SOS 3D - WordPress
From Help Wiki
Getting Started
- Getting Started with WordPress - What is WordPress and why should I consider using it to build my portfolio?
- Where will my site live? self hosted, wordpress.com, other
- What are some alternatives to WordPress?
Portfolio Examples
- What are the elements of a good portfolio site?
- Find sites you like - what do you like about them?
Create a WordPress Site at Evergreen
blogs.evergreen.edu is Evergreen's WordPress server. You can create your own site, all you need is an evergreen email address and login.
- Create your first site if you are new to blogs.evergreen.edu.
- Learn how to create additional sites if you already have a site at blogs.evergreen.edu.
- What happens to my blog when I graduate?
Driving in WordPress
- Dashboard Overview - get comfortable navigating the Dashboard and moving between Admin and Public view
Change Some Important Settings
- Change your Site's subtitle or Tagline Settings > General
- Change the default Discussion settings Settings > Discussion
- Change your privacy settings Settings > Privacy - by default your site is closed to the world
Writing and Managing your content
- Get Published - Pages and Posts
- Create your "Home" page - explore the text editor and add some filler content
- Create your "News" page (optional)
- Change what your front page displays if you'd prefer a static pages instead your latest posts.
- Categories and Tags - only if you're working with Posts on a News page
Images
- Intro to digital imaging
- Insert an image - add an image to the body of a page or post
- Working with image galleries in WordPress
Designing Your Site
Working with themes
Themes allow you to change the design of your blog at anytime. Changing your theme will not affect the primary content of your site.
- Choose a theme in Appearance > Themes
- Customize your header 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)
- Working with themes at WordPress.com or a self-hosted WordPress site.
- Some recommended portfolio themes:
- Touchfolio
- Hatch
- Gridly
- Full Screen
Sidebars (aka "Widgets")
Many themes support sidebar content. Often times if you don't add anything to your side bar a default set of "widgets" will appear. You can change this by adding your own widgets.
- Add external links to your sidebar
- Widgets - add additional features to your sidebar
- Custom Menus - allow you to modify the navigation for your site (optional)
Adding functionality to your site
Plugins are used to extend the core functionality of WordPress. The majority of plugins are written by WordPress community members and freely available at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.
- Plugin Overview - activating plugins and list of available plugins at blogs.evergreen.edu
Embedding additional media
What else?
- comments, contact page/feedback
- networking with other sites: facebook, tumblr, etsy
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
- Introduction to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)
