- Enable Posts for the Site
- Set Blog Post Options
- Add a Post
- Create / Edit Post Options
- Additional Post Settings
Posts (or “Blog Posts”) can be included in various (often dynamically presented) features throughout WordPress such as in blog grids, news listings, or press releases. Tagging and categorizing posts can enable targeting specific posts to specific features or presentations. Embed posts into a page with widgets or blocks like Recent Posts, Post Grid, Post Carousel / Slideshow, etc.
Typically, and due to great similarity with creating Pages, enabling both Pages and Posts in a site can be confusing to Editors. We recommend only enabling Posts where News-type articles and blog posts will be presented on the site pages somewhere.
Maine Law uses “Recent Posts” in their News pages to tease users into additional articles:
Enable Posts for the Site
If Posts are not available in the site Dashboard, your Site Administrator must enable it at: Dashboard > Theme Options > Theme Extensions > Posts References.
- Remember – Posts / News presentations will typically only be aggregated in one subsite of the overall campus website. Check with your Site Administrator before adding a lot of Posts to your site.
- Make sure to delete the post that is automatically created on the initial install of your subsite.
- Turn off Post References for subsites that will not have their own news / blog posts.
Set Blog Post Options
If you want to use posts, you should review the settings in Theme Options > Blog Options. Make decisions on…:
- “Read More…” link and excerpt options
- Comments, Date, Author options
- Post navigation options
- Sidebar, image, summary options
- Category / sorting options
- Archive pages options
Add a Post
- Go to your site Dashboard > Posts.
- Click “Add New” at the top of the page.
You’ll be brought to the WordPress Editor. There are a number of sections with various options, these are explained below:
Create / Edit Post Options
- Add title– Gives the post a title. By default, this will show at the top of the post.
- Start writing… – This is where the main content of the page you control will begin.
- Add (“+”) Block – Choose a new block or widget to insert into the page.
- Standard Post Options – Add a header presentation above your article (slideshow, feature image, video etc)
- Post Options – Options to include a carousel of post excerpts below your article, select a sidebar.
- Excerpt – for summary presentations that may be used in other contexts
- Post settings panel (right side) – Use the GEAR icon / “Settings” to expose “Post” visibility, tags, permalink, featured image, SEO settings, and more.
Additional Post Settings
Save, Preview, Publish
Once you have begun editing a post you can choose to save (or “Switch to”), preview, or publish the current state. Post changes are also auto-saved and can be recovered if an authoring connection to the site is severed.
- Save / Switch to draft – Only visible if the post is in progress. This will save your changes without publishing them.
- Preview – Allows you to view your changes without publishing them.
- Note – In some instances, the preview may not accurately depict the content that the user will see.
- Publish – Publishes the post.
- Switch to draft – will unpublish a post
Status & Visibility
- Status – Implied state. Until you publish the post, the status will be “Draft”. If the post is already published, you can click “Draft” to unpublish the post. Draft pages are only visible to other site editors.
- Visibility – By default, this is set to “Public”. You can click the setting label to change it, your options are:
- Public – Visible to the world.
- Password Protected – (Selecting this will prompt you to set a password). When users try to visit the page, they will be required to enter the password (Unless they are an editor).
- Private – Page is only visible to editors.
- Publish – This is the date the page was (or will be) published. You can click the date to change it.
- Note – By default, the page date is hidden to users.
- Pending Review – Page will not be published until a review and status change has been made.
- Move to Trash – This will move the page to the Trash. It will not be accessible to users in the trash, and will be automatically deleted after 30 days.
Revisions
This option only appears after a page revision has been made. Clicking this option will take you to a compare screen where you can see what has been changing in the post content history.
Learn more about revision history.
Assign Categories
Categories help to sort and group posts into different sections to enable viewers to navigate your site easily. Read more about Categories at Adding/Managing Categories/Tags.
- All Categories– Lists the categories already used for different posts on the site.
- Most Used– Lists the categories most used on the site.
- Add New Category– Clicking “Add New Category” will create a drop down menu for adding a new title. The category title is placed in the blank space. Categories can also go under a Parent Category.
- Add New Category– Saves the post to the new category. It will also move the new title to the “All Categories” tab.
Assign Tags
Tags help to group posts based on similar details.
- Choose from the “Most Used” tags – Creates a drop-down that shows the tags already used on other posts in the site.
- Add New Tag – Use this if you want to add a tag that does not already exist.
- Tag Title– Create a new tag title.
- Note– If there are two or more tags in the field, separate them with a comma.
Permalink
The URL that the page will appear at. By default, this is the title you give the page (with dashes between words).
Featured Image
- Set featured image – This will open up the media library, where you can select an image to feature for the post. By default, this will appear between your primary navigation and the page’s title, though this may vary depending on the site design.