With WordPress.org successfully installed, you can explore your new website software. This chapter guides you through the preliminary setup of your new WordPress site using the Dashboard.
When you create a website with WordPress, you spend a lot of time in the Dashboard, which is where you make all the exciting, behind-the-scenes stuff happen. In this panel, you find all the settings and options that enable you to set up your site just the way you want it. (If you still need to install and configure WordPress, check out Chapter 3.)
Feeling comfortable with the Dashboard sets you up for a successful entrance into the WordPress world. Expect to tweak your WordPress settings several times throughout the life of your website. In this chapter, as I go through the various sections, settings, options, and configurations available to you, understand that nothing is set in stone. You can set options today and change them at any time.
Logging In to the Dashboard
I find that the direct approach (also known as jumping in) works best when I want to get familiar with a new software tool. To that end, just follow these steps to log in to WordPress and take a look at the guts of the Dashboard:
Open your web browser, and type the WordPress login-page address (or URL) in the address box.
The login-page address looks something like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-login.php
If you installed WordPress in its own folder, include that folder name in the login URL. If you installed WordPress in a folder ingeniously named wordpress, the login URL becomes
http://www.yourdomain.com/wordpress/wp-login.php
Type your username or email address in the Username or Email Address text box and your password in the Password text box.
In case you forget your password, WordPress has you covered. Click the Lost Your Password? link (located near the bottom of the page), enter your username or email address, and then click the Get New Password button. WordPress resets your password and emails the new password to you.
After you request a password, you receive an email from your WordPress installation. The email contains a link that you need to click to reset your password.
Select the Remember Me check box if you want WordPress to place a cookie in your browser.
The cookie tells WordPress to remember your login credentials the next time you show up. The cookie set by WordPress is harmless and stores your WordPress login on your computer. Because of the cookie, WordPress remembers you the next time you visit. Also, because this option tells the browser to remember your login, I don’t advise checking this option on public computers. Avoid selecting Remember Me when you’re using your work computer or a computer at an Internet café.
Note: Before you set this option, make sure that your browser is configured to allow cookies. (If you aren’t sure how to do this, check the help documentation of the Internet browser you’re using.)
Click the Log In button.
After you log in to WordPress, you see the Dashboard page.
Navigating the Dashboard
You can consider the Dashboard to be a control panel of sorts because it offers several links and areas that provide information about your website, starting with the actual Dashboard page, shown in Figure 4-1.
You can change how the WordPress Dashboard looks by changing the order of the modules that appear in it (such as At a Glance and Activity). You can expand (open) and collapse (close) a module by clicking the small gray arrow to the right of its title. This feature is really nice because it allows you to use the Dashboard for just those modules that you use regularly.
The concept is simple: Keep the modules you use all the time open and close the ones that you use only occasionally; you can open those modules only when you really need them. You save space and can customize your Dashboard to suit your own needs. WordPress remembers the way you set your Dashboard, so if you close certain modules today, they remain closed every time you visit the Dashboard until you open them again.
When you view your Dashboard for the first time, all the modules appear in the expanded (open) position by default (refer to Figure 4-1).
The navigation menu of the WordPress Dashboard appears on the left side of your browser window. When you need to get back to the main Dashboard page, click the Dashboard link at the top of the navigation menu on any of the screens within your WordPress Dashboard.
In the following sections, I cover the Dashboard page as it appears when you log in to your WordPress Dashboard for the very first time. Later in this chapter, I show you how to configure your Dashboard so that it best suits how you use the available modules.
Welcome to WordPress!
This module, shown in Figure 4-2, appears at the top of your Dashboard screen the first time you log in to your new WordPress installation. It can stay there, if you want it to. Also notice a small link on the right side of that module labeled Dismiss. That link allows you to remove this module if you’d rather not have it there.
FIGURE 4-2: The Welcome to WordPress! module provides helpful links to get you started.
The makers of the WordPress software have done extensive user testing to discover what items users want to do immediately when they log in to a new WordPress site. The result of that user testing is a group of links presented in the Welcome to WordPress! module:
Get Started: This section contains a button that, when clicked, opens the Customizer, where you can customize the active theme. Additionally, this section provides a link that takes you to the Themes page, where you can change your theme. Chapter 8 contains tons of information about choosing a theme, as well as customizing it to look the way you want it to.
Next Steps: This section provides links to various areas within the WordPress Dashboard to get you started publishing content, including writing your first post and adding an About page. Additionally, the View Your Site link in this section opens your site, allowing you to view what it looks like to your visitors.
More Actions: This section contains a few links that help you manage your site, including a link to manage widgets or menus and turn comments on or off. This section also contains the Learn More about Getting Started link, which takes you to the First Steps with WordPress article on the WordPress codex, where you can read more about how to start using your new WordPress site.
At a Glance
The At a Glance module of the Dashboard shows some details about what’s going on in your website right now, this second! Figure 4-3 shows the expanded At a Glance module of my brand-spanking-new WordPress site.
FIGURE 4-3: The At a Glance module of the Dashboard, expanded so that you can see the available features.
The At a Glance module shows the following by default:
The number of posts: The total posts you currently have in your WordPress blog. The blog in Figure 4-3, for example, has one post. The link is blue, which means that it’s clickable. When you click the link, you go to the Posts screen, where you can view and manage the posts in your blog. (Chapter 5 covers managing posts.)
