This is your Guide to converting the Standard Template into your personal Blog. It is divided into sections, and each section is presented as a sub Page. 

Once you have completed your configuration, and before you ‘go live’, you should delete, or repurpose all pages except the About, and Privacy Policy pages. Also update the Menu to remove deleted Pages.

You should also review the Privacy Page as it contains some boiler plate text provided by the Guild to cover all situations. You should customise this to your needs.

Introduction to Your Blog

The purpose of your Blog is to generate, share and preserve information you collect from your family history research. You do this by generating Posts and static Pages, which in turn may link to images, files and other websites.

Posts: Posts appear on your Home page with the most recent first. You can however request a Post to remain at the top of the list, and this has been done to keep the Welcome Post in view. It is up to you whether you keep it there, but it is important to remember this is the first thing a visitor to your site will see.

You can use your Posts to share stories and photographs, ask questions, make announcements, or simply record useful information. The system is set up so subscribers to your site will receive a notification each day you produce at least one Post. 

Pages: You can use Pages to present more static information. The creation of Posts and Pages is a very similar process. The difference is in how they are accessed. Pages are accessed from the Menu Bar. You can sequence pages in the Menu Bar as you wish, and also group related pages in a hierarchy. 

Comments and Share Buttons: Visitors can Comment on your Posts and Pages and use the Social Media buttons. You can disable or time limit this facility down to the individual Post or Page, if you wish.

Media Library: The Media Library is a repository for images and files that you can then include or link to in your Posts and Pages. It has simple facilities for uploading its contents, and for editing images.

Configuring Your Blog

Your Blog is configured from the Administrators Dashboard. This includes a panel, or sidebar in black, down the left hand side of the screen. Various items in this sidebar lead to sub menus. Navigation to elements in this sidebar will be described as ‘Admin sidebar menu item – submenu item‘.

This Configuration Guide has 5 sections:

  •  Site Theme and Customisation
  • Widgets and Sidebar
  • Plugins
  • Subscriber Management
  • Using Your Blog

You are advised to work through each page in turn:

Site Theme and Customisation

The site Theme is called Retina. This is chosen because if supports phones and tablets as well as PCs.

Customisation of the Retina Theme offers some basic options as follows:

  1. Sidebar position. The Sidebar can be on the left, right, or inactive. I had chosen left. You may switch it to the right if you wish, but it must be active.
  2. Footer options: The footer is pre-filled with © Copyright 2020 – <a href=”https://standard.one-name.blog/wp/”>Guild Blog Project Standard Site</a>  You need to update this to your new site URL.
  3. Site Identity. Four items can be set:
    • Logo: This is not set, but you coud add a symbol if you wish. It will appear in your banner..
    • Site Title: This needs to be changed to the name of your blog.
    • Tagline: “A Family History Blog”. This can be updated if you wish.
    • Site Icon: This is a symbol that will appear on Search Engines etc. It is set to the Guild Badge.
  4. Colours: Text set to White. This is the text of your site title and tagline. The choice depends on what shows best against your chosen header image (see below). Background colour is a slightly darker version of the default, which id off white. This gives a clean, uncluttered look, but you can change it if desired.
  5. Header Image: This is the photo that appears in your banner. You should replace the default image with one of your own. To do this you need to upload an image of your choice to the Media Library, crop it to the requisite size and then select it as the Header Image.
  6. Background Image: Not set, but you could add one if you wish.
  7. Menus. When you create Pages you can add these to menus and sub-menus that appear under your banner. They can be customised at any time from the Admin sidebar Appearance – Menus.
  8. Widgets: Widgets appear in your site Sidebar. These can also be customised from the Admin sidebar Appearance – Widgets. The template Widget selection is discussed on the Widgets and Sidebar sub page.
  9. Home page settings: Is the Home page the blog or a static Page? The default is to show Posts, with most recent first. There is a draft Welcome Post which is sticky, so it will always appear at the top of the Home page. It is also expanded so the whole post is shown, rather than the first 3 lines.
  10. Additional CSS (own code). Not used. You are unlikely to need it for a standard Blog.

WordPress settings accessed from the Admin sidebar Settings. The Settings submenu includes a number of entries that are addressed in the paragraphs below. All settings are left as defaults, except as detailed:

General: Within the General settings the Administration email address is defined. Ensure it is set to the address you desire. Under Membership, ‘Anyone can register’ is checked. The site Language is set to English (UK), and the Time Zone is set to London. You may need to change these to match your location.

