................................... 43

Search Engines ............................................................................................................................. 43Credits ................................................................................................................................................. 45


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Introduction

Please note that this is a guide intended specifically for the people who will be

performing day-to-day content management of the Golden Oak Ranch

website, and is aimed at persons new to the WordPress platform. It is not acomplete manual. The audience it is designed for is users rather than

technicians so installation, advanced set-up and configuration guidance isnt

included.

This guide covers the basics in each section, looking to take a progressive

approach so that each section builds on knowledge and skill acquired earlier

in the guide.

Using WordPress

WordPress (WP) has really moved the game forward for non-experts who

want to maintain their own websites. With WordPress you have the system to

manage the content which automatically slides into the theme thats been

developed for the visual presentation of the site.

What WordPress also does is make possible the building of a well-structured

website which makes the job of search engines easier. The biggest limit is

imagination, and the beauty of this content management system (CMS) is that

you get to spend less time fighting your website and more time on being

creative and productive.

As you learn more about WordPress youll learn a lot about what it can (and

cant) do. But work within its relatively few limitations and you have a

powerful and flexible tool to manage and continue to grow your website.


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Getting Started

So the first thing to do is: Log In!

Simply add /wp-admin to the root address and youll arrive at the login panel pictured above.

For example:

www.goldenoakranch.com/wp-admin

You will have been provided with your Username and preliminary Password to use when

logging in for the first time.

If you lose your details, you can click on Lost your password? and a new password will be

generated and e-mailed to you if your email has been logged in the system. You can

change your password to something more memorable. Enter your details, select

Remember me if your computer is secure, only used by you and youd like not to have to

log in each time. Then click on the Login button.

The Dashboard

Now that you're logged in, you'll arrive at the dashboard of your sites content management

system (also known as the backend). The Dashboard is a panel that provides a range of

quick-view information about your website:


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Youll notice here that theres a great deal of information showing here in a series of

modules. As delivered, there are five modules:

Right Now

Incoming Links

QuickPress

Recent Drafts

Forms

You can organize this information to best suit you, moving modules around and expanding

or contracting them in whichever way you find appropriate.

To move a module, click and drag the title bar of the module around. To roll it up, simplyclick on the right hand edge of the bar where youll see an arrow appear. By clicking Screen

Options in the top right corner you can choose which modules to display and the layout.

On the left hand side, youll notice that theres a large list of links such as Posts, Media,

Pages and so on. This is your content management system menu (CMS Menu).

Navigating the Admin Panels

Navigation of the admin panels in the content management system is pretty straightforward,but it can feel like there is a bewildering range of options to choose from. We will go over

each of them one-by-one.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#Incoming_Linkshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#QuickPresshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#Recent_Draftshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#Recent_Draftshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#QuickPresshttp://codex.wordpress.org/Dashboard_Screen#Incoming_Links


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ManageMedia, such as images

Create, edit and manage static Pages

Manage the Menus & Widgets of the site

Manage yourUser Profile, including reset password

Create, edit and manage Posts, Post Tags & Categories

Navigate to yourDashboard,plus access additional utilities & support

Create, edit & manage Locations & LocationCategories

Create, edit & manage Forms, such as the Contact form

Manage Galleries of images & upload new images

To the left of the Dashboard is the CMS Menu these items when

clicked-on then expand down to show you other sub pages. If you hover

your mouse over a link the sub-pages show in a fly-out. You can move

your mouse over the fly-out and click to navigate to the sub-page of

interest. This quick reference reveals the range of navigation options,

with a brief explanation alongside.


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Theres also an alternative, less real estate-grabbing, view option which is great for those of

you with smaller monitors click on the Collapse menu button at the bottom of the CMS

Menu to make it smaller:

When you click it, you will get a smaller, icon-only version of the menu. When in this

collapsed mode, all menu items appear as fly-outs when hovering the mouse over a parentmenu item (like the Forms menu below):

The Toolbar

At the top of your sites backend you will see the Toolbar. This is shown when you are

logged into the content management system, you can also (optionally) turn it on for when

you are viewing your website on the front-end (the publicly viewable website).

Find this option by accessing Profile:


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The Toolbar...

...provides quick access to the activities backend in the following ways:

Site Name: Shown here as Golden Oak Ranch, clicking here will take you to the

front end of the website

+ New: A dropdown to quickly add content to your site

Gallery: Providing handy links to managing image Galleries

The user section (on the right), where a dropdown menu will appear upon hover-

over, revealing quick links to yourProfile management panel and Log Out

When you are editing a Page or a Post, you will also see on the toolbar the option,View Page;and when viewing a Page or Post on the front-end with the CMS toolbar

visible, you will instead see, Edit Page (or Post)

Screen Options

One thing that many people dont notice is the Screen Options drop down in the top right of

the screen.

This is a useful feature, allowing you to control the amount of items you can see on a panel.

