As you progress in developing your website at EWU you might find that the black admin toolbar is a distraction or is blocking you from previewing your content.  Most people find the WordPress admin toolbar useful, but some people may want to turn the WordPress Admin Bar off from the front end of the site. Remember, the WordPress Admin Bar is only visible to you when you’re logged in to your site. To turn off this view, in the top right of the Dashboard, under your Profile (Howdy, "your name" text), click the Edit my Profile (Screenshot #1) link. From this screen, you’ll see a check box to Show Toolbar (Screenshot #2) when viewing site. Simply uncheck this box to turn this view off, then scroll to the bottom and click Update profile. #1.   #2. If you return to the front end of our site, the WordPress Admin Bar will be no longer visible. If you decide later that you’d like to turn the Admin Bar back on, just return to your edit profile and check the box to show the toolbar again.

One of the reasons EWU is utilizing WordPress is the great support from the user community. With EWU's limited resources, we'd never be able to maintain documentation with the same level of quality as the WordPress user community does. One community supported resource that is great for both new and experienced WordPress users is the WordPress Codex, an online manual for WordPress and a living repository for WordPress information and documentation. https://codex.wordpress.org/ We've added some EWU customization to WordPress that may change small pieces of your WordPress experience, but the Codex in general will cover 90% of your WordPress needs. It's a great place to start learning more at your own pace. Examples: Getting Started with WordPress Creating and Using Pages FAQs The WordPress Gallery

Prerequisite Topics Posts vs Pages  There are two main ways of creating a post in WordPress, Admin bar and left menu. Admin Bar Left menu     Other Tutorials The first few steps in WordPress Support Documentation's Writing a Post.

How do I manage users on my site as a site administrator? There are five roles that you can assign to people who you want to blog with: Subscriber, Contributor, Editor, Author, or Administrator. Important: Please be careful of the roles you give users on your site. If you add a user as an administrator, you are granting them full access. This means that she/he will be able to delete pages, posts, themes, etc… What does each of the user groups have access too?  Capability  Subscriber  Contributor   Author  Editor  Administrator Read all public posts and pages   ✓ ✓  ✓    ✓    ✓   Edit and delete posts - ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ Delete published posts - - ✓ ✓ ✓ Publish posts - - ✓ ✓ ✓ Upload media - - ✓ ✓ ✓ Edit and delete any posts or pages - - - ✓ ✓ Manage tags - - - ✓ ✓ Manage categories - - - ✓ ✓ Moderate comments - - - ✓ ✓ Edit themes - - - - ✓  Manage users  - -  -  -   ✓ How do I add a user? If you’re an Administrator and you’d like to make someone a Subscriber, Contributor, Author, or Editor on your site, go to Users → Add User. Fill their EWU Username and select the role you wish to give them using the drop-down. How do I change a user role? As an Administrator of a site, you can change other users’ roles by following the steps below. Head to Users → All Users in your WordPress admin. Click "Edit" below the user's avatar. Using the Role drop-down menu, select the new user role you want to assign. Click "Update User".

To change your privacy setting so that your site will display in our listing, follow these simple steps: Login to your WordPress dashboard Navigate to Settings > Privacy Select the option I would like my site to be visible to everyone, etc. Click the "Save Changes" button

