Hi there! You are receiving this link because you are going to be working with the website. Working with the website is one of the most enjoyable things, and I think you will enjoy it as much as I do! There are several things that you need to know before you begin editing the website. I am going to try my best to outline them for you here. Everything that applies to everyone will be in black text, and things that only apply to WordPress Admin will be in this color. How do you know if you are an admin? I’ll tell you. If I haven’t told you that you are an admin, then everything in this color does not pertain to you. If I have not told you otherwise, you have the role of an author. I have outlined the specific roles below under the “Your role” section.
Main Lessons:
- Things are not posted the way you edit them
- Always protect HIPPA and the participants
- Posts suck, pages are great
- If you post multiple photos, they cannot be edited
- If you mess up, email Allison
- Never delete a menu
General Info:
Sizing:
Website banners are: 1280 x 426
Videos are: 1000 x 526
The theme is Hemmingway Unwritten
It is very important that you never change the theme or the sizing for anything. If you do, it will cause the website to no longer be uniform. If you change the theme, you may change the menus, layout, and other aspects of the website. Once you change the theme, you can change it back, but things may be rearranged by that point.
One important thing to note about the website is that THINGS ARE NOT POSTED THE WAY YOU EDIT THEM. This means that what you see when you are creating content is not always what is posted when you publish the page. This means that your headings, pictures, and other objects may not come out the way it looks when you are editing them. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of running the website.
Here is an example:
When editing this page, the picture above seems like it is centered, but when it is published, it is on the left. It’s frustrating. (Note: WordPress sometimes likes to move the picture around. Sometimes it goes to the right place, but sometimes it doesn’t. So this example only works sometimes)
Also, you must ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS protect our participants and ensure that faces and full names are never posted to the website. This is a HIPPA violation.
Your Role:
In WordPress there are several different administrative roles that you may be assigned. Each role has different permission levels to ensure that the website is properly maintained. I have outlined the roles below. If I have not told you otherwise, you have the role of an Author.
Head Administrator/Owner: There can be one Head Administrator. This is the butteyouthnow account. This person has access to EVERYTHING on the website, and nothing is off limits. (The person who works with the website will have this role and share it with Danelle)
Administrator: This person can do almost everything, but they do not have access to the WP Admin menu page. This is given to people who need to edit the menu, themes, etc.
Editor: You can edit, publish and post whatever you want, but this also means that you can edit main content, and content that you did not create. I will assign you to this role if I need you to edit the pages that I create
Author: This person can upload and edit all of their own content. I will most likely assign you to this role, so you can maintain your own page.
Contributor: This person can upload their own content, but they cannot edit it once it is published without an administrator’s permission. I will start assigning these roles if the other administrative roles get out of hand.
Creating Posts/Pages:
Creating content is fun and exciting to do when working with the website. It is always fun to write about a new topic to spread information about what the county is doing. When posting, you must learn the difference between posts and pages.
When I first started doing the website, I made everything into a post. It made sense to “post” something to our website. However, I find that posts are not the best medium for publishing content for several reasons. Posts cannot have their own address, they must exist on a page, and they read like a blog. Posts must exist on a page, so they are not the best way to communicate information. Whenever you make a post, it will have the date in the URL, which is annoying and cannot be fixed. For example, if I make a post about Friday Night Live it will be http://www.butteyouthnow.org/1.24.17-fnl. Also, when you are making posts to a particular topic, you must make sure to tag the topic and hope it shows up on the master page. Once it is on that page, it will be posted by date/date it was last edited, so it is never in alphabetical order. To summarize, posts are annoying, complicated, and inefficient, so don’t use them.
Pages on the other hand, are the best. You write out everything you want, and then you can post it. It will not show up in the menu unless you add it, and pages only take a second to create. Log into WordPress, go to the webpage, and in the upper left hand corner, click “My Site”, scroll down to pages, and click the “Add” button on the right hand side of the menu. From there, you can type in the name of the page, and edit the URL that is below. Type your content, and then click publish or update. After that you have a page!
When posting a page, there are three visibility options. There is public, private, and password protected. Public means that everyone can see it, and it can be found by anyone. However, it will not be easy to find unless you add it to the menu. If you don’t add it to the menu, it is usually only accessible if someone shares the direct URL link to the page. The private option means that only you or other WordPress admin can see the page. The third option is that your page is password protected. That means people can find it with a URL, but they cannot see what is posted until they enter a password. Generally I will create password protected pages for new pages I’m developing, meeting pages, and things that the general public does not need to see. When I do this, I will use a password like “MickeyMouse” and I’ll email the link + the password to anyone that I want to share the page with.