When you click it, a set of options will slide down, much like this one below:

So if you hear of a tool, option or field, but cant see it on the panel youre working on and

think Nope, that tool or field isnt available to me then remember to check if its been

disabled in Screen Options.

Similarly, if you want to simplify your administration panels for yourself, then you can choose

to do so in order to only concentrate on what really matters to you.


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Adding and Editing Content

WordPress provides a number of tools for editing, and for image management. It allows

you to easily manage your content with a familiar editing interface. You dont need to learn

HTMLjust the skills youve already acquired using word processors like Microsoft Word.

Shortly well talk about creating Posts and Pages, but first lets review some important

nomenclature.

Understanding the difference between Pages and Posts

Its important to have a clear understanding of the difference between Pages and Posts.

They are administrated separately and somewhat differently in the CMS, but can look very

similarly from the front-end, where we refer to any site location a visitor may view as a

webpage.

Pagesare usually those content elements which have a static purpose. For example,

an About, a Price List, or a Contact webpage. These do not usually contain

information about news items, for example, which are added to the site on an ongoing

basis. Pages are generally structured so that they are always accessible from the

homepage via the navigation menu. Some people build entire sites with just Pages

this is especially the case for sites with little need for dynamic content.

Postsusually contain semantically and chronographically arranged information for

example, news reports, event results, promotions and of course blog entries. The

semantic structure is defined by categories and tags, which can make it easy for

people to navigate your site. Categories and tags will also help search engines to

understand the content of your site and so improve the relevance of search results.

Other Post-types | The construction of your website may include other post-types

which look a bit like Posts or Pages but behave in different ways for example,

GoldenOakRanch.com includes a custom post-type for Locations, which allows the

user to create new locations and edit existing ones; each of which appear in distinctly

coded areas of the site.


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Creating Pages & Posts

Creating and adding content to a Page is essentially the same as writing a Post. What will

differ in terms of administration is the way they are caused to appear on the front-end of the

website, and the way they are managed in the back-end.

Click on Pages and then Add New:

You now just need to add a Title, and enter some textual content. While youre writing and

before you press Publish you can always click on Preview to see how the content is looking.

Once youve completed yourcontent entry, press the Publish button to the right.

You can click Save Draft at any point withoutpublishing, and that will create a draft of the

Page/Post.

So, where is the link to the Pageyouve just created? To learn how to add a new Page to

your sites menu system, review this guides section, Administrating Site Appearance |

Menus. (Postsare handled differently, as youll read shortly.)

If you now have another look at the list of the sites Pages you will see the Page that you

have just created. If you need to remove a Page, its not difficult to do.


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Heres the list ofPages, access by clicking on the menu headerPages, orAll Pages:

When you remove a Page, or a Post, in the way this guide will show you, the Page orPost

itself is not permanently deleted but retained in the CMS Trash. A Page or Post only

becomes lost forever when you delete it from the Trash.

There are two ways you can do this: The first way is to place the mouse pointer over the

Page entry you want to remove (which will result in the options in the screenshot below

being displayed) then click the Trashoption.

This method is fine for removing a single Post orPage at a time, but what if we wanted to

remove many Posts or Pages quickly? To do this, select the check box next to the Post(s)

or Page(s) you want to remove, select the Move To Trash option, then press the Apply

button next to it.

Be sure to empty the Trash if youre sure you no longer want the Pages/Posts that hadbeen moved there. You can use the same approach for doing this as you did for the

previous step.

Link(s) to your Page(s)

Subordinate Page

Parent Page


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Page Attributes

You can set the Page hierarchy either in components within the Edit Page panel, or via the

Quick Edit link that appears on hover-over under the Page title on the list ofPages.

The three options we need to concern ourselves with here are Parent, Template and Order.

The Template option allows you to set a pre-coded format/style for this particular page. The

Parent option lets you select the hierarchical level of your Page, and the Order option

selects the order in which yourPage appears under its Parent.

To set the Parent option for a Page, you need to click on the corresponding drop down box

and change its value from Main Page (top-level menu) to the Page you want to be the

parent. By assigning numbers to Pages in this field, you can set their order under their

parent. In the back-end, by using Parent and Page Order, you can organize how you view

your list ofPages within the CMS. On the front-end, some websites will display subpages

either in drop-down menus, on sidebars, or perhaps in indented in lists of links.

Templates built specifically for your site will be discussed later in this guide.

When done reviewing or editing these settings, click the Update button in the bottom right-

hand corner to save the changes.

Writing in a Post or Page

If you are an Editor-level user on the site, you have a Publish button. Once pressed the

Post/Page becomes available on the website. Before the Post orPage is ready, however,

you can save it and keep it as a draft. Revision history is available making it possible to see

changes and revert to older versions ofPosts and Pages.


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Enter any text you like in the text entry box. In the case ofPosts, dont forget to add Tags

as well the key words of the content that will attract search engines to this entry of your

site.

