Nonfiction Media - WordPress
From Help Wiki
Why a Wordpress site?
- What is WordPress.
- How is blogs.evergreen.edu different from wordpress.com
- Create a production journal
- Example: Tommy Thompson's Production Journal for High Strung
- Create a portfolio
- Example: http://zacharyquarles.com/blog/
- Take it with you after you graduate
Getting started with a new web site
- Go to http://blogs.evergreen.edu to create your acount and blog. See Creating a new blog for detailed instructions.
- Dashboard overview
- Change the site's title and subtitle Settings > General
- Privacy settings - control who can see your site or if search engines will index your site Settings > Privacy
Writing and Managing your content
- Creating posts
- Using the rich text editor
- Images, media and linking to files
- Controlling commenting & publishing
- set your comment preferences for all new pages/posts Settings > Discussion
- Pages versus Posts
- Creating pages and your site's navigation
- working with sub-pages
- Editing already existing pages and posts
Designing your site
- Trying out new Themes Appearance > Themes
- Customize your header or banner image
- some themes allow for you to add your own header image Appearance > Header Image (may only appear if your chosen theme supports custom header images)
Important: Find a theme that meets your layout requirements.
Menus
New to WordPress3 is a way to control your site's navigational menus. From the dashboard choose Appearance > Menus
- Look in Theme locations to see if your chosen theme supports the new WordPress3 menu system.
Modify Your Sidebar with widgets
Add functionality to your site's sidebar(s) Appearance > Widget
Working with sidebar links
- creating and managing sidebar links
- displaying sidebar links via widgets
Working with categories and tags
- useful for categorizing different types of posts. A category page for each is automatically created. Use the Category Widget to display in your sidebar.
Customize the CSS of your theme with Custom CSS
You can write custom CSS to override the theme's CSS. Go Appearance > Custom CSS
You'll need to learn a bit about how your theme is structured. Some great tools for this are:
- Firefox Firebug
- Firefox's Web Developer Toolbar
- Safari's Develop Menu
Plugins
Plugins add functionality to your site. To use them use must first activate. Some useful plugins include:
- Flickr Gallery
Things to know about your blog
Additional Resources
- Wordpress Tutorials Please note: some of these tutorials assume you have administrative access to your blog's server. You don't.
- Introduction to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