The number of pages: The number of pages in your blog, which changes when you add or delete pages. (Pages, in this context, refers to the static pages you create in your blog.) Figure 4-3 shows that the blog has one page.
Clicking this link takes you to the Pages screen, where you can view, edit, and delete your current pages. (Find the difference between WordPress posts and pages in Chapter 5.)
The number of comments: The number of comments on your blog. Figure 4-3 shows that this blog has 1 comment.
Clicking the Comments link takes you to the Comments screen, where you can manage the comments on your blog. Chapter 5 covers comments.
The last section of the Dashboard’s At a Glance module shows the following information:
Which WordPress theme you’re using:Figure 4-3 shows that the site is using the theme called Twenty Seventeen (Chapter 8 gives you information about WordPress themes). The theme name is a link that, when clicked, takes you to the Manage Themes page, where you can view and activate themes on your blog.
The version of WordPress you’re using:Figure 4-3 shows that this blog is using WordPress version 4.8. This version announcement changes if you’re using an earlier version of WordPress. When WordPress software is upgraded, this statement tells you that you’re using an outdated version of WordPress and encourages you to upgrade to the latest version.
Activity
The module below the At a Glance module is Activity, shown in Figure 4-4.
Posts most recently published: WordPress displays a maximum five posts in this area. Each post’s link is clickable and takes you to the Edit Post screen, where you can view and edit the post.
Most recent comments published to your blog: WordPress displays a maximum of five comments in this area.
The author of each comment: The name of the person who left the comment appears above it. This section also displays the author’s picture (or avatar), if she has one, or the default avatar if she doesn’t.
A link to the post the comment was left on: The post title appears to the right of the commenter’s name. Click the link to go to that post in the Dashboard.
An excerpt of the comment: This link is a snippet of the comment this person left on your blog.
Comment management links: When you hover your mouse pointer over the comment, six links appear below it. These links give you the opportunity to manage those comments right from your Dashboard: The first link is Unapprove, which appears only if you have comment moderation turned on. (Find out more about moderating comments in the “Comments” section later in this chapter.) The other five links are Reply, Edit, Spam, Trash, and View.
View links: These links — All, Pending, Approved, Spam, and Trash — appear at the bottom of the Recent Comments module.
You can find even more information on managing your comments in the “Comments” section later in this chapter.
Quick Draft
The Quick Draft module, shown in Figure 4-5, is a handy form that allows you to write, save, and publish a blog post right from your WordPress Dashboard. The options are similar to the ones I cover in Chapter 5.
FIGURE 4-5: The Quick Draft module of the Dashboard.
If you’re using a new WordPress blog and a new installation of WordPress, the Drafts list doesn’t appear in the Quick Draft module, because you haven’t written any posts that are set to Draft status. As time goes on, however, and you’ve written a few posts, you may save some of those posts as Drafts, to be edited and published at a later date. Those drafts show up in the Drafts sections of the Quick Draft module.
WordPress displays up to five drafts and displays the title of the post and the date it was last saved. Click the post title to go to the Edit Post page, where you can view, edit, and manage the draft post. Check out Chapter 5 for more information.
WordPress News
The WordPress News module of the Dashboard pulls in posts from a site called WordPress Planet (http://planet.wordpress.org). By keeping the default setting in this area, you stay in touch with several posts made by folks who are involved in WordPress development, design, and troubleshooting. You can find lots of interesting and useful tidbits if you keep this area intact. Quite often, I find great information about new plugins or themes, problem areas and support, troubleshooting, and new ideas, so I tend to stick with the default setting.
Arranging the Dashboard to Your Tastes
One feature of WordPress that I’m really quite fond of allows me to create my own workspace within the Dashboard. In the following sections, you find out how to customize your WordPress Dashboard to fit your needs, including modifying the layout, changing links and RSS feed information, and even rearranging the modules on different pages of the Dashboard. Armed with this information, you can open your Dashboard and create your very own workspace.
In the following steps, I show you how to move the At a Glance module so that it displays on the right side of your Dashboard screen:
Hover your mouse over the title bar of the At a Glance module.
Your mouse pointer changes to the Move pointer (a cross with arrows).
Click and hold your mouse button, and drag the At a Glance module to the right side of the screen.
As you drag the box, a light gray line with a dotted border appears on the right side of your screen. That gray line is a guide that shows you where you should drop the module (see Figure 4-6).
Release the mouse button when you have the At a Glance module in place.
The At a Glance module is now positioned on the right side of your Dashboard screen, at the top. The other modules on the right side of the Dashboard have shifted down, and the Activity module is the module in the top-left corner of the Dashboard screen.
(Optional) Click the gray arrow to the right of the At a Glance title.
The module collapses. Click the arrow again, and the module expands. You can keep that module opened or closed, based on your preference.
FIGURE 4-6: A light gray line appears as a guide when you drag and drop modules in the WordPress Dashboard.
Repeat these steps with each module you see in the Dashboard so that the modules appear in the order you prefer.
When you navigate away from the Dashboard, WordPress remembers the changes you’ve made. When you return, you still see your customized Dashboard and don’t need to redo your changes.
If you find that your Dashboard contains a few modules that you never use, you can get rid of them by following these steps:
Click the Screen Options button at the top of the Dashboard.