Of the nifty features of WordPress is the distraction-free writing (or, Zen) mode. Click the

Toggle Full-Screen Mode button and all of the widgets, menus, buttons, and interface

elements fade away to allow you to compose and edit your thoughts in a completely cleanenvironment conducive to writing,

but when you move your mouse

to the top of the screen your

most-used shortcuts re-appear. If

youre using one of the latest

browsers try pressing F11 to

remove all browser tabs, menus

etc., providing a completely clean

space to write.


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Formatting text using the Rich Editor

You can easily enter and format text using the Rich Editor if you're familiar with any word

processing software. To create a News article as an example go to Posts in the CMS

Menu and click on Add New. When youre writing a static page, you go to Pages in the

CMS Menu and click on Add New there instead. The content editing concepts will for the

most part be the same.

You may wish to extend

the size of the content

entry box by dragging

on the bottom right of it.

As you can see from

the myriad of buttons,

its possible to format

text in a number of

ways using the buttons and theyll be familiar to any user of word processor software.

You may only see one line of editing buttons, not the two you see hereyoull need to press

the Show Kitchen Sink button on the far right of the top row to reveal them.

More Break /Page Break

Undo/Redo

Custom

Characters

Help!Contains lots

of useful

information

Un-ordered list

(Bullet points)

Ordered List

Full-screen

Editing

Show / Hide

Kitchen SinkSpell-Check

Link/Unlink

& Advanced

Linking

Text

Alignment

Block Quote

Strike-out

Italic

Underline

Remove

Formatting

Text Color

Paste Text / Paste

Text from MS

Word

Justify /

Align Text

Text

Style

Indent

Left/Right

Bold

Horizontal

Rule /

Anchor /

Tables


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Dont forget if you get stuck, hovering over the buttons will describe what they do, and the

short cut to use them quickly from the keyboard.

Text Styling Tips

When youre writing you may have a style guide or content strategy to work with and youshould follow its guidance. The following may be useful to you when choosing what text

styles to apply in your content:

1. Heading 1 through to Heading 6 These will likely be coded with increasingly

impactful format style. The higher the value, the more important a search engine will

consider it, but keep in mind that H1 is usually reserved for the site title at the top of

the page, and H2 for the Post orPage title.

2. Use Unordered or Ordered lists (bulleted lists) for lists that are relatively short, but

resist the temptation to use them for lists of paragraphs instead, use the Heading

styles.

3. Use Bold and Italic in moderation. Refrain from using bold as a substitute for

heading styles bold is not as important to a search engine.

4. The coded style guide for the site may override your styling decisions for example,

enforcing alignment, what an italic actually looks like and so on. You can experiment

and test.

5. The coded style will highlight links in a different color than that of the surrounding text

and may also create hover-over-initiated formatting properties.

Formatting text using the HTML editor

You can also click on the HTML tab on the editor and input text with HTML code the

language that describes web pages. This is for the more technically inclined and does have

the advantage of making it easier for some users to create more sophisticated content

designs. You should make sure that you understand the importance of closing tags and

labelling items correctly before attempting to use this feature.

IMPORTANT: When using the HTML editor it's essential that you close all tags, or ask

WordPress to do it for you by pressing the 'Close Tags' button. If you don't then your site's

layout will be broken whenever that Post orPage is displayed.


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Adding links to your Posts & Pages

One of the most important things you can do on your website is to link out to other sites.

Those other sites will appreciate the links, but it also shows where you get your information

from. This is useful to the reader and also a sign of an experienced and skilful content-writer

who cites his references. Theres also absolutely nothing wrong with linking within your own

site. Of course, it takes a little extra time, but its worth it for the extra engagement for youraudience.

To create a link in text, highlight the text you wish to link, and then click on the Link icon in

the editor:

Once the link icon is selected, a pop-up dialog will be presented:

First, select the text that you want to turn into a link

Then click on the link icon


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Simply insert the web address you want to link to in the URL field, a Title to give meaning to

the link which will show upon hovering-over the link, and then choose whether or not to open

the link in a new window/tab or stay in the current window/tab.

Once youre done, click Add Link and the link will be created. Its always worth testing links

in case a mistake was made.

Its even easier to create links internally within your website. Click on the link to existing

content text and use the search box to find a Post,custom post-type,orPage. When you

find the one you want, click on it. The text you highlighted in the editor will now link to that

Post,custom post-type, orPage.


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Adding Images to Pages & Posts

You can easily add and manage your sites images, as well as automatically size images,

including automatic thumbnailing and image management.

If you press the Add Media button youll be presented with a pop-up window:

If opened in error, you can close this window with the small X in the top-right corner, or by

clicking outside of the box. The Gallery tab indicates that this Page or Post already has one

image loaded to it, and this image can be re-used.

Generally you wont upload images from a URL and will use the Select Files button. Youcan upload one or many images. On most servers youll be limited to images of8MB or less

in size, so if you have a very high resolution digital camera you might need to resize the

images before uploading to less than 1200 pixels wide or high.

To upload multiple images simply select the different images while holding the CTRL key

down.

Once youve selected the images,

press the Open button. After theyre

loaded, youll see the list of uploadedimages...

