WordPress Training Workshop 1

WordPress training Workshop 1 Nov 5 2013

  • Jude Moore WULN secretary and Friends of the Ridges Reserves
  • Jenny Marsh Baranduda Landcare
  • Tony Marsh Baranduda Landcare and WULN
  • Glenda Datson Baranduda Landcare
  • Jenny Macauley WULN and Farmers Markets
  • Bruce Nulty Friends of Clyde Cameron Reserve, Friends of Willow Park
  • Maisie and Indigo Stelling Wodonga Local Sustainability Education Network
  • Anne Stelling WULN Facilitator and Wodonga Local Sustainability Education Network
  • Jim Gardiner Friends of Belvoir Park

Brief overview of content management systems and WordPress in particular

  • WP is a content management system (CMS) as is Joomla (Friends of Chiltern), Drupal (Friends of Willow Park) and Plone (Landcare Gateway)
  • We have found WP to be the most widely used, supported and user friendly CMS
  • They have in common a database driven website and a hierarchy of user permissions

WordPress Roles and Capabilities

Super Admin – somebody with access to the site network administration features and all other features.
Administrator – somebody who has access to all the administration features within a single site.
Editor – somebody who can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users.
Author – somebody who can publish and manage their own posts.
Contributor – somebody who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.
Subscriber – somebody who can only manage their profile.
Ideally groups will be maintaining their own sites after receiving training and support from us

For more information about Roles and Capabilities follow the link below

http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_and_Capabilities

1. WULN is a WordPress Multisite Installation supporting 14 groups

A WordPress standard installation consists of the standard features of management of users and logging in, subscriptions, posts, pages, comments, media (images and files), appearance, themes, menus etc
A WordPress multisite installation consists of a collection of sites that all share the same WordPress installation. They can also share plugins and themes. The individual sites in the network are virtual sites in the sense that they do not have their own directories on the server, although they do have separate directories for media uploads within the shared installation, and they do have separate tables in the database.

The big advantage of a multisite is that all sites can be managed from the one interface. So instead of applying a WordPress, theme, plugin update or addition to each site individually all sites can be updated with the one operation.

2. Logging in and password maintenance / user rights

  • Logging in takes you to the Dashboard – all registered persons who can login will see a dashboard but what you see and can do with the dashboard depends on your role and the capabilities it brings with it
  • Cannot add content without logging in
  • Demo how an administrator can change the capabilities of another user – eg upgrade Anne to admin and change Maisie to author
  • Demo of an ordinary registration from a not logged in situation note the superadmin gets a notification email
  • If the new user does not activate their username within two days, they will have to register again.

3. User registration and subscription management

  • these are not the same thing – at its most basic level registration allows you to have a profile but not add content (subscriber status)
  • to add content you need to be assigned a contributor, author or editor role
  • Subscription refers to the services that a user wishes to receive from the website. These are in the form of email advisories when new blog posts are added to the site. You can manage your subscription status with each of the 14 sites through your profile and subscribe or unsubscribe easily

4. About Pages

In WordPress, you can write either posts or Pages. When you’re writing a regular blog entry, you write a post. Pages are for content such as “About,” “Contact,” etc. Pages live outside of the normal blog chronology, and are often used to present timeless information about yourself or your site — information that is always applicable. You can use Pages to organize and manage any content.
To create a new Page, log in to your WordPress installation with sufficient admin privileges to create new articles.

Select the Administration > Pages

> Add New option to begin writing a new Page.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Pages

5. About Posts

Posts, in a default setup, appear in reverse chronological order on your blog’s home page. In contrast to pages, posts usually have comments fields beneath them and are included in your site’s RSS feed.

To write a post:

Log in to your WordPress Administration Panel (Dashboard).
Click the ‘Posts’ tab.
Click the ‘Add New’ sub-tab.
Start filling in the blanks: enter your post title in the upper field, and enter your post body content in the main post editing box below it.
As needed, select a category, add tags, and make other selections from the sections below the post. (Each of these sections is explained below.)
When you are ready, click Publish.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Posts

6. Comments in WordPress

Comments allow your website’s visitors to have a discussion with you and each other. When you activate comments on a Page or post, WordPress inserts several text boxes after your content where users can submit their comments. Once you approve a comment, it appears underneath your content. Whether you want to customize how your receive comments or tweak how your site displays comments, WordPress provides a thorough set of options to build a community from the visitors to your site.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Comments_in_WordPress

7. Images and media

Images can be used in a variety of methods in your WordPress posts and Pages. They can be a major subject, or a referenced detail that enhances the information or story.

Inserting Images into Posts and Pages
http://codex.wordpress.org/Inserting_Images_into_Posts_and_Pages

8. Themes, appearance and menus

These are usually managed by the administrator of the site

Want to learn more go to
http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress

9. WULN website Plugins – NextGen Gallery, Subscribe 2, Event Manager, Facebook

The WULN site also contains a number of plug-ins that enhance the standard Worpress installation with additional functionality

WordPress NextGEN Gallery Plugin known as Gallery on the WULN site

This is the most popular WordPress gallery plugin, and one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time, with over 7.5 million downloads. It provides a powerful engine for uploading and managing galleries of images, with the ability to batch upload, import meta data, add/delete/rearrange/sort images, edit thumbnails, group galleries into albums, and more. It also provides two front-end display styles (slideshows and thumbnail galleries), both of which come with a wide array of options for controlling size, style, timing, transitions, controls, lightbox effects, and more.

Demo – galleries on the BLC WULN site http://wodongaurbanlandcarenetwork.org.au/blc

For more info about NextGen gallery

http://www.nextgen-gallery.com/help/

Subscribe2

Subscribe2 provides a comprehensive subscription management and email notification system for WordPress blogs that sends email notifications to a list of subscribers when you publish new content to your blog.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/subscribe2/

Add multiple users

Add Multiple Users provides the ability for WordPress administrators to bulk register users using a range of tools available under the AMU tab in your

WordPress administration section
http://wordpress.org/plugins/add-multiple-users/

Facebook

The Facebook plugin for WordPress adds Facebook social plugins to your WordPress site.  You can associate your WordPress site with a free Facebook application identifier to enable advanced features such as automatically sharing new posts to an author’s Facebook Timeline or your site’s Facebook Page.
http://wordpress.org/plugins/facebook/

Event management
Events Manager is a full-featured event registration plugin for WordPress based on the principles of flexibility, reliability and powerful features!
Demo of adding an event
http://wordpress.org/plugins/events-manager/