The Screen Options drop-down menu opens, displaying the titles of the modules with a check box to the left of each title.
Deselect the check box for the module you want to hide.
The check mark disappears from the check box, and the module disappears from your Dashboard.
If you want a module that you hid to reappear, select that module’s check box on the Screen Options drop-down menu.
Finding Inline Documentation and Help
One thing I really appreciate about the WordPress software is the time and effort put in by the developers to provide users tons of inline documentation, as well as tips and hints right inside the Dashboard. You can generally find inline documentation for just about every WordPress feature you use.
Inline documentation refers to small sentences or phrases that you see alongside or below a feature in WordPress, providing a short but helpful explanation of the feature. Figure 4-7 shows the General Settings screen, where inline documentation and tips correspond with features. These tips can clue you into what the features are and how to use those features, and provide some recommended settings.
FIGURE 4-7: Inline documentation on the General Settings screen of the WordPress Dashboard.
In addition to the inline documentation that you find scattered throughout the Dashboard, a useful Help tab is located in the top-right corner of your Dashboard. Click this tab to open a panel containing help text that’s relevant to the screen you’re currently viewing in your Dashboard. If you’re viewing the General Settings screen, for example, the Help tab displays documentation relevant to the General Settings screen. Likewise, if you’re viewing the Add New Post screen, the Help tab displays documentation with topics relevant to the settings and features you find on the Add New Post page of your Dashboard.
The inline documentation, topics, and text you find on the Help tab exist to assist and support you as you experience the WordPress platform, making it as easy to understand WordPress as possible. Another place you can find help and support is the WordPress Forums page at https://wordpress.org/support.
Throughout the pages of your WordPress Dashboard, you can apply the customization features that I cover for the main Dashboard page earlier in this chapter. Every section of the WordPress Dashboard is customizable with drag-and-drop modules, screen options, and inline help and documentation.
Have a look at Figure 4-8, which displays the Posts page of the WordPress Dashboard. (The Posts page is covered in greater detail in Chapter 5.) In the figure, the Screen Options menu shows your options for customization, including the following:
Check boxes that you can select to display the Author, Categories, Tags, Comments, and Date of the posts listed on the Posts page
A text field where you can input the number of posts you want to display on the Posts page
Figure 4-9 displays the Help topics on the Posts screen. Once you’ve clicked the Help tab at the top of the screen, the inline documentation for the page display.
FIGURE 4-9: Click the Help tab on the Posts page to display inline documentation.
Another helpful feature of the Dashboard Help menu is the links that lead you to other areas on the Internet for additional help, support topics, and resources on the various WordPress features.
Setting Options in the Dashboard
The navigation menu is located on the left side of every screen of the WordPress Dashboard. You find it there everywhere you go; like a loyal friend, it’s always there for you when you need it!
The navigation menu is divided into nine menus (not counting the Dashboard menu, which I mention previously). Hover your mouse over a menu, and another menu flies out to the right to reveal a submenu of items. The submenu items take you to areas within your Dashboard that allow you to perform tasks such as publishing a new post, configuring your site settings, and managing your comments.
The settings that allow you to personalize your site are the first ones that I cover in the next part of this chapter. Some of the menu items, such as creating and publishing new posts, are covered in detail in other chapters, but they’re well worth a mention here as well so that you know what you’re looking at. (Sections with additional information contain a cross-reference telling you where you can find more in-depth information on that topic in this book.)
Configuring the Settings
At the bottom of the navigation menu, you find the Settings option. Hover over the Settings link. A menu appears, containing the following links, which I discuss in the sections that follow:
General
Writing
Reading
Discussion
Media
Permalinks
General
After you install the WordPress software and log in, you can put a personal stamp on your site by giving it a title and description, setting your contact email address, and identifying yourself as the author of the blog. You take care of these and other settings on the General Settings screen.
To begin personalizing your site, use the following steps.
Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of any page where you set new options. If you don’t click Save Changes, your settings aren’t saved, and WordPress reverts to the preceding options. Each time you click the Save Changes button, WordPress reloads the current screen, displaying the new options that you just set.
Click the General link on the Settings menu.
The General Settings screen appears (see Figure 4-10).
Enter the name of your site in the Site Title text box.
The title you enter here is the one that you’ve given your website to identify it as your own. I gave my new blog the title WordPress For Dummies (refer to Figure 4-10), which appears on my website as well as in the title bar of the viewer’s web browser.
Give your website an interesting and identifiable name. You can use Fried Green Tomatoes, for example, if your website covers the book, or the movie, or even anything remotely related to the lovely Southern dish.
In the Tagline text box, enter a five- to ten-word phrase that describes your blog.
Figure 4-10 shows that my tagline is by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. So my website displays my site title followed by the tagline: WordPress For Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson.
The general Internet-surfing public can view your website title and tagline, which various search engines (such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing) grab for indexing, so choose your words with this fact in mind.
In the WordPress Address (URL) text box, enter the location where you installed the WordPress software.
Be sure to include the http:// portion of the URL and the entire path to your WordPress installation — for example, http://yourdomain.com. If you installed WordPress in a folder in your directory — inside a folder called wordpress, for example — you need to include it here. If I had installed WordPress in a folder called wordpress, the WordPress address would be http://yourdomain.com/wordpress.
In the Site Address (URL) text box, enter the web address where people can find your blog by using their web browsers.
