Change Theme Options, Widgets, Plugins

Do More with Theme Options, Widgets, and Plugins

In this first article in Section 4.0 Do More with WordPress, we build on our demonstration site at www.SiteDifferent.com. The video that concludes this post demonstrates all of the steps and activities described in this article.

We’re going to:

1. Break up our long posts with the More tag, for an easier-to-read display on our Blog page;
2. Change two theme options – the layout of the sidebar and the color of our text links;
3. Add a live Twitter feed;
4. Add a new text widget with links to Ndividuate video tutorials;
5. Add the Online Backup plugin that will backup our website;
6. Add the Jetpack plugin that provides quite a bit of additional administrative functionality to the site.

Previous Changes

Before we begin, I want to mention a few changes I’ve made to the site that aren’t documented in any of the tutorial videos:

• I replaced the content on the Home page to shamelessly inform visitors to the Site Different about the wonderful WordPress tutorial that’s just a click away at Ndividuate.com.
• I deleted the title of the “Home” page so that “Home” as a title doesn’t appear on the page. Remember that the entire header image is a link to the Home page.
• I replaced the left and right footers to provide links to the Ndividuate Yourself site and to the Lynda.com site, with their excellent tutorials on WordPress, HTML, CSS, and many more topics.

Using More Tags to Create Excerpts

We’ve been using the TwentyEleven theme that comes with WordPress. In a previous movie, I pointed out a limitation of the TwentyEleven theme in that it doesn’t provide for post excerpts to be displayed on blog pages … instead, the entire post is displayed.

As a workaround, I’ve gone through all the applicable posts on the SiteDifferent and inserted a More tag after the first few lines of text.

This makes the blog page easier for the reader to scan. Notice above how the text down to the More tag is displayed, then the tag is inserted to create the “Continue Reading –>” link.

Change Theme Options (Layout and Link Color)

In the Theme Options under the Appearance Menu, we can easily change the layout to switch the sidebar over to the right side of the screen. And we can change the color of the text links to a blue that I like better than the default orange.

Reminder: These specific theme options are a function of the TwentyEleven Theme that we’re using. They aren’t available in the TwentyTen theme, so remember – your theme may or may not offer these options.

The next thing I want to do is remove these sidebar widgets to make room for the Twitter feed and links to the videos. So I’ll just go through and delete all but the top widget. In each case, I’ll select the widget with the dropdown arrow, then delete it.

Add Twitter Feed Widget

Now let’s add the Twitter feed and I’ll think you’ll be surprised how easy it is.

1. First, login to your Twitter account and in the lower right of your home page, look for the Resources link.
2. Under the Widgets corner, click on See All Widgets.
3. Then in the left column under Widgets for … click My Website.
4. Now you have 4 choices to select from. You can investigate these on your own, but I’m going to select the Profile Widget.
5. Next you’ll see a preview of what the widget will look like in your sidebar. Click on Finish & Grab Code.
6. Click inside the box with the code, select all and Copy to your computer memory clipboard.
7. Now go back into the WordPress Dashboard and select Widgets under the Appearance menu.
8.  Drag a new text widget over to the sidebar area on the right and position it where you want. You can give it a title if you want.
9. Click inside the widget text box and Paste the Twitter code that should be in your memory.
10. Save it, and now there’s  a live feed of the most recent tweets right in the sidebar.

Add Text Widget with Links

Next I want to add another text widget to list all the videos available at Ndividuate.com. I’ve already created the text in my text editor and added all the link tags.

Go into the WordPress Dashboard and select Widgets under the Appearance menu. Drag a new text widget over to the sidebar, open it, and paste the text into it.

Here’s what the Site Different home page looks like after adding changing the layout, the link color, and adding these two new widgets:

Add Online Backup and Jetpack Plugins

You should already be in the habit of backing up all of your computer work, and your WordPress site is no different. There are many different backup plugins that you can check out for yourself. I’m going to install one called Online Backup for WordPress.

Online Backup for WordPress

1. Go to the Add New Plugins screen in the Dashboard.
2. Enter “Online Backup for WordPress” in the search box.
3. Find “Online Backup for WordPress” in the list of results.
4. Click on the  Install Now link.
5. In your list of Installed Plugins, find “Online Backup for WordPress” and click the Activate link.
6. You can explore the different options. To create a manual backup, click on View Status.
7. Click on the Backup link.
8. To download the backup file to your computer, select Download and indicate where on your computer you want the file to be saved.

You might want to check out the Scheduling options for scheduling automated backups.

Install and Activate Jetpack

The Jetpack plugin includes several different plugins all bundled together by Automattic, the people who are responsible for WordPress.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jetpack/

These are capabilities that are available for the sites hosted at WordPress.com, and for some reason you have to activate the plugin through wordpress.com, but it’s not too complicated. Here are the steps:

1. After you install and activate the plugin, you’re asked to connect to WordPress.com. If you already have an account or a blog at wordpress.com, you can simply login to your account. But assuming you don’t, you’ll need to click the Need an account link, which takes you to the WordPress.com site.
2. Enter a username, password, and email address, then click the Signup button.
3. Next you’ll have to check your email for your activation approval. When you receive the email, click the Activate Blog button in the email, which will create your wordpress.com account.
4. Go back into the Dashboard and try again to connect to WordPress.com, which should connect you to the authorization screen.
5. Authorize Jetpack and you’re done!

Now you’ll see the Jetpack Menu item in your Dashboard and you can access all the capabilities provided by the plugin.

Video Review (8:56)