WordPress allows blog administrators to assign different roles to different users. There are five roles available, each with particular abilities:

Administrators have full access to site’s administrative functions, including the ability to publish content and manage user accounts.

Editors can publish and edit content created by themselves and other blog users.

Authors can publish and edit their own posts.

Contributors can create and edit posts but not publish them.

Subscribers can read and leave comments.

When creating either a page or post, the area you enter your content is called a WYSIWYG. This stands for What You See Is What You Get. You will see two tabs to the right, Visual and Text. Visual acts very similar to Word but initially you may not see all the tools that Word has. That’s because you need to Show the Kitchen Sink. The icon is the last icon on the WYSIWYG toolbar and looks like the the image to the left.

Once you click on this button you should see more options (i.e. change font color, indent, undo, etc.)

And for those HTML bloggers out there, use the Text tab instead.

We all experience this walking down the cereal aisle and getting overwhelmed with all the selections on the shelf. Well…the same goes with WordPress themes, they are so many variations, i.e. blue color only, two columns, four columns with feature image, etc. that it’s hard to decide which theme to install/not install for blogs.artcenter.edu.

Initially, we went with common themes that are easy to use and still look nice. To change your blog’s theme, go to Appearance – Theme and browse through the ones available.

If you don’t like any themes, you can visit WordPress.org and select on you may want to use. Unfortunately installing themes is not a plug-n-play activity, sometimes a theme is incompatible with a widget or plugin-in and will cause the blog not to display correctly. This means Application Services has to test out the theme before it can be used on your blog. If you would like a particular theme please email helpdesk@artcenter.edu advising us which theme you would like to install for your blog.

Happy Blogging!

WordPress automatically filters out spam comments but sometimes a spam message gets through.

To mark a comment as spam, do the following:

1. Go to your blog’s Dashboard, click Comments link.
2. Click the check box to the left of the spam comment or if multiple spam comments, select them all.
3. Select Mark as Spam from the Bulk Actions pull-down menu and then click on the Apply button.

Filtering of messages can be managed by changing the discussion settings for your blog by clicking the Settings link on the left, then selecting Discussion and checking/un-checking options.

What is a plugins?

A plugin extends the core functionality of WordPress and can be used to track statistics, generate random quotes, and more.

Activating a Plugin

1. Click the Plugins link on the left.
2. Click the Activate link for the plugin you want to activate and click on Apply.

What is a widget?

Widgets are used to add certain features to your blog. You must be using a theme that supports widgets.

Setting up a Widget

1. Click the Appearance link.
2. Click on Widgets link.
3. Drag the widget to the sidebar area on right. Multiple sidebars may be listed depending on your blog’s theme.
4. Click on Save.

The next step it so setup the widget, enter the information requested by the widget in the widget settings.

Only those plugins, widgets, and themes currently available on this wordpress site can be used. Plugins and widgets cannot be uploaded or installed on a per-user basis. If you feel that a plugin, widget, or theme would be beneficial to the majority of WordPress users, you can suggest that it be installed .

To login click on the Login button located on the top navigation bar. Use your ACCD username/password combination.

If you run into any problems, please email helpdesk@artcenter.edu and someone will contact you shortly to help you with any access issues.

See the Howdy, upper right once you log in along with your name. The picture to the right of your name is called an Avatar. The default avatar used in WordPress is the infamous mystery man (image on right).

Did you know you can change this to anything you like. To do this go to Settings – Discussion and scroll down until you see the section titled Default Avatar.

Select from any of the options available. The Gravatar Logo is a good option it allows you to register a picture of your choice by going to http://www.gravatar.com, enter you ACCD email address, upload a picture and the next time you login to blogs.artcenter.edu you will see your new avatar pic.