Typically, what you enter here is the same as your domain name (http://yourdomain.com). If you install WordPress in a subdirectory of your site, the WordPress installation URL is different from the blog URL. If you install WordPress at http://yourdomain.com/wordpress/ (WordPress URL), you need to tell WordPress that you want the blog to appear at http://yourdomain.com (the blog URL).
Enter your email address in the Email Address text box.
WordPress sends messages about the details of your website to this email address. When a new user registers for your site, for example, WordPress sends you an email alert.
Select a Membership option.
Select the Anyone Can Register check box if you want to keep registration on your site open to anyone who wants to register. Leave the check box deselected if you’d rather not have open registration on your website.
From the New User Default Role drop-down menu, choose the role that you want new users to have when they register for user accounts in your website.
You need to understand the differences among the user roles because each user role is assigned a different level of access to your website, as follows:
Subscriber: Subscriber is the default role. Assigning this role to new users is a good idea, particularly if you don’t know who’s registering. Subscribers are given access to the Dashboard screen, and they can view and change the options in their profiles on the Your Profile and Personal Options screen. (They don’t have access to your account settings, however — only to their own.) Each user can change his username, email address, password, bio, and other descriptors in his user profile. Subscribers’ profile information is stored in the WordPress database, and your site remembers them each time they visit so that they don’t have to complete the profile information each time they leave comments on your website.
Contributor: In addition to the access Subscribers have, Contributors can upload files and write, edit, and manage their own posts. Contributors can write posts, but they can’t publish the posts; the administrator reviews all Contributor posts and decides whether to publish them. This setting is a nice way to moderate content written by new authors.
Author: In addition to the access Contributors have, Authors can publish and edit their own posts.
Editor: In addition to the access Authors have, Editors can moderate comments, manage categories, manage links, edit pages, and edit other Authors’ posts.
Administrator: Administrators can edit all the options and settings in the WordPress website. Simply put, Administrators have access to everything, so use caution when handing out Administrator access to your website.
In the Timezone section, choose your UTC time from the drop-down menu.
This setting refers to the number of hours that your local time differs from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This setting ensures that all your posts and comments left on your blog are time-stamped with the correct time. If you’re lucky enough, as I am, to live on the frozen tundra of Wisconsin, which is in the Central time zone (CST), you would choose –6 from the drop-down menu because that time zone is six hours off UTC. WordPress also gives you the names of some major cities across the world to make the choice easier. Just select the name of the major city you live closest to; chances are that you’re in the same time zone as that city.
If you’re unsure what your UTC time is, you can find it at the Greenwich Mean Time website (https://greenwichmeantime.com). GMT is essentially the same thing as UTC.
In the Date Format text box (not shown in Figure 4-10), enter the format in which you want the date to be displayed in your website.
This setting determines the style of the date display. The default format is already selected and displayed for you: F j, Y (F = the full month name; j = the two-digit day; Y = the four-digit year), which gives you the date output. This default date format displays as October 16, 2017.
Select a different format by clicking the circle to the left of the option. You can also customize the date display by selecting the Custom option and entering your preferred format in the text box.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can find out how to customize the date format by clicking the Documentation on Date and Time Formatting link between the date and time options, which takes you to this page of the WordPress Codex: https://codex.wordpress.org/Formatting_Date_and_Time.
In the Time Format text box (not shown in Figure 4-10), enter the format in which you want the time to be displayed in your site.
This setting is the style of the time display. The default format is already inserted for you: g:i a (g = the two-digit hour; i = the two-digit minute; a = lowercase as a.m. or p.m.), which gives you the output 12:00 a.m.
Select a different format by clicking the circle to the left of the option. You can also customize the date display by selecting the Custom option and entering your preferred format in the text box provided; find out how at https://codex.wordpress.org/Formatting_Date_and_Time.
From the Week Starts On drop-down menu (not shown in Figure 4-10), choose the day the week starts in your calendar.
Displaying a calendar in the sidebar of your website is optional. If you choose to display a calendar, you can select the day of the week you want your calendar to start with.
Choose your site language from the Site Language drop-down menu (not shown in Figure 4-10).
The Site Language drop-down menu gives you several language options. The default setting is English, but the WordPress software is available in 112 languages, currently. If your website should be in Spanish, use the drop-down menu to change it from English to Spanish.
FIGURE 4-10: Personalize the settings of your WordPress blog on the General Settings page.
Writing
Choose Settings ⇒ Writing, and the Writing Settings screen opens (see Figure 4-11).
This screen of the Dashboard lets you set some basic options for writing your content. Table 4-1 gives you some information on choosing how your content looks and how WordPress handles some specific conditions.
Lets you select the category that WordPress defaults to any time you forget to choose a category when you publish a post.
Uncategorized
Default Post Format
Select the format that WordPress defaults to any time you create a post and don’t assign a post format. (This option is theme-specific; not all themes support post formats.)
Standard
Post via Email
Publish content from your email account by letting you enter the email and server information for the account you’ll be using to send posts to your WordPress site.
N/A
You set the Mail Server, Login Name, Password according to your email settings, and then you select a default Mail Category.
Update Services
Note: This option is available only if you allow your site to be indexed by search engines (covered in the Reading Settings section).