Notice that the Gallery tab indicates

the number of images that are now

available to include in this Page or

Post.

Click on Showfor each image and

youll get an expanded dialog box:


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This dialogue provides many options:

Title This is the title of the image, and

is defaulted to the images file name. Its

recommended to edit this to a readers eye-

friendly title-case title.

Alternative Text (a.k.a. Alt Text)A

brief description of the image; some browsers

will use this for hover-over text.

Caption The caption text for the

image. Only use this if captioning is style-

coded for your website.

Description The images description

isnt necessarily used by your sites coding

but handy to complete as it may be used in

the future and it is seen by search engines.

Link URL This is the address of the

original image youve uploaded, by default,

but it also allows you to create a link to

another website here quickly and

effectively. You can then choose from three

options None, meaning the image has no

link, File URL, the default, and Post URL

which will show your image within the design

of the site rather than as an image alone on

its own tab when its clicked on to enlarge.

Alignment This allows you to set

how the image is aligned. The small iconsshow the effect on the text-wrapping.

Size Youll want to choose how

big the image will be in your content. If

the image file is smaller than a thumbnail,

the option will default to full-size. If its not

too massive, you can use the Full Size

image just make sure the image fits into

the space available. Otherwise, a

Thumbnail, by default is a 150x150px

square, and Medium is cropped to fit in a300x300px space, in this example. The

default thumbnail size can be changed by

your site developer.

Once youve selected your options, you

press the Insert into Post button (whether

youre working with a Post, or a Page) to

add the image where your cursor was

when you clicked on the Add Media

button.


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Press the Posts or Pages Preview button, and you can see

how that image looks on the front-end of your website.

In the editor, if you click on the picture youll see two icons

appear as shown to the right, one a red circle with a line, and

another a little panorama (as seen below). The red circle is fordeleting the image, and the panorama allows you to change

settings for the image, but without having to re-upload it.

After uploading, if

you forgot to add images to a Post/Page you

can still press the Add Images button and then

click on the Gallery tab. This is the gallery

collection specifically related to this one Post or

Page, and is different from the Galleries utility

for website. That utility is used in more complexfunctions and is discussed later in this Guide.

On the Gallery tab after clicking the Add Media

button, you can see all images attached to this

Post/Page, and insert them individually.

Or, on this tab, you can opt to

present a grid of image

thumbnails in a Post or Page

which viewers can click on to

enlarge.

To insert a gallery of images

uploaded specifically into this

Post or Page, upload those

images (which are then attached

to this Post/Page), then click the

Save All Changes button in the

bottom left-hand corner and thenclick on the Gallery tab:

From here, you can adjust the

order by dragging and dropping

and insert the gallery of attached

images by clicking on Insert

gallery. The gallery graphic will

be inserted into yourPost/Page.


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Now press Save Draft and then the

Preview button and see how the

gallery looks on the website.

How much space you have to place and size images and galleries will, to a large extent, be

controlled by the style coding in use for your website.

Setting Post & Page options

There is a large range of options that are available to you if you look around the writing area

and which give you finer control over how your content is presented. The order of the

modules can change according to user preferences. Here some of them are discussed:

Excerpt Use this to create a short introductory text about your Post. This may be

needed by your sites style coding, and will be used by your sites RSS

feed.

Custom Fields Custom fields may be included in your sites development. In some

cases, you wont have to touch them, in others youll be required to input

values.

Author Allows you to set a Post Author if your site has multiple authors, you can

change them here if you have a suitable user rights generally Editor-

level and above, although this can change on some configurations.

Revisions You can revert to an old version of yourPost orPage, and can track the

changes made it. This option will not be visible when you are creating a

new Post/Page.

Additional option modules will be discussed later in this manual.

Saving & Publishing your Post or Page

Once youve written your masterpiece youll want to save it, and then publish it (i.e. make it

visible on the site) for the whole world to see.

Youve probably already pushed that Publishbutton, but were returning to it because there

are various options that are worth knowing are available.

Image Gallery graphic


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The Publish box above is usually at the top right of the panel.

By default it looks like the above.

As you can see, the simplest way to publish your content is

simply to press that big blue Publish button.

If youre a contributor, youllhave found that you cant do

much in the CMS beyond contribute words, and your Publish

box will actually look like this:

The following table gives a breakdown of the different

functionalities available here:

Preview This button allows you to preview how the content will

look. The front-end will open in another tab.

Status This shows the Status of yourPost/Page: Published,

Draft, orPending Review.

Publish

(immediately)

You can edit the date and time at which youd like this

Post orPage to publish for public view in the future

(such as pre-posting for holidays). Or set a date in

the past if you are populating past content, or adjusting

the order in which yourPosts appear.

Visibility Private If you want to keep the Post/Page from prying eyes

you can do this. If a Post orPageis Private only

registered members of the site can see it.

Public This is the default. ForPosts, there is a checkbox for

Stick this Post to the front page, but this function may

not be in use foryour sites architecture.