Prerequisite Topics Using the Media Library Editing a Post or Page Page Builder Basics There are three ways to add media to a post or page: With the Media Library With a URL or embed code With Page Builder Adding Media with the Media Library Opening the Media Library To add images and other media to a post or page, you must first navigate to the post or page you want to add media to. Edit the post or page. Once in the Edit screen, place your cursor in the text editor where you want to add media. Then, in the upper left corner of the text editor, click the Add Media button. Your Media Library, along with all your existing media, will pop up in a modal. Selecting Media In the Media Library modal, you can select from existing media, upload new media from your computer, or you can insert media with a URL. Uploading New Files To insert new media from your computer, click on the Upload Files tab. You can drag and drop files from your computer onto the Media Library window, or you can press the Select Files button to browse and select files from your computer. Once you add a new file, it will be added to your Media Library. You will be directed back to the Media Library tab, with the new file already selected. When you select a file in your library, you will be able to see a section called Attachment Details on the right. Here you can see information about the file, add metadata, sort the file into categories, and configure display settings. Insert Media from URL To insert media with a URL, click on the link on the left side of the modal that says Insert from URL. Here you can add a direct URL of the media you want to add. Depending on the file type, you will be prompted to fill out metadata. Adding Metadata Metadata is data about the attachment. In the Media Library, that is the URL, the title, the caption, alt text, and the description. The URL and title will automatically be generated. The only other section that is required to fill out is the alt text, because of its importance to web accessibility. Alt text is important for people who cannot see images. Alt text is what is read to people who use screen readers. It will also appear if a user hovers over the image. Alt text should describe the contents of the image. This way, people with vision impairments or people whose browsers do not display images can still enjoy the content of your website. If you add new media through the file upload or with a direct URL, remember to fill out the metadata. If you select media that already exists in your Media Library, check to see if the metadata has been filled out. Attachment Display Settings After you finish adding metadata, scroll down to Attachment Display Settings. The available options are: Alignment: Align your media to the left, center, or right side of your page. Link To: Link directly to the media file, to an attachment page, or to any URL, or remove the link entirely by selecting None. In most cases, it is recommended you select None. Size: When you upload an image to the Media Library, it automatically generates a few different-sized versions of that image. Select the size you wish to use. Insert Selected Media After you have selected the media you wish to add, filled out its metadata and configured its display settings, you can click the Insert into post or Insert into page button. This will insert the media where your cursor was resting in the text editor. Editing Media If you need to make changes to the images or other media you have already inserted, you can click on them in the text editor. Once selected, a toolbar will pop up above or below the image. You can change the alignment in this toolbar, or you can click the pencil icon to edit. For images, a modal called Image Details will pop up. Here you can edit the caption and alternate text, change display settings, and configure advanced options. Click the Update button to save any changes. Saving Changes After you have inserted media into your post or page, remember to save your progress. For new posts and pages, click Save Draft or Publish in the Publish box. For existing posts and pages, click Update in the Publish box. This will save your changes. Your media is now visible on your page. Adding Media with a URL You can add media from third party websites simply by copying the direct URL of the image, video or other media, and then pasting it into the text editor. After a moment, your media will show up in the text editor just as it will on the post or page. Sites also commonly provide embed codes for their media. If the direct URL does not work, more than likely you'll need the embed code. If you copy the embed code, you must paste it in the text view of the WordPress Text Editor, not the visual view. After pasting the embed code in the text view, if you switch back to the visual view your media will be visible. It is good to be cautious about using third party hosting, because it can sometimes be unreliable. If the site takes down the image or video that you link to, or the site itself goes down, your media will no longer show up on your page. It's good to use established, reliable sources that are unlikely to fail. On the other hand, third party hosting can be advantageous, because your site will run much faster. A page with a video from YouTube will load much quicker than a page with the same video hosted through your Media Library. As with media inserted through the Media Library, you can click media inserted with a URL or embed code to edit it. Remember to add metadata, and to save your changes. Adding Media with Page Builder If Page Builder is active on the page or post you wish to edit, adding media requires a different process. This article assumes that you already have some basic knowledge of how Page Builder works. To learn more about Page Builder, see our Page Builder category in the knowledge base, or read our article about Page Builder Basics. First, launch Page Builder on the post or page you want to add media to. In the sidebar, there are multiple modules you can choose from. If you add the Text Editor module to your page, you can add media the usual way, with the Add Media button above the text editor. Alternatively, you can use the Photo module to add an image. You can add a video with the Video module. And you can add an audio file with the Audio module. All of these modules will direct you to the Media Library. As with the text editor, you can select from existing files, upload new files, or add files with a direct URL. Remember to add metadata. Display options will be different, however. These modules come with their own unique display settings. Additionally, rather than choosing alignment or placing the media where your cursor was resting in the text editor, you can arrange your media on the page by grabbing the module, then dragging and dropping it where you want it. When you have added and arranged your media, you can save your changes by pressing Done in the Page Builder header. Select Publish Changes to immediately apply changes to the page and make them visible to the public. Select Save Changes and Exit if you want to save your changes, but not make them visible to the public yet. Discard Changes and Exit if you do not wish to save your changes.

