Field Mycology - WordPress

From Help Wiki

Your Assignment

You will generate content for a fungus post on the “Fungi Evergreen” website. You will select one species of fungus and create a fungus post for it by researching and writing original content. Each fungus post will include a featured photo and photo gallery, along with a description of its features, habitat, distribution, and any practical or historical uses. Your fungus of choice must be: 1) a species that can be found on Evergreen's campus and 2) a species that does not already have a fungus post on the Fungi of Evergreen site.

Getting Started

Driving in WordPress

  • Dashboard Overview - get comfortable navigating the Dashboard and moving between Admin and Public view
  • Change your profile info: Name and Bio

Add a new fungus

See the Example fungus for details on what is to be included in each section of your fungus post and Cantharellus formosus for an example of what a complete post looks like.

  1. Create a new Fungus using the New button at the top of the Admin Bar or from the Dashboard > Fungi > Add New menu
  2. Title your post - use the Latin species name for your fungus (for the workshop create a fictitious fungus with the title starting with "Fake")
    • Note: the traditional post content area will actually display at the bottom of the page. This is where we're going to add image galleries instead.
  3. Publish your Fungus and then View Fungus to see how it looks

Edit an existing fungus

  • From the public view of your Fungus, click the Edit Fungus button in the top Admin bar
  • You can also navigate from your Dashboard to Fungi > All Fungi and hover over the fungus to Edit

Input fungus data

Beneath the top content area we will be putting the rest of our content into sections using WordPress Custom Fields. The process is very similar to filling out an online form.

  1. Look for the Input fungus data block and fill out the fields
  2. The first time you save fungus data you will click the Add Entry button at the bottom of the fields
  3. To save this fungus data with your fungus post you need to next Update the post
  4. Click 'Edit in the Fungus Data block to add/edit content to these fields
  5. to save your changes click Save Changes in the Fungus Data block AND Update in the publish block to update the entire post.


Things to note about adding Fungus Data:

  • Important: Every time you make a change to your fungus data you will need to save your changes in two places: 1) the Fungus Data block 2) the Publish block
  • The Photo for Microscopic or Chemical Characteristics will need to be sized prior to upload as it resides outside of the WordPress Media Library and does not give you the option to resize it after it's been uploaded.

Fungus Categories and Morphologies

  • Along the right hand side of your Fungus post, select the appropriate fungus category and morphology
  • A fungus may belong to more than one so check all that apply


You will be adding images to your fungus post. Original images taken by you are preferable, but if you don't have a high quality photo (or want to add additional photos), you can use images that are not your own if they do not violate copyright laws and are properly attributed. See note about Creative Commons images below.

Adding Images

You will be adding images to your fungus post. Original images taken by you are preferable, but if you don't have a high quality photo (or want to add additional photos), you can use images that are not your own if they do not violate copyright laws and are properly attributed. See note about Creative Commons images below.

File management: we will all be sharing a single media library. Make sure to use a unique file naming convention. Start your files with your species and it will be easy to find all files related to your species.
Example: Amanita_muscaria1.jpg
  • Set your featured image for all posts. Featured images will appear on the at the top of each post and on category pages.
  • Insert an image - add an image to the body of a post
  • Adding captions to cite your image sources
    • Creative Commons images from WikiMedia Commons is a great place to start. Once you find an image you'd like to use click the "Use this file on the web" link. Copy the "Attribution" (HTML) text and paste into your image's caption.
  • Use the built-in image gallery tool to add an image gallery to the main content area of the post. This image gallery will be displayed at the bottom of the page.

Additional Resources

  • Wordpress.com Getting Started Tutorials - these tutorials are for working on wordpress.com but is nearly identical to using WordPress at blogs.evergreen.edu
  • Lynda.com WordPress 3 Essential Training - this is another training geared towards using Wordpress.com but if you skip the account setup portion most of the rest is relavent to blogs.evergreen.edu