Password

Protected

You can create Posts orPages that are protected with

a password which you will have to distribute to the

appropriate readers. This can be useful where you

want to give a selected few advance access to content.

Save Draft This saves the current Post orPage but will notchange the publically viewable front-end version. The

Publish button will change to say Update Post or

Update Page, providing the option to initiate

application of current changes to the front-end.

Publish /

Submit for

Review

The moment you push this button, the content

becomes visible on the front-end of the site. If youre a

Contributor you will not be able to Publish but instead

only Submit for review.


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Creating and Managing Post Categories

Organizing Posts by categories can be one of the greatest influences in how easy it is to

navigate your site. It can also be one of the hardest things to get right, and theres many a

site owner who ends up having to re-categorise all their content later down the line.

Adding a new category is always easy and straightforward and can even be done while youcreate a Post, if you have the appropriate user level:

To categorize a post, look for the Categories module on the Posts edit

panel. Click the checkbox on the appropriate category. If the

category does not yet exist, you can use the Add New Category

function.

To organize and administrate your sites categories, go to the CMS menu item Posts and

then the Categories link beneath that. You should see something like the screenshot below:

As you can see, theres already a category called News which has been configured by the

site developer. Consult with your site development strategists to decide if additional

categories are needed and how they will end up appearing to viewers on the frontend of the

site.


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To add a new category, simply go to the area of the panel marked Add Category, and get

started. You have the following fields to consider:

Category Name This is the nice, short name of the category.

Try to avoid length descriptions. One or two

words are best, and easiest to read on most

websites

Category Slug This is an advanced optionits

automatically populated if you dont put

anything in. Until you get to more advanced

techniques you can leave this field alone. It

describes the permalink path to the category

when the permalinks option is set. Read the

permalinks section of this document to learn

more about the subject.

Category Parent If youre creating a subcategory, this allowsyou to define which category is a parent.

Description Optional, but can be helpful especially if

you have multiple contributors to your site.

Explain concisely but clearly what the

purpose of the category is.

If you create a category in error, you can also delete it here by selecting the category you

want to delete in the box to the left, then clicking the delete button. Be carefultheres no

undo function here. However the posts that possess this category will not be deleted, they

will just be re-categorized to the default category.

Youll notice you cant delete the Newsthats because its the default category used if you

dont assign one to a Post. The default category can be changed by your site administrator.

You also have the possibility of creating a hierarchical tree for your categories for example,

under News you could have Politics and Entertainment. This is simply for administration

organization purposes.

Now you can use your new categories by going back to existing Posts under Posts | All

Posts. Edit each of Posts in turn assigning the new appropriate category to each one.


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Publishing Content Created by Other Contributors

If you're an Administrator or Editor you can publish the work created by Contributors.

Authors can publish their own work but cannot publish the work of other users.

As an Editor you'll need to be aware of drafts that are awaiting publication. Usually thecontributor should inform you that they've completed a document and, when you select

Posts and Edit in the administration panel you will see a list of Other's Drafts as pending:

When you select a draft you will be taken to panel where you can review the contribution,

see the preview, edit it if necessary, add media and publish just like it was your own Post.

You can also change the Post author if you have multiple users defined who have the facility

to create Posts, should you require it.

A Pending Post from a contributor awaiting

approval from an Editor/Higher


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Creating & Editing Locations

Currently, the Locations featured on the GoldenOakRanch.com website fall into four

categories:

Natural Areas

Rural Sets

Urban District

Residential Street

When any of these categories are clicked on, the visitor arrives on the list feed for that

Location category.

Here youll find a

thumbnail image of

the location, along

with a title, in some

cases a subtitle, and

a short description.

Clicking on any

thumbnail or title will

take the visitor to the

Locations webpage.


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On the Locations webpage you can scroll through the available thumbnail images, and click

on any youd like to see enlarged. To the right of the Locations title, there appears a small

information icon. Clicking there will reveal the summary blurb for this Location.

On the Maps page, most locations are indicated by number, which are referenced by using

the available Locations key. Some locations, such as those on the Residential Street, are

lumped together with one Location flag. When hovering over each numbered flag, the title of

the Location, a thumbnail image, and a summary blurb will appear, such as this one for the

Residential Street area.


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Now lets look at the administration ofLocations in the CMS. Navigate to Locationsunder

the Locations Menu.

Notice that this list of Locations looks and will behave much in the same way as the CMS

lists of Posts or Pages. Hovering over any one title will reveal the administrative options,

Edit, Quick Edit, Trash, and View.

Like Posts, Location content elements are listed in the order of their original creation, in

reverse chronological order. They will also appear on the front-end in the same order on the

page for their category. Order can be adjusted if desired, by altering the Publish date for this

custom post-type, accessible efficiently with Quick Edit, or in the Publish module on the

Locations edit panel.