Prerequisite Topics Creating A Post Editing a Post or Page   Categories and tags are a means of taxonomy or a way of organizing posts. According to WordPress’s definition, a taxonomy is a mechanism for grouping items by their characteristics through the use of terms. By using categories and tags, you can make your content more organized, more usable, and easier for visitors to find. Note: Categories and tags can only be used to organize posts. Pages are organized in parent-child hierarchies. For more about pages, see our article: Creating a Page. Categories Categories are a way to group posts into sections. Categories are usually a broad, yet descriptive word or phrase. For example, our introductory WordPress articles are arranged under a category called “Getting Started.” Like pages, you can also create subcategories within categories. Sub categories will be more specific terms than their parent categories. For example, in a category called “Dogs," you might have the subcategories “Small Dogs,” “Medium Dogs” and “Large Dogs.” A post can be sorted into multiple categories. However, it is typically best to stick to one category, because sorting posts into multiple categories can clutter the organization of your site and confuse readers. Using Categories To sort a post into a category, you must first edit the post. In the Edit Post page, there is a box on the right side of the page called Categories. In this section, you can select which category or categories you want to place your post into. You can choose from all categories or from the most used. You can also add a new category by clicking Add New Category. By default, your post will be sorted into a category called Uncategorized, which is the single category that comes with a WordPress site. This is not a useful classification, so uncheck Uncategorized and select a different category. In fact, once you have created your own categories, it is best to delete Uncategorized, so that your posts will not be sorted here by accident. For more about creating categories, see our blog post: Creating Meaningful WordPress Categories. To save your categories, go to the box labeled Publish. For new posts, you can either click Save Draft or Publish to save your changes. For an existing post, click the Update button. Managing Categories To view all your categories, go to your site’s dashboard, hover over Posts, and select Categories in the submenu. This will bring you to a page that lists all your categories and their properties. On this page, you can manage existing categories or you can add new ones. Managing Existing Categories Your existing categories will be displayed on the right. Each category has four properties. They are: Name: The name of the category as it displays on your site. Description: A short sentence describing the content of the category. Slug: The version of the category name as it appears in a URL. Count: The number of posts currently sorted into the category. If these properties do not appear on the page, select Screen Options at the top of the page and check the box of each property to display them. When you hover over a category, four options will appear beneath the name: Edit: Directs you to a page where you can edit all settings for a category. Quick Edit: Opens an in-context screen for editing the name of the category. Delete: Deletes the category. View: Directs you to the category archive page on your website. You can take any of these actions. You can also select multiple categories and apply an action to all of them at once. Bulk actions can be found at the top and bottom of the list in the drop-down labeled Bulk Actions. The only bulk action available is to delete all selected categories. Adding a New Category On the left side of the screen, you will have the option to add a new category. First, create a name for the category. Optionally, you can select a parent category if you want to make a new category a subcategory, and you can add a description for the category. When you have entered this information, click Add New Category. Your new category will now appear in the list with the others. Tags Tags are similar to categories, but rather than grouping posts into sections as categories do, tags label posts with searchable keywords. Tags