Writing: The only change is the ‘Default Post Category’ is set to Post. Post is the only category defined. If you wish to categorise your Posts by subject, Categories are set and managed from Post – Categories in the Admin sidebar.

Reading: These settings are unchanged.

Discussion: These settings define how Comments are handled. The settings are unchanged but it is important you review them. The default settings state that you will be emailed whenever a Comment is received, or held for moderation. Anyone can comment, but comments are held for moderation and only placed on the website when you Approve them. However once you have Approved a Comment from a user, that user’s future comments will be accepted without being held.

The final three settings groups, Media, Permalinks, and Privacy are unchanged. However a Privacy Policy Page has been created, containing the Guild’s boiler plate privacy policy, and placed in the menu under the About Page. This should be reviewed and modified to meet your needs. 

Your Profile: Admin sidebar Users – Your Profile will open your Profile. You should update this to give your email, name, nickname, photo, and biographical details as required. Only the email and nickname are required. Whatever is shown in the ‘Display name publicly as’ field will be your name on notifications of your Posts. The choices are limited to the administrators’ nicknames.

Widgets and the Sidebar

The Sidebar sits on the right hand side of each Page of your site, unless you have chosen in Settings to move it to the right. It is present at all times so it is a useful place to put information you wish to be constantly visible. Its content consists of Widgets.

You can manage your Sidebar from the Admin sidebar Appearance – Widgets. The Widgets page has the current contents of your Sidebar down the right, and the available Widgets on the left. Some Plugins add additional widgets.

To place Widgets in the Sidebar simply drag them from the left to the right. You can also drag them up and down the Sidebar to reorder them. To edit a Widget in the Sidebar click on the downward arrow on the right side of the Widget and it will expand to allow editing.

The initial set of widgets is as follows:

  • A Text Widget containing the Guild button, and some examples of text that introduces the Blog and its owner. You should replace the Guild button with a photograph of yourself, and amend the wording as appropriate. Upload your photograph to the Media Library and then edit the Widget. The Add Media button will allow you to select your photograph from the Media library.
  • An HTML Custom Widget containing the Guild logo and information about the Guild.
  • A Search Widget. This lets a visitor search your site for any keyword or phrase.
  • A Subscribe Widget provided by the Subscribe2 Plugin. It provides Subscribe and Unsubscribe buttons. The associated wording can be edited. When you are logged on as an Administrator there is wording that your subscriptions are managed from your Profile. This is accessed via the Admin sidebar Subscribe2 – Your subscriptions. To see what a visitor would see access the site as a user.
  • A Recent Posts Widget that lists your most recent Posts with the most recent at the top. The number shown is customisable, and set to 10.
  • A Recent Comments Widget that shows the most recent Comments. The number shown is customisable, and set to 5.
  • An Archive Widget that gives access to old posts. It is titled Old Posts by Month and is set to give a drop down showing the number of posts in each month. If you select a month the Posts for that month will show in your Home page.
  • A Text Widget entitled Links showing how you could construct a list of links to related websites or parts of your site. The examples are a link to the Plugins page and a link to the Guild website. You should either repurpose this Widget, or remove it.
  • There are three Counts widgets, one giving the number of Subscribers, one from the Page Visitor Count Plugin giving Visitor counts, and one from the Akismet Plugin giving a count of SPAMs blocked.
  • A Meta Widget that gives some useful links.

You are free to add and remove Widgets as you wish, except for the first Text Widget with information about the site, the HTML Custom Widget with the Guild logo, and the Meta.

Plugins

We have installed a set of WordPress Plugins to provide basic security and functionality for your Blog. We have also installed, but not Activated some additional Plugins you might wish to consider. There are numerous other Plugins available from WordPress you are free to use to expand your site, provided you remain within Guild guidelines.

There follows a description of the installed Plugins, along with any options selected, and any outstanding actions required. The Plugins are:

Security and Performance Plugins

Akismet: The purpose of Akismet is to protect your site from SPAM, particularly in the Comments that can be made on your Posts and Pages. Comments from new addresses will be held for moderation by you, but once you have Approved one Comment from an address, further Comments will be automatically Approved (note: these settings are customisable). Akismet will save you a lot of effort.

