With any evolving software new more advanced plugins are created.

We have updated our page management system to CMS Tree Page View

Step 1 -  Install Plugin

Step 2 -  Activate Plugin

Step 3 -  Go to Settings >> CMS Tree Page View, select  Show Tree and click Save Changes.

Step 4 - Go to Pages >> CMS Tree Page View

You can move the order of the pages, just by dragging them up and down in the list.

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This plugin makes it easy to create a very nice contact form on your sites.

Step 1. Install plugin look for Enhanced WP-ContactForm

Step 2. Activate plugin

Step 3.  Update Configuration info.  Go to Settings >> Contact Form

Start with the Contact email address and the Subject line that YOU will see when someone sends an email using this form.  Click Update options when complete.

You can leave all other text fields as default until you reach the Options.

You can choose use the spam prevention if you like, but I recommend unchecking the “Allow user to send himself a copy”

Step 4. Create new Contact page or update existing Contact page. Add the code

How you enter it:

What it looks like when you view it:

Step 5. When complete publish or update the page.

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As we mentioned in class the formatting options are very similar to what is available in a word processor

WordPress comes equipped with some great features to allow you to easily format your blog posts and pages without knowing or even seeing the underlying HTML coding.

Here is what the Button bar looks like normally

Here are some of the basics:

Sets selected text  as bold.

Sets selected text as italicized.

Sets selected text as strike-through.

Sets selected text as underlined.

You can toggle to expand the Button Bar for additional options

Toggle on and off the bottom row of options.

Here is the Expanded Button Bar

Hover over each of the buttons in the toolbar has a tool tip that will give a hint as to it’s function when you hover over for a moment to get a general idea of what each one does.

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You might be surprised at what I am going to say

Don’t use the built in video/media loader.

A few problems that arise from this:

• format – what format do you use so that everyone can use it
• Space – since most do not have their own web server and are paying for space, this files adding up quick and use up valuable space.
• Bandwidth – this is the traffic that it takes for each person to open the video, so even if you had a place to store this, could your server handle the load of many people watching at the same time.

The advantages to using a service like Youtube.com

• easy
• not your server space or bandwidth
• easily share with your friends
• SEO and Business Branding opportunities
• You can go “viral”

You can find a long list of Video Services Here

The one exception is for a business that has sensitive information or training material for staff.  I would recommend having that stored on internal network drive or sharepoint intranet and linked to the post.

Feel free to email me if you have specific questions or scenarios I can assist with.

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Once you have done this a couple of times you will be an expert!

Step 1. Find a Video on youtube that you would like to share

Step 2. Click on the Embed button to open the options

Step 3. Select your options, the colours and the size of the viewing screen

Step 4. Copy the code that is the highlighted box *starts with <object…

Step 5. Start a new post

Step 6. Click the HTML tab

Step 7. Paste the code you copied from Youtube any where into the page you want the video to appear.

Step 8. Finish your post and publish.

You can also your plugins to add video to the sidebar, look for those instructions to come in the advanced class.

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“WordPress Widgets (WPW) is like a plugin, but designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your sidebar content (known as “widgets”) without having to change any code.”

Are you smarter now?    so let me explain a little more.  When looking for your new theme, make sure that you pick a theme that is “widget-ready” there are some older themes that do not allow widgets.

We have talked about the “content” section of your website and the “sidebar” section.

The Sidebar is the most common place to use widgets.

Now lets look at what this looks like from the Dashboard.  Go to Appearance >> Widgets. * click on the image to zoom.

You can see there is a section for available widgets.  There are a set of widgets that come standard with the WordPress install.

There is a section for Inactive Widgets, these have recently been removed but still hold all the setting or information they had.

The Sidebar section is where you really get to have fun.

You can pick up a title from the available section and drag it over to the sidebar.

You can re-order the widgets, just drag and crop the same way you do with other pages.

In additional to the standard set of widgets you can install additional widgets and you can add your own content to text or RSS widgets.

Clicking on the icon on the right side of the widget allows you to enter the widget Options.

All widgets will open, basic options would be to rename the title that appears in the title header on the sidebar. All widgets have a unique set of options.  In the example here, you can change the title, the number of posts that appear and you can set restrictions as to when the widget appears.

In the example above the Popular Posts Plugin, this is a plugin that has been installed and is then configured in the widget.   Some custom theme will include additional widgets built into the theme and many plugins create widgets.

You can as many was you want to, just think about the reader having to scroll down the page.

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Having statistics for your website is a high priority if you are a business.  You want to know where people are coming from to track if you advertising dollars are paying off.  You can also see what information people are looking for most often. Statistics answer the big questions, who, when, where, what.

Why would you want to use Google Analytics? or What data can you actually gather?  Check out the Analytics Tour

Step 1. Create an Google Analytics account.  Google Analytics Signup

You can find a GREAT step-by-step Tutorial on how to set up your Google Analytics over on Flyte Blog

Step 2. Install and Activate an Analytics plugin, I recommend WP Google Analytics

Step 3. Configure the plugin.  If you are using WP Google Analytics  Setting >> Google Analytics, Paste your Code from Google and configure your options.   For other plugins, follow there instructions on configuration.

If this is the first time working with Google Analytics and setting up accounts, plan to spend 30 minutes getting ready and set up.  Once you have completed the initial setup, new webistes will take a few short minutes.

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An easy change that makes a big difference to my comfort level when writing new posts, larger size means less scrolling.

Go to Settings > Writing and the first option is ‘Size of the Post Box’. The default is 10 lines.

I like mine at 30.

I like to be able to easily read and edit more lines.

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There are a few quick easy tips to just give yourself a step up on the would be hackers out there.

1. Upgrade – Always make sure your running the latest version of wordpress.  If you are self-hosted do this as soon as you receive notice of the latest upgrades.  If you are using managed-hosting contact your provider if you are not being updated within a week.

2. Delete the default administrator – Create a new administrator with a complex username, login with that account and delete the default administrator. Leaving the administrator’s username as “admin” makes cracking your login details 100% faster.

3. Create a really strong password – Passwords can never be too complex. Use a password manager to make remembering passwords easier, and consider using strongpasswordgenerator.com to generate the password itself.

4. Disable user registration -  Go to the Setting >> General  and verify that “Anyone can register” is not checked. If you need/want other people to have access, there are many plugs that allow access, either by invitation or membership.

Now these might not directly stop hackers but can be a life savers:

Contact Form – use a contact form that hides your email address, this will make it more difficult for hackers to start spamming you.

Backups – if you do get hacked or some other disater, you easily restore your data.

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Comments are the best way to engage your readers and keep them coming back.

1. Pretty Comments – Add some formatting capabilities to the comments text areas.

2. Comment Notifier – Currently WordPress only sends an email to the email address entered in the Options->General->E-mail address field when any new comment is submitted or that comment is awaiting moderation.

3. CommentLuv – This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve a selection of their last blog posts, tweets or digg submissions which they can choose one from to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit.

4. Comment Highlighter – Comment Highlighter can add style to comments based on the email of the author (of the comment), the name or the URL. These styles can furhter more be locked to a specific post ID.

5. Custom Smilies – Custom Smilies gives you a chance to personalize your posts and comments using smilies of your choice instead of default ones.

6. Live Comment Preview – The simplest way to get live comment previews on your site. Simply activate the plugin — That’s it!

And many, many, more   Test them out! Have some fun!

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