With long lists of entries such as this one, using the Search functionality can be helpful. Or

you can navigate to each page in the list and scroll down to the bottom to search for the

entry youre interested in. Alternatively the list can be filtered by category (See the

dropdown that currently indicates Show All Categories), and then it will for instance only

present those Locations within the Residential Streetcategory.

Creating a new Location content element begins with clicking on Add New Location.

On the edit panel for the

Location, you will see

many modules that were

discussed when reviewing

Pages and Posts:

the Title & Permalink the Publish module

the Categories

module

the Featured Image

Module

the Rich Editor

New and unique to the

Location edit panel, is the

Location Data module.


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Youve seen on the front-end where the title appears for each Location, as well as where

the short description appears, which would be entered and edited in the Rich Editor here on

the edit panel. Weve discussed Categories, and reviewed how to add a Featured Image,

which is how to create the thumbnail for this location which will appear on the Locations

categories webpage and on the Map

when the location flag is hovered-over. Now lets go over the fields in

the Location Data module.

The House Name field is populated

only for Residential Street locations.

It is the subtitle that was mentioned

earlier.

Next is the Location Gallery ID

number which will link a selection ofimages for this location to its Location

content element, so the images can

be viewed full-size on this locations

webpage.

A Gallery will have to be created for this location, and once thats done, its ID is available on

the list of Galleries under the Galleries Menu, after clicking on Manage Galleries. To learn

about creating and editing these Galleries of images, consult the section in this guide

regarding Galleries.

The Short Location Description field is for entering the description that will be visible when

the visitor is on the category webpage, appearing next to the thumbnail image for the

location.

In order to add a location flag to the Map, enter a new number in the Location Number On

Map field. By assigning a Map X Position and a Map Y Position you are dictating the point

on the map on which each number lies. Units are expressed in pixels. One way to

determine the necessary pixel coordinates for a new location is to look at the edit panel for a

location nearby as a reference point, and note their X position and Y positions. Then

experiment with making adjustments to those numbers on the edit panel for the new

location.

Location Number on Map, Map X Position and Map Y Position will not apply to locations

existing on the Residential Street nor Urban District, due to the condensed nature of those

areas. They are represented by a single location flag.

Location Status gives you the opportunity to indicate a location exists on the Map, but the

location will not be clickable, and will not be visible on the category page. Therefore all that

would be necessary is a title, plus perhaps a thumbnail image and/or a short description.

Click on Under Construction to disable click-through. When the locations profile is ready,

click on Finished.


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Managing Forms

The most common type of websiteform is a Contact form, which

usually appears on the Contact

webpage of a site.

In the back-end, navigate to the listof all the Forms that have been

created for this website by clickingon Edit Forms under the Formsmenu in the CMS. Note that a

Contact form has been created for

this site.

Each Form title is a link to the edit panel for that Form. Click on the title to access itsmanagement activities, or hover over the title, which reveals additional links: Edit (FormSettings), Preview, Entries, Notifications, Duplicate, and Delete. You also can see thenumber of each Forms Views, Entries, and the Conversion Rate each of the Forms haveachieved up until this point.

Entries | The CMS Menu also contains a link to Entries. Eventually, either this link, or theone under the Forms title will take me to the same place.

On the Entries list page, I get a snapshot of all the entries submitted using this particularform by visitors to this website.


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Each Name is a link to the detail view of the form Entry. Note that clicking on View will alsoallow me to view the Entry in full detail. In addition to viewing Name, Email, Point ofContact, Subject, and Comments, there are additional administration options availablewhen viewing the detail panel of the Entry.

Notes can be entered in reference to this entry. You can choose to email your notes to the

email address listed on the form entry and while doing so, specify a subject for that email.

Whenever a form entry is submitted by a visitor to the site, notification of that entry isautomatically emailed to the chosen contact. By using the Notifications module, you canchoose to resend notification to that contact person. If you want to also email a notificationto addresses you enter manually, do so by checking the Admin Notification box and typinga comma separated list of email addresses into the Send To field. When finished, click theResend Notifications button.


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If necessary, click the Edit button so that each of the entries will become editable. Makechanges to any of the fields, and click Update once finished. The Print button will allow meto print the entry, with or without any added notes.

Notifications | Either use the navigation link across the top of any form management panelto reach the Notifications section, or use the CMS Menu by hovering over the Forms title,clicking on the Edit Forms link in the Forms Menu, and once on the list of Forms, hover overthe Form title you wish to manage, and click on Notifications.


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Once in the Notifications section for the Contact form, find several editable fields, including

customization options for the notification email that gets sent, and the specific email routing

preferences for each contact person. These are the persons or groups of persons, indicatedon the Contact webpage on the front-end of the website. They are listed within the please

contact dropdown menu.

In order to add a new contact, navigate to the Forms Settings for this form.


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Forms Settings | Scroll down to the Please Contactmodule, hover over, and click Edit.

Here add a new person by clicking on the + button tothe right of the person you wish to add the new personunder.

Type their name and click Update Form.


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Note that you can also remove a persons name by clicking on the button.