Lets you indicate which ping service you want to use to notify the world that you’ve made updates, or published new posts. The default, XML-RPC (http://rpc.pingomatic.com), updates all the popular services simultaneously.
You can set the following options in the Reading Settings screen:
Front Page Displays: Select the radio button to show a page instead of your latest posts on the front page of your site. You can find detailed information about using a static page for your front page in Chapter 12, including information on how to set it up by using the fields that appear after you select the radio button.
Blog Pages Show at Most: Type the maximum number of posts you want to display on each content page. The default is 10.
Syndication Feeds Show the Most Recent: In the Posts box, type the maximum number of posts you want to appear in your RSS feed at any time. The default is 10.
For Each Article in a Feed, Show: Select Full Text or Summary. Full Text publishes the entire post to your RSS feed, whereas Summary publishes an excerpt. By default, Full Text is selected. (Check out Chapter 5 for more information on WordPress RSS feeds.)
Search Engine Visibility: By default, the Discourage Search Engines from Indexing This Site option is deselected. If you’re one of those rare bloggers who don’t want search engines to be able to visit and index their websites in search directories, check the box.
Generally, you want search engines to be able to find your site. If you have special circumstances, however, you may want to enforce privacy on your site. A friend of mine has a family blog, for example, and she blocks search engine access to it because she doesn’t want search engines to find it. When you have privacy enabled, search engines and other content bots can’t find your website.
Be sure to click the Save Changes button when you’ve set all your options in the Reading Settings screen to make the changes take effect.
Discussion
Discussion is the fourth item in the Settings menu; choose Settings ⇒ Discussion to open the Discussion Settings screen (see Figure 4-13). The sections of this screen let you set options for handling comments and publishing posts to your site.
The following sections cover the options available to you in the Discussion Settings screen, which deals mainly with how comments and trackbacks are handled on your site.
Default Article Settings
In the Default Article Settings section, you can tell WordPress how to handle post notifications. Here are your options:
Attempt to Notify Any Blogs Linked To from the Article: Select this check box, and your blog sends a notification (or ping) to any site you’ve linked to in your blog posts. This notification is commonly referred to as a trackback. (I discuss trackbacks in Chapter 2.) Deselect this check box if you don’t want these notifications to be sent.
Allow Link Notifications from Other Blogs (Pingbacks and Trackbacks) on New Articles: By default, this check box is selected, and your site accepts notifications via pings or trackbacks from other sites that have linked to yours. Any trackbacks or pings sent to your site appear on your site in the Comments section of the post. If you deselect this check box, your site doesn’t accept pingbacks or trackbacks from other sites.
Allow People to Post Comments on New Articles: By default, this check box is selected, and people can leave comments on your blog posts. If you deselect this check box, no one can leave comments on your content. (You can override these settings for individual articles; find more information in Chapter 5.)
Other Comment Settings
The Other Comment Settings tell WordPress how to handle comments:
Comment Author Must Fill Out Name and Email: Enabled by default, this option requires all commenters on your blog to fill in the Name and Email field when leaving a comment. This option is very helpful in combating comment spam. (See Chapters 2 and 7 for information on comment spam.) Deselect this check box to disable this option.
Users Must Be Registered and Logged In to Comment: Not enabled by default, this option allows you to accept comments on your site from only those people who have registered and are currently logged in as users on your site. If a user who tries to comment isn’t logged in, he sees the message You must be logged in in order to leave a comment.
Automatically Close Comments on Articles Older Than X Days: Select the check box next to this option to tell WordPress that you want comments on older articles to be closed automatically. In the text box, enter the number of days you want to wait before WordPress closes comments on older articles.
This feature is a very effective antispam technique that many people use to keep down comment and trackback spam on their sites.
Enable Threaded (Nested) Comments X Levels Deep: The drop-down menu allows you to choose the level of threaded comments you’d like to have on your blog. The default is 5; you can choose up to 10 levels. Instead of displaying all comments on your site in chronological order (as they are by default), nesting them allows you and your readers to reply to a comment within the comment itself.
Break Comments into Pages with X Top Level Comments Per Page and the Last/First Page Displayed by Default: In the text box, enter the number of comments you want to appear on one page (default: 50). This setting can really help sites that receive a large number of comments. It allows you to break a long string of comments into several pages, which makes them easier to read and helps speed the load time of your site, because the page isn’t loading such a large number of comments. If you want the last (most recent) or first page of comments to display, choose Last or First from the drop-down list.
Comments Should Be Displayed with the Older/Newer Comments at the Top of Each Page: From the drop-down menu, choose Older or Newer. Older displays the comments on your site from oldest to newest. Newer does the opposite: It displays the comments on your site from newest to oldest.
Email Me Whenever
The two options in the Email Me Whenever section are enabled by default:
Anyone Posts a Comment: This option lets you receive an email notification whenever anyone leaves a comment on your site. Deselect the check box if you don’t want to be notified by email about every new comment.
A Comment Is Held for Moderation: This option lets you receive an email notification whenever a comment is awaiting your approval in the comment moderation queue. (See Chapter 5 for more information about the comment moderation queue.) Deselect this check box if you don’t want this notification.
Before a Comment Appears
The two options in the Before a Comment Appears section tell WordPress how you want WordPress to handle comments before they appear in your site:
Comment Must Be Manually Approved: Disabled by default, this option keeps every single comment left on your blog in the moderation queue until you, the administrator, log in and approve it. Select this check box to enable this option.
