WordPress Classic Dashboard
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The document provides instructions for navigating and using the WordPress Admin Dashboard. It explains how to access the dashboard by signing into WordPress.com and replacing the blog name in the URL. It describes the various boxes and widgets that appear on the dashboard and how to rearrange them. It also provides steps for customizing blog settings and pages, adding widgets, exploring themes, completing a user profile, creating posts, and logging out.
WordPress Classic Dashboard
- 2. Navigating to your WP Admin Dashboard • Sign into www.WordPress.com. • Replace the red characters of the following URL with your blog’s name: https://NAME_BLOG.wordpress.com/wp-admin to navigate to your WP Admin Dashboard. Some of you may prefer to work in the CWP Admin Dashboard, where you have more control over your blog’s features. • OR, click the three dots next to your name in your My Sites dashboard, then choose “Edit Icon” to navigate to the WP Admin Dashboard.
- 3. Click on the Dashboard link on the left-hand side of the page. • Screen Options - Use the Screen Options tab (upper right-hand corner) to choose which Dashboard boxes to show. • Drag and Drop - To rearrange the boxes, drag and drop by clicking on the title bar of the selected box and releasing when you see a gray dotted-line rectangle appear in the location you want to place the box. • Box Controls - Click the title bar of the box to expand or collapse it.
- 4. Some the boxes that may appear on your dashboard screen are: • At a Glance - Displays a summary of the content on your site and identifies which theme and version of WordPress you are using. • Activity – Shows the upcoming scheduled posts, recently published posts, and the most recent comments on your posts and allows you to moderate them. • Your Stuff –Displays links to your recent activity on WordPress.com. The module will display links to comments you’ve left on other WordPress.com blogs as well as links to posts on any of your blogs where you’ve recently made changes. • What’s Hot – Displays news from WordPress.com, top blogs, top posts and latest posts. • Quick Draft - Allows you to create a new post and save it as a draft. Also displays links to the 5 most recent draft posts you've started. • Stats – Shows you a graph of your blog’s traffic as well as links to some popular areas of your blog. The graph works just like the graphs on the Site Stats screens, so you can click a point to see more information about that day’s traffic.
- 9. You should also give your readers away to contact you via a contact form. With your cursor in the text editor below the contact information you just entered, click the Add Contact Form button above the text editor. WordPress will give you a preview of what the contact form will look like. You can change the field types and labels by hovering over a field and clicking the edit link. Click the blue Add this form to my post button when you are ready. WordPress has built your own personalized contact form and you can now see the html code in the text editor. When you are satisfied with your contact information, click the blue Publish button in the Publish menu. You can also check the status, change the visibility and edit publishing times from the Publish dialog box when creating posts and pages. You can also add a poll to a page or blog post by clicking the Add Poll button. Explore the WP Admin Dashboard, dialog boxes and tools. There is so much you can do in the WP Admin Dashboard that you cannot do in the basic My Sites one.
- 10. • Hoover over the Appearance link on your Dashboard and click the Widgets link. You can edit the widgets that appear in your blog and add widgets to your blog from this menu. For example, this is how you would add a Flickr Widget in the WP Admin Dashboard: • Click the Flickr button in the Available Widgets list then click the Add Widget button. To find your Flickr RSS feed, go to your photostream and click the "Edit" tab at the top. Scroll down to the bottom of the page until you see the RSS icon or the Latest link. Right click on either and copy the link address. Paste it into the Flickr RSS URL box. • Click the blue Save button after customizing the widget. • Your Flickr feed will now show up on your blog. Adding Widgets
- 11. Exploring additional Themes • From your WP Admin Dashboard, click or hover over the Appearance link in the Dashboard menu and select themes. There are about 190 free themes you can choose. Select the Free tab on the right-hand side of the page. Make sure your theme fits your band, product, message, business or organization. • You can view a theme’s details by clicking on it. You can also preview the theme. • Apply the theme to your blog by clicking the blue Activate button. • Be sure to choose a free theme. The price of a theme can be found in a green circle in the theme thumbnail’s lower right-hand corner. Those themes without prices listed are free.
- 12. Completing your Personal Profile As a WordPress user, you have a reader’s profile. Do not confuse this with your blog. You can customize your personal profile. • From your WP Admin Dashboard, click or hover over the Users link in the menu to open up the dropdown menu. Click My Profile. From here, you can edit your public profile. • First upload a Gravatar, which stands for Globally Recognized Avatar, by clicking the Change your Gravatar link. • Your WordPress.com account is also your Gravatar account - just enter your WordPress.com username and password to log in if you are not already logged in. • You can choose to upload a photo from your computer, take a picture of yourself using the camera on your computer, link to a photo of yourself online, or use a Gravatar from a previous account. • Your Gravatar can be anything you’d like — a photo of yourself, your website’s logo, a picture you love, whatever. Keep in mind that it’s not a very big image, so something that has a lot of detail is going to be really hard to see. Once you’ve uploaded your Gravatar, you’ll be able to see it by going to Users and then My Profile. You can always change your Gravatar from there if you get a new haircut, get bored with your Gravatar, or find another photo to represent you. • Your Gravatar will appear next to comments you make on other WordPress blogs.
- 13. Creating blog post in the WP Admin Dashboard • Click or hover over the Posts link and select Add New. • WP Admin Dashboard gives you several more options than the Basic Dashboard when you are creating a blog post. For example, you can add a poll from here. • Once you have written your blog, you can save it as a draft, preview it or publish it from the Publish dialog box on the right-hand side of the page.
- 14. Logging out of WordPress • Anytime you want to log out of WordPress, find and click your Gravatar in the upper right-hand corner of the page. (It will be a generic image if you haven’t uploaded a Gravatar yet.) • Click the white Sign Out button below your Gravatar to log out of WordPress.