are more specific than categories and are used to highlight the groupings and relationships between posts. While posts should be restricted to one category, multiple tags are encouraged. For example, a WordPress site might have a post called "Caring for a Dog." This post is sorted under the “Dogs” category. However, the author might tag this post with “dog,” “care,” “diet” and “health” because those are terms that people might enter into a search box if they want to find an article about caring for a dog. In EWU's existing themes, tags will appear at the bottom of each post. You can click on tags to see all posts sorted into those tags. For example, if you clicked on the “health” tag, you would see all the articles that the author tagged with “health.” The articles may not be from the same category, but because they all were related to health, they all display. This makes it easier for visitors to search for specific subjects on your site. Using Tags To add a tag to a post, first you must edit the post. In the Edit Post page, there is a box on the right side labeled Tags. In this section, you can add tags to your post. You can add tags by typing them into the input box and then clicking Add, or you can click on Choose from the most used tags to see a word cloud of the most used tags. Tags that are used more frequently will be larger. When you add a tag, you will see it listed in the Tags box. To remove a tag, click the X next to it. Note: When adding tags with the input box, be careful to be consistent with existing tags. It’s easy to make typos or variations of the same tag. “Dog” is a different tag than “Dogs,” for example. Making too many tags and over-tagging posts can decrease the usability of tags on your website. As with categories, after you have finished adding tags, go to the box labeled Publish. For new posts, you can either click Save Draft or Publish to save your changes. For an existing post, click the Update button. Your tags are now saved. Managing Tags To view all your tags, go to your site’s dashboard, hover over Posts, and select Tags in the submenu. This will bring you to a page that lists all your tags and their properties. On this page, you can manage existing tags or you can add new tags. Managing Existing Tags Your Tags page will have the same layout as your Categories page. Existing tags will be displayed on the right. Each tag has four properties. Like categories, they are: Name: The name of the tag as it displays on your site. Description: A short sentence describing the content of the tag. Slug: The version of the tag name as it appears in a URL. Count: The number of posts currently sorted into the tag. If these properties do not appear on the page, select Screen Options at the top of the page and check the box of each property to display them. When you hover over a tag, four options will appear beneath the name: Edit: Directs you to a page where you can edit all settings for a tag. Quick Edit: Opens an in-context screen for editing the name of the tag. Delete: Deletes the tag. View: Directs you to the tag archive page on your website. You can make any of these actions. You can also select multiple tags and apply an action to all of them at once. Bulk actions can be found at the top and bottom of the list in the drop-down labeled Bulk Actions. The only bulk action available is to delete all selected tags. Adding a New Tag On the left side of the screen, you will have the option to add a new tag. First, create a name for the tag. Optionally, you can add a description. When you are done, click Add New Tag. Your new tag will now appear in the list with your other tags. Widgets for Categories and Tags Wordpress has widgets that allow you to add categories and tags to the sidebar on your site. From the dashboard, hover over Appearance in the sidebar and click on Widgets in the submenu. Under Available Widgets you will find the Categories widget and the Tag Cloud widget. To add these to a sidebar, simply drag and drop the widgets to the Sidebar panel. Changes made to the Widgets page will save automatically. When you add categories and tags to your sidebar or another widget area, they become easier for visitors to browse through, so your content becomes easier to find.