However, you will need to activate Akismet with your own, free Personal non-Commercial Akismet account, and obtain your unique API key. The process is as follows:

  • In the Admin sidebar Plugins – Installed Plugins. Select Akismet from the list and click on activate.
  • You are now invited to Set up your Akismet Account. This takes you to an Akismet Account setup screen in a separate tab in your browser.
  • Select Personal Account.
  • Although a personal account is free, you will be asked for a voluntary payment of £27/year (US$35/year). There is a slider to adjust the amount. Move it all the way to the left so it says £0/year (or $0/year), and the payment details fields disappear.
  • Fill out your email, first and last name, and URL of your blog, then check the three boxes to confirm your site has no ads, doesn’t sell products, and doesn’t promote businesses. Then press Continue with Personal Subscription.
  • A verification code will be sent to the email address you entered above. Copy this code from the email and paste it into the box provided.
  • A sign up complete screen is presented with further instructions. A further email will be sent with your API key.
  • Return to the tab with your Akismet settings screen and select “manually enter API key”.
  • Copy and paste the key from the second email into the settings screen.
  • Make any other desired settings changes. You might want the check the box to show the number of approved Comments from each Comment author.
  • Save the changes. Your Akismet is activated.

Should a SPAM comment get past Akismet you should mark it as SPAM so Akismet can learn. Also you should regularly (weekly) check your SPAM folder for any genuine comments and mark them as ‘not SPAM’. This will make Akismet more accurate.

Limit login attempts reloaded: This limits the number of login attempts from an IP address allowed. The default settings are 4 attempts allowed before a lockout of 20 minutes. Four lockouts results in a 24 hour lockout. These can be altered but the defaults work OK. The only relevant logins are yours, and any associate administrators/publishers’, to the WordPress Administrator’s Dashboard. Registration and passwords for users are not implemented in the Template.

LiteSpeed Cache: This improves page caching performance. No action is required.

Wordfence Security: This provides a Firewall, and anti-virus, and anti malware scanning. A summary of threats it has encountered in the previous week is presented on the dashboard. It also has its own Dashboard giving access to greater detail.

The only action necessary is to change the email address for Wordfence notifications to your own. This is found in Admin sidebar Wordfence – All Options.

reCapture: This puts a reCapture object on any form, including Comments, that users may use to communicate with you. It is in the form of a “I am not a Robot checkbox”. It is installed but not Activated. You may wish to consider this if you add a Contact Form to your site (see WP Forms Lite in the Functional Plugins section.

Functional Plugins

Subscribe2: Subscribe2 allows you to maintain a list of Subscribers to your Blog. It is described in detail on the Managing Subscribers Page.

WP Forms Lite: This allows you to design forms to allow users to contact you, login to your site etc. It is installed but not activated. You can activate it if and when you wish.

Sassy Social Media : This Plugin provides sharing icons to provide links to social media. There is a large number of icons to chose. The initial set of links chosen is:

  • Facebook
  • WhatsApp
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
  • Print
  • Facebook Like
  • Tweet

There are options for a static and a floating set of icons. In the initial configuration the static icons are placed at the bottom of Pages and Posts, and the floating icons are disabled. Share counts are enabled. This can be reconfigured as you wish.

Activity Plugins

Google Analytics for WordPress from MonsterInsights: This provides a Dashboard that shows activity on your site. It uses data from Google Analytics so you will need a Google Analytics account to be able to use it. It is therefore installed but Deactivated. A Google Analytics account can be created in the Activation process.

Page Views Count: This allows you to a place a visitor count on each Post and Page, and and a count of site visits in the Sidebar. It is set to show on Posts and Pages. This can be changed for Posts or Pages, and overridden for individual Posts or Pages.

Subscriber Management

Subscriber functionality is provided by the Subscribe2 Plugin. It includes functions to build a list of subscriber email addresses, allow users to subscribe to, and unsubscribe from the email list, and distribute notifications of Posts to subscribers.

Go to Admin sidebar Subscribe2 – Settings to manage the Subscribe2 settings. There are a number of tabs, and the current settings are as follows:

Email Settings: These settings control the sending of emails by the system. They are set so it will send you a notification whenever anyone subscribes or unsubscribes. Email notifications of new posts are sent daily (if there are new posts), and are from the Post Author. This will be the Display name set up by each author in his Profile.

Templates: These templates define the emails that are sent by the system to notify a new post, request confirmation of a subscription request, and a reminder to unconfirmed users. The only change to the default format is to hardwire the URL of Standard Template into the notification email. This will need to be updated to your site URL. You are free to amend the rest of the text if you wish.

Registered Users: Initially you will be the only Registered User, but if you allow users to register and login to your site, or you appoint a co-administrator, or additional Post authors, this list will grow. Then you can specify if they are to be offered the option to also be subscribers. The only option of interest initially is the second from last option, to place a subscribe option on the Comment form. This set to Yes, Before the Comment Submit Button.

