Wordpress Bootcamp: Learning The Basics Of Wordpress (2016)
Chapter 3. Second Week
Week 2 Day 1 – Categories & Tags
You can organize your posts into various categories such as topics or subject areas. For instance, if you are writing a post, consider a wider subject of the post. If you are planning to write more posts about the subject in the future, it is ideal to organize these posts together.
Adding New Categories
If you are yet to include categories, click the link showing + Add new category. Insert a new category by clicking the Add new category. You will notice that a new category has been included to the list of categories. To include a category to a post, click the checkbox next to the category.
Another method to manage post categories is by navigating through the link Posts > Categories that is located in the Dashboard menu. If you click the Categories link, you can access the Categories page. From this, you can view all the categories located on the right, where you can also include new entries.
Category Description
The description area allows you to add more information about the posts linked to that category. Some WordPress themes display this information.
Category Hierarchies
Unlike tags, categories could be nested into hierarchies. For instance, you may have a News category, and under that you may include sub-categories for World News and Sports News.
Category Slugs
The Category Slugs is the link-friendly version of the category. This is often in lowercase form and involves only numbers, hyphens, and letters.
What’s the Difference between Categories and Tags
Just think of your website as a book. Categories are similar to the Table of Contents, while the tags serve like the index section.
Week 2 Day 2 – Create a WordPress Page
The first step in creating a new page is to locate the Pages menu in the Dashboard. Just click the Add new option.
You will notice that the page editor has the same interface with the post editor. The only difference lies on few boxes that you can find on the right section of the screen. Add the page title such as Contact Us. Remember, if you have created pretty permalinks, the page title will also be used as the URL slug.
After adding content for the page, you can Publish the section of the page editor, which is similar when you are writing posts. If you are ready to publish, you could either publish immediately, schedule for future posting or schedule it.
The section for Page Attributes includes a parent page and template to your new page. In the Parent section, you could organize the pages according to the hierarchies. For instance, you can create this new page with added pages below it. Take note that there are no restrictions on the number of levels that you want to nest pages.
The Template section allows you to include a template for your new page. This is possible if your theme allows custom page templates.
The Order interface lets you organize the page in numerical order. Pages are often organized alphabetically, but you can select your own arrangement by providing a number in this box.
Preview the page first, then hit Publish if all is well.
Week 2 Day 3 – Applying a WordPress Template
There are WordPress themes that feature templates, which change the format of the page on the front end of the website. Through page templates, the theme can provide you some flexibility for how the page will look and where specific elements will be placed.
The first step in adding a page template is to browse the Pages menu in the Dashboard and find the edit or add a new page link. Locate the Page Attributes area, where you can see a drop-down list for templates that you can use. Depending on the WordPress theme, you can see certain options for page template located in the drop-down menu.
To see how a template will change the look of the page, choose a template and preview it to check if it is appropriate for the page.
You can hit Publish once you have finally selected the template you want to use.
Week 2 Day 4 – Installing a Plugin
Plugins allow you to add more functionalities for your WordPress website. Installing plugins is easy.
The first step is to find and expand the Plugins menu after logging into your site Dashboard. Look for the Installed Plugins page where you can see a list of the plugins that are already installed on your site. Some plugins are automatically installed when you install WordPress such as JetPack and Akismet.
To add a new plugin, just click the Add New option. From this page, you can choose to browse for plugins that you want to install from the WP Plugin Directory. You can also filter your search according to the plug-ins published date, popularity or those that you have marked as your favorites.
To start uploading a plugin, follow this command thread: Choose file > locate your plugin zip file > Install Now > Activate.
The last menu section under the Plugins in the Dashboard is the Editor, which you can use to change some elements of the plugins by modifying separate PHP files. But remember, if you make some modifications, the plugin updates will override your changes. Don’t change the plugin PHP if you don’t know PHP code.
Week 2 Day 5 – Managing WordPress Themes
The first step in managing WordPress themes is to browse the Appearance menu in the Dashboard. Choose the page for Manage Themes.
At the upper part, you can see the Active theme as well as the Customize option. When you click this link, you can see a preview window, which allows you to make some changes in the Tagline and the Site Title.
If you go back to the Manage themes tab, you can view a list of available themes under the active theme. These themes are already installed on your WP site.
If you choose the Live Preview link beneath any theme, you can see a preview of how your website will look with that theme. In the preview, you can browse different pages to see how the theme could handle templates, archives, and posts. On the left side of the preview window, you can edit the settings of the theme. These settings will vary according to the type of features included in the theme.
Be sure to hit the Save & Activate button found on the upper left-side to accept the new theme.
Week 2 Day 6 – Create a Custom Menu
You can create a custom menu that will serve as a navigation menu for your website. The Menu feature allows you to build your own custom menu as a replacement for the default menus of your chosen theme.
Some custom menus contain links, categories, pages, and other types of content. You can also include a custom navigation label for a menu item as well as include other attributes.
In general, there’s no cap on how many menus you want to set up. Hence, if your them includes more than one menu location, you can select which custom menu to link with every location. You can also utilize custom menus alongside the Custom Menus widget.
How to Create a Custom Menu in WP Website
The first step is to expand the Appearance menu on the left side of the Dashboard. Hit on the link for Menus in the Appearance, which will activate the Menus editor page. Provide the name that you want for the menu, and click Create menu. Then, you can add menu items inside the boxes on the left such as links, categories, and pages.
If you want to change which menu options you see from this page, you just need to expand the Screen Options tab. Then, add other menu options such as CSS classes, formats, tags, and posts.
Once you have organized your menu items, make sure to Save Menu
Week 2 Day 7 – Managing Comments
Managing comments in a site built on WordPress is similar to the manner of handling pages and posts.
In the Dashboard, look for the Comments page. You can customize this screen in similar way as you customize other WordPress screens. A yellow color indicator signifies that the comment needs to be moderated. You can respond on comments through the Bulk Actions or by hovering on the action links.
In the Author column, aside from the name of the author, blog URL, email address, the IP address of the commenter will also be displayed. If you click this link, it will reveal all the comments from specific address.
In the Comment column, every comment involves certain information on the Submitted on followed by the time and date the comment was posted on the website. Clicking the time and date link will redirect you to that comment on your web site. When you over on a comment, you will see what you want to do with that comment: approve, reply, edit, trash, or mark as spam.
There are three elements in the column: In Response To. The text refers to the name of the post, which the comment is linked to as well as the links to the post editor for that particular entry.
Conclusion
Thank you again for downloading this book!
I hope this book was able to help you to learn the basics of WordPress and by now, your website or blog is already up and running.
The next step is to learn advanced WordPress techniques such as SEO, security, and using Java and Ajax to enhance your website or blog.