Posts

The Wordpress posts system originally was created to support a blogging function but has evolved to be a critical part of the content management process. Today Wordpress is being used more and more as a CMS and posts are being used to extend the functionality of the site especially using tags and categories. As a great example this manual was created using the posts system. The category of the manual was “wordpress Manual” and the posts we created for each section were assigned to the “wordpress Manual” category.  this way a user can see the contents of the entire category or even a view of the excerpts.

Posts can easily be small chunks of content that can be tagged and assigned to specific web pages.  Using this method you can re-use a post and have it on multiple pages.

To list the posts you currently have and to access them for editing other functions you can click on the “posts” entry in the admin panel (typically in the upper left hand corner) pictured here.  As can also be seen the “add new” function is available from this menu as well.

See the post list below – clicking on a post name or the edit sub-menu below the name will take you into the post editing screen.

The “Add new” post looks exactly the same except that the editing window is empty – see screen shot below.

The main editing window is seen there and comes with a host of icons to help you in your editing.  For beginners we recommend using the visual tab that allows you to edit much like you are in a word processing document using standard editing features (bold, italic, underline etc…).  The icon also provide you with a rich source of editing help with inserting images, videos, link and many other complex functions that are made simple with this editing window.  Once you have mastered this editing interface you will have mastered Content Management for any Wordpress website.  There are many tutorials on how to use the editor, but from our experience the best way to learn it is spend 10 minutes and try out the different options and you will rapidly see how it works.

For the more expert user you can select the HTML tab and see the marked up text and of course you can edit the tags directly, and/or create them as you wish.  Code can also be inserted here to special operations for expert users.

The Add Post windows (same as the edit post view) also allows for the addition of custom fields, and many other intermediate functions.  See a sample list in the screen shot below.

Excerpts are a brief piece of the post that can entice someone to read further. We find it useful as its shown automatically as a short description in the site RSS feed and can be used by the developer as a short description in some cases to showcase an overview of a category.

Trackback is a function by which you can let an older blog system know that it has been linked back to.

Custom Fields are created by you to put specific pieces of information in specific places – e.g. to have a header floating on top of an image you can use a custom field.

Discussion allows the post author to control if discussion about the post can take place and if comments are allowed on the post.

Post Author is self evident

Categories

Categories are navigated to from the main menu show above where “Add new” is also shown.  The category list view and  edit view are both shown below.

Each post can be assigned to a category or a subcategory.  The Category is a reader support tool that allows readers to view all posts in any given category.

Tags

Tags are a method used to assign the post to pages within a web site.  See the “Post tag” screen below and the edit screen that follows.

The sequence would be to create a tag, then create a post and assign that tag to the post (see the post screenshot below – middle right hand side).

Publishing

The screen shot below also shows the publishing status in the upper right hand corner.  You can see the status of the post and if and when it was published.  If you click on the status and visibility and you will find few options available such as private, password protected, etc.

Revisions

Revisions tracking is being done automatically and its very powerful. It will track your changes and will save a revision per change.   If at a later time you want to revert to earlier revision you can do it with one click.

The posts system can also be integrated to various plug ins, and in fact one of the best plugins of all times is the “All in one SEO” plugin. It allows you to customize your posts and pages for search engines.  Once you activate the plugin from the plugins section (left side menu) it will automatically integrate with the posts system and will be on the lower section of the page.  This where you can add information that will support search engine optimization.

Change permalink (URL page name)

In some content management systems it is impossible or very difficult to change pages names (the actual urls).   In wordpress it is a 1 second process!  Click the edit, change it and save it.   Once you do it the entire site will be reflected.  The menus, sitemap, etc.  This can also be used to optimize a page for search engines or to give each post a meaningful name.