Comment Author Must Have a Previously Approved Comment: Enabled by default, this option requires comments posted by all first-time commenters to be sent to the comment moderation queue for approval by the administrator of the site. After comment authors have been approved for the first time, they remain approved for every comment thereafter, and this setting can’t be changed. WordPress stores each comment author’s email address in the database, and any future comments that match any stored emails are approved automatically. This feature is another measure built into WordPress to combat comment spam.
Comment Moderation
In the Comment Moderation section (not shown in Figure 4-13), you can set options to specify what types of comments are held in the moderation queue to await your approval.
To prevent spammers from spamming your blog with a ton of links, select the Hold a Comment in the Queue If It Contains X or More Links check box. The default number of links allowed is 2. Give that setting a try, and if you find that you’re getting lots of spam comments with multiple links, you may want to revisit this page and increase that number. Any comment with a higher number of links goes to the comment moderation area for approval.
The large text box in the Comment Moderation section lets you type keywords, URLs, email addresses, and IP addresses in comments that you want to be held in the moderation queue for your approval.
Comment Blacklist
In this section (not shown in Figure 4-13), type a list of words, URLs, email addresses, and/or IP addresses that you want to flat-out ban from your site. Items placed here don’t even make it into your comment moderation queue; the WordPress system filters them as spam. Let me just say that the words I’ve placed in my blacklist aren’t family-friendly and have no place in a nice book like this.
Avatars
The final section of the Discussion Settings screen is Avatars (see Figure 4-14).
FIGURE 4-14: Default avatars you can display in your blog.
In this section, you can select settings for the use and display of avatars on your site, as follows:
In the Avatar Display section, select the Show Avatars option if you want your site to display avatars beside comment authors’ names.
In the Maximum Rating section, set the rating for the avatars that do display on your site.
This feature works similarly to the movie rating system you’re used to. You can select G, PG, R, and X ratings for the avatars that appear on your site. If your site is family-friendly, you probably don’t want it to display R- or X-rated avatars.
Choose a default avatar in the Default Avatar section (see Figure 4-14):
Mystery Person
Blank
Gravatar Logo
Identicon (Generated)
Wavatar (Generated)
MonsterID (Generated)
Retro (Generated)
Click the Save Changes button.
Avatars appear in a couple of places:
The Comments screen of the Dashboard: In Figure 4-15, the comment displays the commenter’s avatar next to it.
The comments on individual posts to your site:Figure 4-16 shows a comment on my personal blog.
FIGURE 4-15: Authors’ avatars appear in the Comments screen of the WordPress Dashboard.
FIGURE 4-16: Comments on a post, showing the comment author's avatar.
To enable the display of avatars in comments on your site, the Comments Template (comments.php) in your active theme has to contain the code to display them. Hop on over to Chapter 9 to find out how to do that.
Click the Save Changes button after you’ve set all your options on the Discussion Settings screen to put the changes into effect.
On the Media Settings screen, you can configure how your image files (graphics and photos) are resized for use on your site. The dimensions are referenced in pixels, first by width and then by height. (The setting 150 x 150, for example, means 150 pixels wide by 150 pixels high.)
The first set of options on the Media Settings page deals with images. WordPress automatically resizes your images for you in three sizes:
Thumbnail Size: The default is 150 x 150; enter the width and height of your choice. Select the Crop Thumbnail to Exact Dimensions check box to resize the thumbnail to the width and height you specified. Deselect this check box, and WordPress resizes the image proportionally.
Medium Size: The default is 300 x 300; enter the width and height of your choice.
Large Size: The default is 1024 x 1024; enter the width and height of your choice.
The last option on the Media Settings page is in the Uploading Files section. By default, the Organize My Uploads into Month- and Year-Based Folders check box is selected, and WordPress organizes your uploaded files in folders by month and by year. Files you upload in October 2017, for example, would be in the following folder: /wp-content/uploads/2017/10/. Deselect this check box if you do not want WordPress to organize your files by month and year.
Chapter 9 goes into detail about WordPress themes and templates, including how you can add image sizes other than these three. You can use these additional image sizes on your website, and you can also use a feature called Featured Image to create image thumbnails that get displayed in your posts, archive pages, and search result pages.
Be sure to click the Save Changes button to save your configurations!
Permalinks
The last link on the Settings menu is Permalinks. Choose Settings ⇒ Permalinks to view the Permalink Settings screen (see Figure 4-18).
Each post you create on your blog has a unique URL called a permalink, which is a permanent URL for all your website posts, pages, and archives. I cover permalinks extensively in Chapter 5 by explaining what they are, how you can use them, and how you set the options in this page.
Creating Your Personal Profile
To personalize your blog, visit the Profile screen of your WordPress Dashboard.
To access the Profile screen, hover over the Users link on the Dashboard navigation menu, and click the Your Profile link. The Profile screen appears, as shown in Figure 4-19.
Personal Options: The Personal Options section is where you can set four preferences for your site:
Visual Editor: This selection enables you to use the Visual Editor when writing your posts. The Visual Editor gives you the formatting options you find in the Write Post screen (discussed in detail in Chapter 5). By default, the Visual Editor is on. To turn it off, select the Disable the Visual Editor When Writing check box.
