If you are the site owner, remember to READ this PAGE and DELETE or make it DRAFT, before you start writing!

Help for Beginners

Free sites
Free = DIY. If you want to ask us a question feel free – but do it through the http://support.ourlocality.org forum.
Want personal support? Consider a plan or at least a one off donation to Sustaining Dunbar.

Nota Bene
We have re-set the privacy options. Your site will NOT be immediately public. Remember to make it public when you are ready though.

Use your new site wisely and check our terms if in any doubt.

Here some tips:

1) Respect others and think before you publish
2) Be original, NEVER duplicate content on multiple sites, or worse plagiarize
3) With greater power comes greater responsibility …

Even if websites are your thing this forum may be helpful:
http://support.ourlocality.org

Enjoy!

Thanks

–The Team @ SITE_NAME

Help for Beginners

What are posts?
Posts are news articles or stories, designed to engage or inform your audience. They are the lifeblood of your new website. Keep your site alive by posting articles regularly, so your readers know you’re still there. Many themes from the WordPress stable support multiple post types, so you can choose to engage your audience using short text, quotes, images, video embeds etc. Activate the events plugin to create post events. Posts are syndicated on https://news.ourlocality.org. Your stories can be easily syndicated to another website or to your favourite social media.

What are categories?
Make similar articles easier to find by assigning posts to categories, at least one is mandatory. Multiple categories and tagging is an optional extras. Tags are index or key words intended to connect to related topics and should extend categories, not duplicate them. Too many may confuse, but judicious use can help you create a legible website structure.

Can I upload media and pictures?
Sure you can but resize larger images before you upload. Width of 2000px is a good guide, and use a 4:3 or 16:9 format ratio in landscape. Ensure that you have permission to use the image. Use photo sharing sites if you have significant image management demands. Use document sharing sites for pdfs. Your free site is limited to 256Mb or 256 images of 1Mb. Although the upper size limit is 10Mb, self evidently shrinking images is a good idea if you are using the free plan.

What about comments?
By default comments are closed to protect you from spammers. Remember to configure your settings appropriately, especially those relating to user registration (also turned off). Enable comments selectively e.g. on a page or only for posts AND only if you are prepared to monitor and manage SPAM.

What Themes can I use?
Some of our themes may look basic, but conceal many hidden functions, though others offer premium services (we do not benefit). More themes are also available at wordpress.org. Ask very nicely or make a donation and we’ll consider adding a new theme just for you. Pick wisely and make sure it will work under the latest version which is WP 5.8. We won’t upload any old theme, and definitely will not tolerate nulled themes, that is commercial themes that have been modified to work without a licence.

How about pages?
Pages contain infrequently changing blurb about you or your organisation – e.g. Contact Us or About Us, but also important pages like the front page or any special landing page. Many of the things that feature on post types, like categories and tags, and date stamp, are missing on page types. However they can support different page templates. Use pages to help you create an initial website structure. Keep your post to page balance as high as possible if you want to engage your audience. If you create an important new page or if updating a page, signpost it with a post announcing the new item. Page items are not syndicated and the content less easily found by search engines.

Can I manage Menus?
Since WordPress 3.0 you can configure the menus very flexibly, automatically of by hand. Page stubs can be created straight from the Customizer and links to categories, tags and external sites are possible. Many themes support a social menu and may offer a number of menu positions.

What about the right hand column and footer?
These are widget areas which can be configured to add static content, like images or dynamic content, like a list of recent posts or comments. Each theme supports a variety of widget positions, which will stack vertically on a mobile responsive theme. Widget management is enabled in one of 2 ways, if you want the old way, activate the classic widgets plugin.

Are blocks enabled?
Blocks are the new layout system in WordPress, since version 5.0 (December 6, 2018). Blocks are flexible design elements, which are exactly like widgets, but can be placed anywhere in the content area. Blocks enable anyone with a bit of creative imagination to design good looking front pages or landing pages with a clear call to action.

And if want to make my website private?
Plenty of options. You can stop search engines, e.g. during site development, in Settings > Privacy. Once public News is also published on ourlocality.org/news. Single articles can be made private or password protected.

You can find this article here:
https://support.ourlocality.org/forums/topic/help-i-deleted-my-sample-page/

For community support:
https://support.ourlocality.org/

While most software we use is free, not much else is so donations help us keep it free for those that cannot pay:
https://ourlocality.org/donate/