Introduction
PWTSC Board members are able to write and publish articles for our web site and upload photos, either individually or as a gallery, to accompany those articles. Board Member articles may be written and saved as drafts, and when they are satisfied with the article, may self-publish. A PWTSC officer may review and edit the article separately or at a Board Member’s request. Regular PWTSC Members may also contribute articles in draft form, for review and publication by a PWTSC officer, if the member request a WordPress login from the PWTSC Webmaster ([email protected]).
Please take every opportunity to write an article and upload photos from a workday or event, to keep our community informed of all the great work we’re doing! Project leaders are expected to identify a person to take pictures and provide a written summary of the recently completed event.
Creating a Post
There are a few types of Posts categories to be aware of in WordPress: Articles, Events, Fundraisers, and Pages.
- Articles: posts generally used to document accomplishments at workdays or other events.
- Events: used to inform the community of an upcoming event; this post will go on the group calendar and show in the sidebar of each web page.
- Fundraisers: special posts that are featured on the home page; reserved for posts that raise money for PWTSC.
- Pages: permanent posts, reached from links at the top menu of the site; reserved for information that has a long shelf life, or doesn’t change often.
Board Members may author any of these post types, and they are written in similar ways. Typically, the author will need to select one or more check boxes to distinguish the article type.
Please bear in mind that not all browsers behave the same with WordPress. In particular, we have found that IE9 should have compatibility mode turned on when authoring articles. Most versions of Firefox and Chrome seem to work without issues.
What follows are steps to guide you through posting to the web site.
The first step is to login to WordPress using your user name and password. If you don’t yet have a login, or have lost/forgotten your user name or password, contact the PWTSC Webmaster at [email protected].
After logging in, users will see the WordPress Administration dashboard. On the left hand menu, there will be a Posts menu heading, with an “Add New” link underneath. Click “Add New” for Posts, Events, and Fundraiser articles. (For those adding a Page, there is a corresponding Page menu item on the dashboard.)
There are several elements to a new post, including: Title, Content, Categories, The Events Calendar, Excerpt, Content Permission, and Publish Area. Many of these elements are optional, but each article should always have a Title and Content.
The Title is the top field in the Add New Post page. The next field is for the content. Use this space to describe your workday or event.
For uploading photos: Directly above the Content field and it’s button bar, you’ll find some text and a few extra buttons “Upload/Insert”. The first button to the right of the “Upload/Insert” text is a square button to “Add an Image”. Click the “Add an Image” button, then follow the prompts to upload a file from your computer. Once a photo or photos is uploaded, you can scroll down to select “Insert into Post” or “Insert/Update Gallery”. As a shortcut for creating a gallery, you may enter the word “gallery” surrounded by square brackets “[” and “]” (without the quotes) within the article, then single click the resulting placeholder and press the edit button that appears to change gallery settings like number of columns, and which pictures from the Media Library to include.
If the article is about an upcoming event, please include the point of contact (POC) information. Be sure to check the “Event” check box under the Categories menu heading on the right. Next, under The Events Calendar heading, click Yes where it asks “Is this post an event?” When you select yes, you will be prompted for the Event Time & Date and Event Location Details. Leave the Event Cost and Sell Tickets fields empty. If you fill in the full address for the Event, please check the “Show Google Map Link” option. Leave the “Show Google Map” check box empty, though.
For non-event articles, like if your article is about a workday, past event, or news link, then after filling in the Content, please check the “Article” or “Fundraiser” checkbox under the Categories heading on the right of the page as appropriate.
When you’ve completed your post, then look in the Publish category and press the “Submit for Review” or “Publish” or “Update” button as appropriate.
About the Home Page Organization
The site is designed to show the 4 most recent articles on the left, and in the middle column (from the top) the 3 most recent “sticky” posts. The rightmost column shows the event calendar, and then boilerplate text about the organization.
If you mark a Fundraiser post as sticky it will show, if not, it won’t.
In general, if you see results that don’t match your expectations, you may need to clear the cache in order for the home page to refresh immediately.
You can clear the cache by logging in and navigating to Settings->WP Super Cache-> Contents [tab]-> Delete Cache [button].