Youll need to add a new notification so that in the event this new person is sent a message,they will receive it. Click on Notifications, and click on the + button to the right of thenotification you wish to add the new notification under.

Type in the persons email address. Switch the type ofNotification to the type you intend,then select that persons name. Scroll down to the bottom of the edit panel and click SaveSettings. Check your work by going to the front-end of the website. You can do this byclicking on Preview at the top of the management panel.


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Administrating Site Navigation

WidgetsWidget support is a way to display additional information on the website sometimes to a

very sophisticated degree. A widget is simply a block with the potential for display activitywhich usually can be controlled, and which can be moved around. For example, you can

place a widget in a sidebar that displays the most recent news posts on your site.

With this website, you have one sidebar which is shown on the News post-feed webpage:

If you look at the Widgets admin panel in the CMS back-end (under the Appearance

Menu), you have widgets that are available to you on the left, and places to put them on the

right.


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To add them to the sidebar you simply grab a widget and drag it across, dropping it into the

widget space. If you have multiple widget spaces, you have more choice as to where to

place the widgets.

Once the widget component is added to the area you wish the

widget to appear in, you can click on the dropdown arrow to

reveal the widgets options.

You also have an Inactive Widgets

space that lets you store widgets

that have been configured but which you dont want to display

at the moment. This is a very useful tool for some busier sites

because you can use this area to set up a widget before making

it visible to everyone. This is a good practice to get into.

If you were to add the Pages widget, you could add a title such

as the name of your website, adjust the Page order, andexclude pages you would rather did not appear, by entering

their Page ID. This can be found on your Pages list panel in the

far left column of the list.

One thing worth noting is that not all themes have styling for every widget to fit in every

space. Be careful as some widgets will look terrible until youve had a web designer add

suitable styling to your theme. Its often worth checking new widgets out on a development

environment for aesthetics and performance. Testing things out on a live site is quick, but if

youre working on a busy or important site then it can cause problems for visitors.

Recent Posts Widget content

Pages Widget content


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Menus

This section covers the basic tasks a user may carry out when using the built-in menu editor

such as: Defining a menu, adding items to a menu, customising menu items, deleting menu

itemsand creating multi-level menus.

Defining a Menu

Under Appearance in the CMS Menu, select the Menus option to bring up the Menus

admin panel. You should see something similar to the screenshot below in your browser

window:

Three Menus have already been built for this website: The Main Menu, the FooterMenu,

and the Wish List Menu (which appears on the Scouts Desk webpage). Otherwise, you

would enter a name for your new menu in the Menu Name box then click the Create Menu

button. However you would need to work with your developer to make sure this new menu

will appear where and how you intend it to appear.


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Adding Items to a Menu

If you wanted to add a new Wish List item to the Wish List Menu which will appear on the

Scouts Desk webpage, keep in mind that the Wish List can only present seven items, so

you will need to delete one in order to add another.

At the top of the right column of the Menu edit panel, there are three tabs, each indicating

one of the custom menus. Click on WishList Menu, to reveal the menu items for that menu.

In the left-hand column of the Menu edit panel, you

should see a sub-menu titled Pages.

In this component, click the View All link. This will bring

up a list of all the Pages that are currently published on

your site/blog, in the order in which they are listed on the

Pages list panel.

Select the Page you want to add to your menu by clicking

the checkbox to the left of each items title. Click the Add

to Menu button located in the bottom right-hand corner.

You should now see that this Page title has been added

to the bottom of the Menus item list on the right.

Click the Save Menubutton to save the changes.

Deleting a Menu item

To access the options for the relevant menu item, find the

corresponding menu item box in the right-hand corner of the

Menu editor window and left-click on the arrow icon in the top

right-hand corner of it. The menu item box should then expand and the admin options will be

visible.


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Click on the Removelink in the bottom left-hand corner. The menu item box for the menu

item you deleted should no longer be displayed. Click the Save Menu button to save the

changes you have made.

Customising Menu ItemsOpen up the admin options for a menu item and well review the other menu item

administration items.

The Navigation Label option specifies the title of the menu item as the item appears on the

menu on the websites frontend.

The Title Attribute option specifies the Alternative (or Alt') text for the menu item. This is

what will be displayed when a users mouse hovers over a menu item, or if the user is

accessing the site using screen reader software, for example.

For instance, on the Wish List Menu, there

is an item that has been re-titled Film-

friendly Facility. Notice that the original

Page is titled About. This means that for

the purposes of the thematic structure on

the viewable Wish List, the About page is

titled Film-friendly Facility and if a viewer

clicks on it, they will be taken to the About

page.

Notice in the upper right corner of the menu item, it indicates this item is linking to a Page.

Lets add a Title Attribute, so when viewers hover-over Film-friendly Facility, they will be

presented with more information about that link.

Adding Click here to navigate to the

About page, to the Title Attribute

field, then clicking the Save Menu

button to save the changes this will

cause that text to be revealed uponhover-over.