Admin Color Scheme: These options set the colors in your Dashboard. The default is the Gray color scheme, but you have other color options: Light, Blue, Coffee, Ectoplasm, Midnight, Ocean, and Sunrise.
Keyboard Shortcuts: This setting enables you to use keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation. To find out more about keyboard shortcuts, click the More Information link; you’re taken to the Keyboard Shortcuts page (https://codex.wordpress.org/Keyboard_Shortcuts) of the WordPress Codex.
Toolbar: This setting allows you to control the location of the admin toolbar on your site. By default, the admin toolbar displays at the top of every page of your site when you’re viewing it in your browser. It’s important to understand that the admin toolbar appears only to users who are logged in. Regular visitors who aren’t logged in to your site can’t see the admin toolbar.
Name: Input personal information, such as your first name, last name, and nickname, and specify how you want your name to appear publicly. Fill in the text boxes with the requested information.
The rest of the options aren’t shown in Figure 4-19; you have to scroll down to see them.
Contact Info: In this section, provide your email address and other contact information to tell your visitors who you are and where they can contact you. Your email address is the only required entry in this section. This address is the one WordPress uses to notify you when you have new comments or new user registrations on your blog. Make sure to use a real email address so that you get these notifications. You can also insert your website URL into the website text field.
About Yourself: This section is where you can provide a little bio about yourself and change the password for your website.
When your profile is published to your website, it not only can be viewed by anyone, but also gets picked up by search engines such as Yahoo! and Google. Always be careful with the information in your profile. Think hard about the information you want to share with the rest of the world!
Biographical Info: Type a short bio in the Biographical Info text box. This information can be shown publicly if you’re using a theme that displays your bio, so be creative!
Account Management: Manage your password and user sessions.
New Password: When you want to change the password for your website, type your new password in the first text box in the New Password section. To confirm your new password, type it again in the second text box.
Directly below the two text boxes is a little password helper where WordPress helps you create a secure password. WordPress alerts you if the password you’ve chosen is too short or not secure enough by calling it Very Weak, Weak, or Medium. When creating a new password, use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to make it hard for anyone to guess (such as b@Fmn2quDtnSLQblhml%jexA). When you create a password that WordPress thinks is a good one, it lets you know by calling it Strong.
Change your password frequently. I can’t recommend this practice strongly enough. Some people on the Internet make it their business to attempt to hijack blogs for their own malicious purposes. If you change your password monthly, you lower your risk by keeping hackers guessing.
Sessions: If you’re logged into your site on several devices, you can log yourself out of those locations by clicking the Log Out Everywhere Else button. This option keeps you logged in at your current location but logs you out of any other location where you may be logged in. If you’re not logged in anywhere else, the button is inactive, and a message says You are only logged in at this location.
When you finish setting all the options on the Profile screen, click the Update Profile button to save your changes.
Setting Your Site’s Format
In addition to setting your personal settings in the Dashboard, you can manage the day-to-day maintenance of your site. This next section takes you through the links to these sections on the navigation menu, directly below the Dashboard link.
Posts
Hover your mouse over the Posts menu, and a submenu appears, with four links: All Posts, Add New, Categories, and Tags. Each link gives you the tools you need to publish content to your site:
All Posts: This link opens the Posts screen, where you see a list of all the saved posts you’ve written on your site. On this screen, you can search for posts by date, category, or keyword. You can view all posts, only posts that have been published, or just posts that have been saved but not yet published (drafts). You can also edit and delete posts from this page. Check out Chapter 5 for more information on editing posts on your site.
Add New: This link opens the Add New Post screen, where you compose your posts, set the options for posts (such as assigning a post to a category, or making it private or public), and publish the post to your site. You can find more information on posts, post options, and publishing in Chapter 5.
You can also get to the Add New Post screen by clicking the Add New button on the Posts screen or by clicking the +New link on the admin toolbar and selecting Post.
Categories: This link opens the Categories screen, where you can view, edit, add, and delete categories on your site. Find more information on categories in Chapter 5.
Tags: This link opens the Tags screen, where you can view, add, edit, and delete tags on your site. Chapter 5 provides more information about what tags are and why you might use them on your site.
Media
Hover your mouse over the Media link on the navigation menu to reveal a submenu of two links:
Library: This link opens the Media Library screen. On this page, you view, search, and manage all the media files you’ve ever uploaded to your WordPress site.
Add New: This link opens the Upload New Media screen, where you can use the built-in uploader to transfer media files from your computer to the media directory in WordPress. Chapter 6 takes you through the details of uploading images, videos, audio, and other media files (such as Microsoft Word or PowerPoint documents) by using the WordPress upload feature.
You can also get to the Upload New Media screen by clicking the Add New button on the Media Library screen or by clicking the +New link on the admin toolbar and selecting Media.
Pages
People use this feature to create pages on their sites such as About Me or Contact Me. Click the Pages menu to reveal these submenu links:
All Pages: This link opens the Pages screen, where you can search for, view, edit, and delete pages in your WordPress site.
Add New: This link opens the Add New Page screen, where you can compose, save, and publish a new page on your site. Table 4-2 describes the differences between a page and a post. The differences are subtle, but the two items are very different.
You can also get to the Add New Page screen by clicking the Add New button on the Pages screen or by clicking the +New link on the admin toolbar and selecting Page.
