How To Use The Wordpress Dashboard
Have you upgraded your WordPress blog to version 2.5 yet? Wow, they (the people at WordPress) made some sweeping changes to the Dashboard! I’m sure I’ll like it better in the long run, but right now a lot is very unfamiliar to me. At first glance I see much more functionality, but can’t yet comment on ease of use.
So, for the newbie (actually we focus on what I want people participating in my Minds Like Water project to know) here’s a quick run through of the new WordPress Dashboard.
WordPress Site Admin Login Basics
Lets start with your site administrative login page. There are a couple ways to get to the login page:
- Type http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin into your browser. For this site that would be http://theglobalworkplace.com/wp-admin
- Most blogs keep the Site Admin/Login link directly under the “Meta” Category in your navigation bar. Check out the screen shot below.
- Click on the “Site Admin” (the hyperlink will actually say “Log in” if you haven’t yet logged in, but if you have it will say “Site Admin“) hyperlink and you’ll see the Wordpress Login Page.
- The Login page is fairly standard…just enter your username and password.
That’s it you should be logged into the WordPress Administrative Dashboard.
Dashboard Basics
I just want to go over the basics here. This will not be an exhaustive list of all the things you can do with the WordPress dashboard.
Here’s an image of The Global Workplace dashboard.
There’s plenty of information on the dashboard, but I want to only concentrate on two things right now. The Write A New Page and the Write a New Post buttons.
- Write A New Page - this creates a new page in your blog and you will rarely (if ever create a new page). However, you do need to edit your existing pages. Your existing pages are located on your navigation bar at the very top of your home page on your blog. Your existing pages are underlined in yellow in the image below.
- Write A New Post - this is where you live. Log into your dashboard click the Write A New Post button which will bring you to the WordPress Editor. At the WordPress Editor you can begin writing your new post.
You will need to get very comfortable with the WordPress Editor. It really isn’t too difficult it’s very similar to a scaled down version of Microsoft Word. I’m confident that you’ll get very comfortable with the WordPress Editor in a short period of time. In our next lesson we’ll become closely acquainted with the WordPress Editor.
Action Items
- If you have access to your WordPress Dashboard and Administrative area then login and play around. Be careful though changes made here may effect your entire website/blog.
Have you upgraded to WordPress version 2.5 yet? Have you had any problems with the new administrative interface? What are your thoughts? Better or Worse?
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