Write Post
Welcome to the tutorial on how to write a blog entry or post in Wordpress. The tutorial outlines everything needed to dive right in an make your first post.
Click on the “Write” tab at the top of the administration area.
The “Write Post” page appears.
The Title bar is just as it says, enter an appropriate title for the article. This is the title that will appear above the post on your blog.
The writing area is for typing the content of the post. It functions just like a word-processor. The “Visual” tab gives a more user friendly input area, where no HTML is shown.
The “Code” tab will reveal most of the HTML that is hidden in the “Visual” tab. This can be useful for doing custom formatting. There is also a tutorial detailing “How to Use The Visual Rich Editor“.
Below the post editing area is the “tags”, and to right at the top is a “categories” box. These two methods of categorizing posts are used in a very similar way, but are quite different. Tags are a fluid method of describing a post by its keywords, they also categorize posts, but are usually chosen on the fly, according to the post that is being written. The tags give specific details which will help users to identify what the post is about and help put posts with similar threads together. Categories on the other hand, tend to be decided ahead of time, giving a holder for each post that is written. For example a post on a tech site about the new eeepc from Asus might be under categories for “laptops” and “ultra-portable”, whereas the tags might be “Asus” “eeepc” “OLPC” “7 inch” and “portable”.
Tags can be one or more words. To enter tags, type them in with a comma between entries.
There are three options for saving posts:
Save and Continue Editing saves the post as it is and returns to the same screen to continue editing (cannot be viewed on the blog until published).
Save saves the post and then proceeds to the Manage>>Posts page (post cannot be viewed on the blog until published).
Publish saves the post as it is and publishes it, so it can be viewed by anyone.
The file upload area is for uploading images and other files onto the server where the blog is hosted and then inserting the images, or links to the content into the post or page.
Click the “Browse” button to pick a picture from your computer.
Type in a name for the file.
Enter a description of the file.
Click upload to begin the upload process.
When finished uploading a page with the image and some options is shown. The picture is not in the post yet, but it is ready to be put there. Two sets of options allow you to choose how the picture gets put into the post.
- Thumbnail will insert a small thumbnail into the post.
- Full size will insert the original file into the post.
- Title only inserts a link to the file into the post.
- File will make the picture that is inserted link to the original image that was uploaded.
- Page will make the picture link to a wordpress page with only the original picture on it. With this option people can leave comments about the picture.
- None just inserts the picture, and it doesn’t link to anything.
Place the cursor in the position where the picture should be inserted. Click on “Send to Editor” to insert the picture into the post at the current cursor position.
For more details, see the tutorial on “Using the File Uploader“.
The optional excerpt area allows an excerpt or short introduction to be specified. By default Wordpress will just show the first few sentences as the excerpt for the post. Filling out this box allows a customized excerpt to be specified. The optional excerpt is optional, so it can just be left blank.
Trackbacks are a way to send notification to other blogs to say that this post has been published. By default, sites that are linked to in the post are sent trackbacks which will often appear as a short excerpt of the post you are writing, within the comments section below the post that was linked to. There is a menu area to specify sites that will always receive notification from your site when a post is published. In order to send trackbacks to more sites, enter those site addresses in this area.
Custom fields allow extra information to be stored with the post. This information is stored in the database and can then be accessed later. Typical uses for the custom fields area would be for plugins that would store specific data for later use. These will not be needed unless used by a plugin. If there is no specific reason to use the custom fields then they can simply be left blank.
Choose from a key or name that has been used before.
Or enter a new key.
Fill in the information for that key.
Click “Add Custom Field” to save that key entry.
New categories can be added by typing a name in the box and clicking “Add”.
The new category will appear in the list and already be selected.
More categories can be chosen by selecting them. Note that it is possible to have sub-categories, but those have to be entered under Manage >> Categories.
Discussion adjusts options regarding commenting on the current post. Two options are available. Checking “Allow Comments” allows people to enter comments on your post at your blog. This is done in the comment area at the bottom of that post’s page. Checking “Allow Pings” allow your post to accept notifications from other sites and blogs that link to it. When another site links to this post, a short excerpt from their post will be left amongst the comments.
Post Password allows a post to be password protected. In the blog the title of the post will appear but there will be an input box instead of the content, where readers will have to enter the password to see the content.
The post slug is automatically inserted for you when the post is published. Default behavior for the post slug is to use the title, but changed to all lower case, spaces are changed to dashes and characters that can’t go in web addresses are removed. The post slug is used for permalinks.
The Post Status box will show the status of the post. A published post is finished and published for everyone to see on the blog. A post that is pending review has been published, but still needs the approval of an editor before it will appear on the blog. A draft post has been saved, but is not viewable on the blog. A private post is finished and published, but only viewable when logged into the blog.
The post timestamp marks the time that the post was written. This is filled in automatically when the write post page is opened. It can be changed, but the changes will only be saved if the checkbox is checked. If the date of the post is in the future it will not appear on the blog, only after the date has been reached will the post display, this is useful for writing a lot of posts but having them appear at set intervals.
When all is done, the “Publish” button publishes the post to the blog for the rest of the world to see.
After saving, click on the “View Post” link to see the final post on the blog.
Congratulations on completing your blog entry and remember to check out the rest of the site for more Wordpress tutorials.