Appearance: These settings control where the Subscribe tools appear. The three that are checked are: 

  • Show the Subscribe2 button on the Write toolbar. This gives the option, when writing a Post, to supress the sending of an email.
  • Enable Subscribe2 widget. This widget is then placed in the sidebar where it provides a Subscribe / Unsubscribe interface.
  • Enable Subscribe2 Counter widget. This widget can then be placed in the sidebar where it displays the number of subscribed users.

Miscellaneous: This area has some useful links, and an area to enter domains you wish to bar for public subscriptions.

In addition to settings the Subscribe2 heading in the Admin side bar gives access to three other pages:

Your Subscriptions: This allows you to manage your own subscriptions. If you continue with the preset option to send notifications emails daily you only have the option to turn them on and off. However if emails are sent for individual Posts then you can control what is received by Post Category. Only one Post Category is defined in the initial setup. This is called Post, and is the default category for all Posts. New Categories can be added from Post – Categories in the Admin sidebar.

Subscribers: This page provides lists of your Registered and Public Subscribers. You can also perform bulk actions such as add and delete subscribers, and for public subscribers you can toggle between confirmed and unconfirmed.

Send Email: Here you can compose an email and send it to any combination of public and registered subscribers, and users.

Using Your Blog

There are sample Posts, Pages, and Images on your Blog to demonstrate the various ways you can grow your content. This page will describe them.

Media

The Media Library is accessed via the Admin sidebar Media – Library. It currently contains six images and a PDF file containing a copy of this Configuration Guide. Two of the images are the Guild banner and button, used to advertise the site as hosted by the Guild. These must be retained.

The image sunset.jpg is the source of the Header Image which appears in the site banner. You can delete this image when you have provided your own header Image.

The other two images are used in the page Some Pictures to demonstrate the inclusion of pictures in a Page or Post. They can be deleted once you have deleted, or repurposed that page.

Posts

The Posts item in the Admin sidebar has 4 subheadings, All Posts, New Posts, Categories and Tags. 

All Posts: This lists all posts on your site, and allows you to edit or delete them. There is only one post provided, The Welcome to My Blog post. This post is defined as ‘sticky’ so it will always be at the top of your Home page. It is currently a welcome to you, the new blog owner, but if you wish to keep it you should edit it to be your welcome to your visitors. It also uses the Excerpt box to show all the post in the Home page, rather than the first few lines. This method is described in detail below.

Add Post: This is gives you access to the WordPress Block Editor where you can construct a new post.

Categories: You can define subject categories and assign Posts to different Categories. This is where you can manage those Categories. Only one Category, Post, has been defined, and it is the default.

Tags: You can also assign Tags to Posts. However none have been defined so far.

Post Appearance

The Retina theme places the first few lines of each post on your Home page, followed by a Read More button. If you would like more, or even all of a post (including any embedded media) to appear on the Home page you can achieve this as follows:

  • Click on the three dots in the top right corner of the Post edit screen, and select the Code Editor from the resulting panel. This shows an HTML version of your post.
  • Select and copy the portion of your Post you wish to appear on the Home Page.
  • Select Document in the side panel, and scroll down to the Excerpt box.
  • Paste the portion of your post into this box, and Publish your Post as normal.

Block Editor

The Block Editor is standard WordPress editor for Posts and Pages. It provides different types of Blocks for you to construct your output, including headings, text, lists and images. There are tutorials on the web on using the Block Editor, such as this. Here I will just introduce a couple of tricks.

Code Editor:  If you click on the three dots in the top right corner of the editor screen you get a drop down that includes the ability to switch between the visual editor you normally work with, and a code editor which gives you access to the underlying HTML. If you are confident with HTML you can work at this level.

If you type / as the first character of a new block you will get a drop down of the available types of Block. One of the choices is the Classic Editor, which is the editor WordPress used before the introduction of the Block Editor.

Pages

The Pages item in the Admin sidebar has 2 subheadings, All Pages, and New Page. These behave much the same as the equivalent subheadings for Posts. There are also three existing Pages designed to demonstrate useful techniques.

Content Page

This page gives two examples of linking to a PDF file. In each case the file must be in the Media Library.

Some Pictures

This page shows a page with 2 pictures that have been included using an Image Block.

Configuration Page

This Page links to its subpages using the link symbol in the top toolbar.