Prerequisite Topics Creating A Page Creating A Post   The process for editing posts is very similar to editing pages. There are two ways to edit a post or page. First, you must begin by logging in, so that you can access your site’s dashboard and the admin toolbar. Method 1 The first method is to navigate to the post or page you wish to edit on the front end of your WordPress site. In the admin toolbar, there is an option called Edit Post or Edit Page. Clicking on this option will bring you to the Edit screen. Method 2 The other way to edit a post or page is to go to the dashboard of your site. In the sidebar, you can select either the Posts tab or the Pages tab. This will bring you to a screen that lists all your posts or pages. Locate the post or page that you wish to edit. Then click on its title or on the Edit link below it. This will bring you to the Edit screen. Apply Changes and Publish Now that you have reached the Edit screen, you can make any changes you need to your post or page. All content and settings can be changed at any time, including the title and the URL. When you have finished making changes to your page or post, click the Update button in the Publish section on the right side of your screen. Your edits have now been saved and will reflect on your site.

Prerequisite Topics Posts vs Pages Like posts, a page is a way of adding content to your site. Pages are typically used for non-chronological content or content that presents information that is considered permanent, or relevant regardless of time. Some examples of pages would be an “About” page or a “Contact Us” page. To learn more about the difference between posts and pages, check out our article, Posts vs Pages. There are two ways you can create a page in WordPress. First, you must begin by logging in, so that you can access your site’s dashboard and the admin toolbar. Method 1 Go to the dashboard of your site. In the sidebar, hover over the Pages tab. You can either select Add New in the submenu, or you can click on the Pages tab and press the Add New button at the top of the page. This will direct you to the Add New Page screen. Method 2 While logged in, the admin toolbar will be present no matter where you are on your site, including the dashboard. In the admin toolbar, there is an option called New. When you hover over New, a dropdown will appear, and you can select Page from the options. This will direct you to the Add New Page screen. Add Title and Content Once you are on the Add New Page screen, the first thing to do is to give your new page a title. This will auto-generate a permalink or your page’s URL. The permalink will not update automatically if you change your page’s title, but you can press the Edit button next to it to change it manually. Next, add content to your page using the WordPress text editor. With the text editor, you can add and format text, use the Add Media button to add photos, videos, or other forms of media, and use the Add Form button to add an existing Gravity Form. If you have the Page Builder plugin activated, you can use that to add content instead of the WordPress editor. To launch Page Builder for a page, simply press the Page Builder tab. For more information about using Page Builder, see the Page Builder category in our Knowledge Base. If you do not have the Page Builder plugin, you can request it here. Creating Subpages You can have subpages within your pages, which creates a hierarchy of pages. For example, under a page called “Dogs," I could also create subpages for German Shepherds, Yorkshire Terriers, and Pugs. When your pages are shown in a listing, such as a sitemap, subpages will be nested under their parent pages. The hierarchy of pages and subpages will also show in the URL. For example, the Pugs page might have a URL of https://mysite.com/dogs/pugs. To make a page a subpage, click the dropdown labeled Parent under the Page Attributes section. This drop-down will list all the pages already created on your site. Select the page you want to be the parent—that would be the Dogs page in our example. By selecting a parent page, you have made the page you are currently editing a subpage. You can add content as usual, and then publish when you are ready. Publishing Your Page The settings for saving and publishing your page can be found in the Publish section on the right side of your screen. With the Save Draft button, you can save your page as a draft that will not yet be visible on your website; you can preview your page with the Preview button. At any time, you can change the status of your page with the Status drop-down. It will show whether your page is a draft, pending review, or published. If your page is published, you can use this drop-down to unpublish it by changing it back to a draft. You can also choose visibility settings. By default, pages will be set to public, but you can make them password protected or private. However, in most cases, it is best to keep a page set as public. After you save your page as a draft or publish your page, a section called Revisions will appear in this box. If you browse your revisions, you can see all versions of the page, with the changes from version to version highlighted. You can also choose to roll your page back to a previous version. You can also set when to publish your page. By default, it will be published and visible on your site immediately after hitting the publish button. If you want, you can instead choose a specific date and time for the page to publish automatically. Finally, to publish your page, press the Publish button. Now anyone can view your page if they have your page’s URL. If you want your page to be easily accessible, be sure to add it to your site’s main menu. To edit existing pages, see our next article: Editing a Post or Page.

Adding Links With the WordPress text editor, adding links to a post or page is simple. In the toolbar, there is an icon that looks like chain links. This is commonly used to symbolize hyperlinks. You can click this icon to insert a link into the text editor. This will bring up a small dialog box that will prompt you to paste a URL or search from existing pages. You can paste your link or select your page, and then click the blue arrow to apply your changes. Alternatively, you can make existing text into a link by highlighting it and then clicking the link icon. You can also highlight the text and use the keyboard shortcut Command (⌘) + K on a Mac, or Ctrl + K on Windows or Linux to get the same result. This will bring up the same link dialog box. Editing Links New Links When you first add a link, in the dialog box there will be a blue button with an arrow next to a grey gear icon. As mentioned, the blue arrow button saves your changes. The gear icon brings up more link options. Here you can paste the URL, and you can choose how that URL displays by filling out the Link Text box. For example, if you link to the homepage of this site, you can either paste the plain URL, https://sites.ewu.edu, or you can add link text so that the link displays as EWU WordPress Platform. Link text not only looks and reads better, but it is more informative to users of screen readers and therefore is more accessible. Beneath the Link Text box is a checkbox that says "Open link in a new tab." Checking this box is highly recommended for external links or links that lead the user away from your site. In link options, you can also choose to link to existing content on your site. You can search for a page with the search bar or scroll through your available options. When you are done with link options, you can select Update to save changes or Cancel to discard changes. Existing Links When you select an existing link in the text editor by clicking it, the dialog box that appears will look slightly different. Instead of the arrow and gear icons, there is a pencil icon and a broken link icon (see Removing Links below). If you click the pencil icon, you can edit your link again and the arrow and gear buttons will appear. Then you can access link options. Removing Links When you select an existing link, a broken link icon will appear in the dialog box. You can click this icon to remove the link and return the link text to normal. You can also select or highlight the link and press the same broken link icon in the toolbar, next to the insert link icon.