Headings:
When you create a page, you may want to use a variety of headings (which are basically font sizes/types). I typically use Heading 3 for most categories. If you are hoping to publish your page on the main menu, please look at the format of previous pages to ensure that you are following the same format for your posts. If you are just publishing a page for your site, your formatting doesn’t matter as much.
To edit your heading, select the text you want to edit, go to the menu in the center of the page on edit mode, and click the “Paragraph” button. Choose which heading you would like and click on it. You may also bold or italicize your items.
Here is a sample of all the headings that you can have:
Heading 1
Heading 2
Heading 3
Heading 4
Heading 5
Heading 6
Preformatted
Bold
Italic
Pictures:
When posting pictures to the website, you must make sure that they do not include any faces or personal information about the participants. You may add photos to any page, by clicking the plus sign in a circle that is in the menu on the top of the page when you are editing it. It is located next to the paragraph tab.
Click “Add New” to upload photos, or click on existing photos to add. If you add new photos, make sure they do not have any faces. WordPress does not have any ability to alter photos (cropping, removing red eye, etc.), unless you are the site owner, so please make sure to crop out all faces before uploading photos to the website.
Click ALL the photos you want that section to have, then click “Continue”. It is helpful to click them in the order you want them displayed, but it is not necessary.
Next, choose your layout using the “Layout” drop down menu, and make sure to preview your photos before posting. If you wish to reorder the way the pictures are displayed, please click the “Edit” tab, then click and drag to rearrange the photos. In this view, you are also able to add captions, but it adds a caption to the photo across the entire website, which can mess up some things, so please do not add captions.
Fun Fact: When Saville started working with the prevention unit, I accidentally thought his last name was “Seagrass” not “Seagraves”. I was using captions at that time, and I uploaded his staff photo with the caption “Saville Seagrass”. He noticed the mistake, and I apologized and corrected it. Months later, he mentioned that it was still there, and I was confused. As it turns out, the website copied that caption to every photo of Saville on the website, but it did not edit them when I changed the caption. Also captions mess with photo placement and don’t allow you to edit photos, so they aren’t a good idea.
Once you are completely happy, then you may post. IF YOU POST MULTIPLE PHOTOS, THEY CANNOT BE EDITED. In order to edit/move/change any photo on the website it must not be in a collage or a group of photos at all, and it must not have a caption. Additionally, sometimes the website will be picky and it will not let you edit a photo at all, for no reason. WordPress requires a lot of patience. If you try to edit a collage or change something, WordPress will allow you to do so, but it will move the entire set of photos to the top of the page for no reason, and you will have to delete the set of photos, and reinsert them into the correct place manually. It’s frustrating, and I do not recommend trying it. If you only uploaded a single photo, you may click on it to move it on the page. You can click on it to align it to the left, center, or right. You may also increase/decrease the size, add a caption (but please don’t do this), and remove it.
“Coding”
When making the website, there are some things you can do to “code” in the website, and alter the formatting of the page. This is a feature of the website that I do not fully understand, and I cannot teach or advise on the subject very much. If you “code” in the website, it is mainly harmless, and it will only alter the formatting on the page that you “code”. To “code” something into the website, Google what you want to do, read reviews on the “coding” text that you find, and copy paste it into the website. Usually you “code” to alter formatting, like making columns, but it is not necessary, and it may be a little too complicated. However it is fascinating to do.
Mistakes
You will most likely make mistakes. This is to be expected. If you make a mistake you can try to work through it, or you can email me (Allison) at ahansen@buttecounty.net to try to fix it. Working on the website is one of my favorite things and I will try to help you as soon as I can. WordPress has a steep learning curve, but hopefully you can work through it.
The Menu:
To view the menu (as an admin), you must go to “My Site” and then click “Menus”. You will then see a vertical representation of the main menu. You will notice in the upper right hand corner that says there are two menus. There is the Committed Menu and the Default Menu. NEVER DELETE A MENU. Fun Fact: One time I deleted a menu (because it’s weird if we have two menus but we only need one), and I had to completely rebuild the menu. I deleted the entire navigation system for our website. It took a few hours to rebuild and it wasn’t fun, especially because I was doing it from memory, and without a menu, and pages are hard to find.
To add and item to the menu, click the little plus icon to the right of the category it belongs to, and then click “add menu item to children”, and select the page you want to add. This will categorize the menu item underneath the category that you clicked. You can also click “add menu item below” or “add menu item above”. This will add the menu item to the main menu, and it will put it next to the category that you clicked. I generally recommend adding menu items to children, because the menu is currently very large, and most things can be categorized. If the menu gets too large (or if menu items have long titles) it will begin to create a second row of menu items, which is not aesthetically pleasing and it can be confusing to readers.
Butte Youth Now 