Latest Guides – WordPress at The University of Melbourne

Block News Listing

We've just added a new component to the Live Shortcodes Plugin, that lets you display posts using the Block News Listing from the Design System.

Just click the Add Shortcodes button above the editor. (If you don't have Live Shortcodes enabled, just ask via the helpdesk.)

Select the Block News Listing module from the options.

You'll then see a large popup with a preview of your block listing, and a range of options for filtering by keyword and category as well as adjusting some of the information displayed. Just adjust your settings until you're happy with the result and Insert Shortcode to add it to your page.

Posts with Featured Images will display with thumbnails, and Sticky posts will use the two column Hero layout.

There are, unfortunately, some bugs! We'll be working to fix these issues as soon as possible. Also, only use this shortcode in pages; don't use it in posts, it won't display properly.

March 16, 2017 Guides

Tabbed navigation

You can now have tabbed on a page in your site, including the home page.

Tabbed navigation requires you to create at least two pages, a parent page, and one or more child pages (we don't recommend more than three). The content you put on the parent page will be visible as the default, first tab. The content of the children will be the second and subsequent tabs with the title of each page displaying as the tab link.

To organise the pages as parent/child is quite simple.

On the Edit screen of a child page, look for the Page Attributes pane, and the Parent menu. Select the page you want to use as a parent from this list, and save.

On the Edit screen of the parent page, look for the Page Options pane, and check the box to Display child pages as horizontal tabs.

Still on the Edit screen of the parent page, in the Page Attributes pane, you'll need to choose one of the image header options, because tabs don't work well with the default headers. Tabs also don't work with Sidebars, so don't use any of those templates for the parent page.

That's it. When you view All Pages in the dashboard you should now see your parent and child pages arranged in a hierarchy.

And on the front end, the page should now have tabs.

Once you've got a tabbed page working, you can use it for a home page.

March 16, 2017 Guides

Go live! Public and other permissions.

When new sites are created, they are not public. This lets you get your site just right before publishing to your audience.

Once you're ready, visit your Dashboard, and choose Settings > Reading.

Set your Site Visibility to option that suits your needs.

Allow search engines to index this site - this is the standard setting for almost all public sites. Anyone can see it, and it welcomes search engines in to index the content.
Discourage search engines from indexing this site - this is also public, but asks search engines not to index the content. Why would you do that? Well, some sites are used as a way of generating a news feed that gets displayed in another site. In these cases, you might prefer search engine traffic to go to the main site, rather than the blog.
Visitors must have a login - All staff and students can gain access.
Only registered users of this site can have access - Admins can choose individual staff and students to have access to the site. This can't be done on a group basis, though.
Only administrators can visit - Good for testing purposes before making it live.
Anyone that visits must first provide this password - Lets you set a simple password that anyone can use. Registered users of the site won't need the password.

Site Administrators can change this setting at any time, and it applies to the whole site immediately.

February 10, 2017 Guides

Who can view your site?

Wordpress offers good broad options for allowing, or restricting access to your site.

Look in the Settings > Reading section of your dashboard, where you'll find a range of settings title Site Visibility to allow you to control access to your site.

The options really go in order from most open (public) to less open, authenticated settings below.

Allow search engines - is the fully public, searchable setting that most blogs will want to use.
Discourage search engines - simply uses metadata to tell search engines not to index a site. Not all search engines obey these directives, and your site is still public.
Must log in - anyone can view if they're logged in. As our wordpress service is linked to the central authentication, this effectively means all staff and students.
Registered users - not only must a user log in, but they also have to be a registered user of the site. As a site admin, you can manage this yourself.
Admin only - all sites start out this way. Only administrators of your site can see it. This gives you a chance to get your site started before releasing it to the public.
Custom password - you can set a single, custom password for your site. Not really recommended because it can get tricky to manage.

These settings apply to a whole site, they don't apply to individual pages or sections. Options for that finer level of protection are limited, and if this is important to your site, then we would not recommend the wordpress platform.

September 21, 2016 Guides