Comments in the navigation menu don’t have a submenu list of links. You simply click Comments to open the Comments screen, where WordPress gives you these options:
All: Shows all comments that currently exist on your site, including approved, pending, and spam comments.
Pending: Shows comments that you haven’t yet approved and are pending in the moderation queue.
Approved: Shows all comments that you’ve approved.
Spam: Shows all the comments that are marked as spam.
Trash: Shows comments that you’ve marked as Trash but not yet deleted from your blog.
You can find information in Chapter 2 about the purpose of comments. In Chapter 5, I give you details on using the Comments section of your WordPress Dashboard.
Appearance
When you hover your mouse over the Appearance link on the Dashboard navigation menu, a submenu appears, displaying the following links:
Themes: This link opens the Themes screen, where you can manage the themes available on your website. Check out Chapter 9 to find out how to use and manage themes on your WordPress blog.
Customize: Some themes have a Customize page, where you can configure different settings for the theme, such as the default Twenty Seventeen theme. The Customize link appears on the Appearance menu only if the theme you’re currently using has options available for configuration; if it doesn’t, you won’t see the Customize link here.
Widgets: The Widgets page allows you to add, delete, edit, and manage the widgets you use on your site.
Menus: This link opens the Menus screen, where you can build navigation menus to display on your site. Chapter 10 provides information on creating menus.
Header: This link opens the Header Image screen in the Customizer, where you can upload an image to use in the header (top) of your WordPress site. This menu item and screen exist only if you’re using a theme with the Custom Header feature (covered in Chapter 10). The Twenty Seventeen theme is activated by default on all new WordPress sites, which is why I include this menu item in this list. Not all WordPress themes use the Custom Header feature, so you don’t see this menu item if your theme doesn’t take advantage of that feature.
Background: This link opens the Background Image screen in the Customizer, where you can upload an image to use as the background of your WordPress website design. As with the Custom Header option, the Custom Background option exists in the Appearance menu only if you have the default Twenty Seventeen theme (or any other theme that supports the Custom Background feature) activated. Not all WordPress themes use the Custom Background feature.
Editor: This link opens the Edit Themes screen, where you can edit your theme templates. Chapters 9 through 11 have extensive information on themes and templates.
Uploading header images and customizing the background of your site help you individualize the visual design of your website. You can find more information on tweaking and customizing your WordPress theme in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 gives you a great deal of information about using WordPress themes (including where to find, install, and activate them on your WordPress site), as well as detailed information on using WordPress widgets to display the content you want.
Part 4 provides information about WordPress themes and templates. You can dig deep into WordPress template tags and tweak an existing WordPress theme by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to customize your theme a bit more to your liking.
Plugins
The next item on the navigation menu is Plugins. Hover your mouse over the Plugins link to view the submenu links:
Installed Plugins: This link opens the Plugins screen, where you can view all the plugins installed on your website. On this page, you can activate, deactivate, and delete plugins.
Add New: This link opens the Add Plugins screen, where you can search for plugins in the official WordPress Plugin Directory (https://wordpress.org/plugins/) by keyword, author, or tag. You can also install plugins directly to your site from the WordPress Plugin Directory.
Editor: The Edit Plugins screen allows you to edit the plugin files in a text editor.
I strongly advise against editing plugin files unless you know exactly what you’re doing — that is, you’re familiar with PHP and WordPress functions.
All Users: Click this link to go to the Users screen, where you can view, edit, and delete users on your WordPress site. Each user has a unique login name and password, as well as an email address assigned to her account. You can view and edit a user’s information on the Users page.
Add New: This link opens the Add New User screen, where you can add new users to your WordPress site. Simply type the user’s username, first name, last name, email (required), website, and a password in the fields provided and then click the Add User button. You can also specify whether you want WordPress to send login information to the new user by email. If you like, you can also assign a new role for the new user. Refer to the “General” section earlier in this chapter for more info about user roles.
Your Profile: Refer to the “Creating Your Personal Profile” section earlier in this chapter for more information about creating a profile.
Tools
The last menu item on the navigation menu (and in this chapter!) is Tools. Hover your mouse over the Tools link to view the submenu list of links, which includes
Available Tools: This link opens the Tools screen of your Dashboard. WordPress comes packaged with two extra features that you can use on your site, if needed: Press This and Category/Tag Converter.
Import: Clicking this link opens the Import screen of your Dashboard. WordPress allows you to import content from a different publishing platform. I cover this feature in depth in Chapter 14.
Export: Clicking this link opens the Export screen of your Dashboard. WordPress allows you to export your content from WordPress so that you can import it to a different platform or another WordPress-powered site.
Signing in to the Dashboard
If you installed WordPress in its own folder, include that folder name in the login URL. If you installed WordPress in a folder ingeniously named 
In case you forget your password, WordPress has you covered. Click the Lost Your Password? link (located near the bottom of the page), enter your username or email address, and then click the Get New Password button. WordPress resets your password and emails the new password to you.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can find out how to customize the date format by clicking the Documentation on Date and Time Formatting link between the date and time options, which takes you to this page of the WordPress Codex: 
Change your password frequently. I can’t recommend this practice strongly enough. Some people on the Internet make it their business to attempt to hijack blogs for their own malicious purposes. If you change your password monthly, you lower your risk by keeping hackers guessing.