In order to add a News post or a

Location to this menu, you will need to

either:

a) Use the Posts selection component

to link to a News post, or

b) Use the Custom Links selection

component to create a link to the URL

of the Location you wish to link to.

Click here to navigate to the About page


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Working with Multi-level Menus

When planning the structure of your menu, it helps to think of each menu item as a heading

in a formal document.

In a formal document, main section headings (Level 1 headings) are the nearest to the left of

the page; sub-section headings (Level 2 headings) are indented slightly further to the right;any other subordinate headings (Level 3, 4, etc.) within the same section are indented even

further to the right of the page.

The CMS menu editor allows you to create multi-level menus using a simple drag and drop

interface. You can drag menu items up or down to change their order of appearance in the

menu, or you can drag them left or right in order to create a multi-level menu structure.

To make one menu item a subordinate of another item, then position it underneath, and drag

it slightly to the right of, the main menu item.

Currently the Main Menu consists of Level 1 items, as well as Level 2 items, as can been

seen in the screenshot below, where About is a Level 1 item, and History is Level 2:

On the Main Menu tab on the Menus edit

panel, you can drag and drop the order of

the Level 1 items, or the Level 2 items.

You can also make a Level 1 item a

subordinate of another Level 1 item by

dragging it under its new parent item and

dragging it to a slightly indented position.

Click the Save Menu button to save the

changes. Your new menu, with the

structure described in this example, will

now appear on the viewable frontend of the

website, as pictured in the next graphic.


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Change of position from Level 1,

to Level 2, a subordinate

of a Level 1 menu item


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Site Content Tips

Structuring a Site

One of the most important things to get right with a website or blog is the structure of its

content. This can make an incredible difference to usability and search engine performance do it well and users will be able to navigate your content easily and quickly. Fortunately,

with WordPress the navigation of your site will usually follow a fairly standard route.

Simple Structuring Rules:

1. Categorise and tag your content | ...so that it's clear and easy to find without

resorting to the search tool. For example, if the main source of traffic to your site is

interested in your stories about knitting, then a category called knitting, along with

perhaps some relevant tags against Posts such as crochet and machine knit could

be the way to go.

2. Resist the temptation to clutteryour website | ...with logos, affiliate links andadvertising. Theres nothing at all wrong with links and logos, but a sea of them is

confusing and distracts people away from the main purpose of your site.

3. Edit your content carefully | ...for spelling, grammar and suitable content. When

you publish whether it's within a magazine or on the internet you take a certain

level of responsibility for the information you disseminate.

4. The front page of your site is important | It should contain at least some

information about what/who you are and what you do this can help not only site

visitors to know what it is you're doing online, but will also help search engines to find

the content on your website.

Search Engines

Search engines will bring your website traffic, typically around 25%-35% of it. In some

cases, it will bring a lot more, and in other cases a lot less. But if search engines bring 95%

of your traffic then youre probably doing something wrong. The following tips describe how

to maximise your site for search engine performance, but its not the be all and end all

great content usually means great traffic after a while.

1. Dont writejust for the search engines | ...because when you do that, visitors are

quickly aware of your attempts to stuff keywords into every sentence.

2. Link Outbecause quality links add quality to your own site.3. Keywords are more important in headers and titles | ...but in body text they

quickly lose their power except when linking to other pages in your site and to other

websites. For example, if you write click here to read about Britneys latest

escapade and link that it will perform worse than a paragraph with a link that reads

when Britney Spears fell out of a taxi drunk.

4. Get inward bound links | ...by creating great content, commenting on other blogs,

engaging with other bloggers, and generally making an effort to be an active part of

your industrys community.

5. The search engines dont like being gamed | Any underhand tricks used to

increase your ranking could eventually lead to a de-listing. That can include


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inappropriate link-purchasing, spam blogging, e-mail spam, Twitter spam and so on.

Be careful.

6. If your site is hacked it can be bad for your ranking | Spammers try to hack

websites in order to insert their own hidden links. If you have a lot of poor quality

links on your site you risk losing page rank.

7. Concentrate on great content | ...rather than working the search engines trust,

people link a lot to good stuff.


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Credits

Arthur Zeesman Chief Strategist, Zeesman

Karim Marucchi WordPress Digital Architect, VeloMedia

Michael Grace Account Manager, Zeesman

Jason Rosenbaum Client Manager, VeloMediaRyan Powell Art Director, Zeesman

Anna Berness

Andrea Fiegenbaum

Senior Graphic Designer, Zeesman

Project Manager, Zeesman

Bobby Jasso

Bogdan Fireteanu

Cristi Rusu

Cosmin Iacob

Rebekah Henderson

Ian Slater

Kari Leigh Floyd

Project Manager, VeloMedia

Development & Integration Lead, VeloMedia

Database & Programming Lead, VeloMedia

Programmer, VeloMedia

Integration Specialist

Content Services Specialist

Procedure Documentation Specialist

CMS User Guide v1.5-GOR

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Transcript of CMS User Guide v1.5-GOR