Overview
In this guide, we explain how to manage Pages and edit Page settings for a Dornsife minisite. You will need Administrator or Editor access to the minisite to manage Pages.
WordPress Pages versus Posts
WordPress Pages are just the individual webpages of your Dornsife minisite. Use Pages for essential information that you keep up to date about your Dornsife department, center, or institute, such as:
- The "About Us" page
- Information for current or incoming students
- Ongoing research projects
- Programs/courses offered
- Any content you want to link to from the minisite menu
By contrast, consider using WordPress Posts instead for non-essential information. Some examples of information that should be a Post instead of a Page:
Locating the Pages Admin Screen
Use the Pages Admin Screen to manage minisite Pages:
- Log into WordPress.
- Click Pages in the menu.
- The Pages Admin Screen displays.
Create a new Page or modify content for an existing Page
To create a new Page, click Add New. To modify an existing Page, click the Page title. New and existing Pages both open in the WordPress editor: refer to Using the WordPress editor to add and edit content for detailed instructions.
Editing Page attributes (settings)
Use the Pages Admin Screen to edit the attributes for a single Page (Quick Edit) or for multiple Pages at a time (Bulk edit).
Use Quick Edit for a single Page
- To edit the attributes for a single Page, hover on the Page title and click Quick Edit.
- The editable attributes display: make your desired changes and click Update.
These attributes may be convenient to change through Quick Edit:
- Title
- Slug (another name for "permalink")
- Author
- Parent
- Order
- Status
You typically want to leave these attributes unchanged:
- Date
- Password
- Template
- Comments (leave unselected—you seldom want to enable comments on a Page)
Use bulk edit for multiple Pages
- To make the same attributes edits for multiple Pages, select the checkboxes next to the title of each Page you want to simultaneously edit.
- Click Bulk actions and select Edit from the dropdown. Click Apply.
- The bulk editable attributes display: make your desired changes and click Update.
These attributes may be convenient to change through bulk edit:
You typically want to leave these attributes unchanged:
Organizing your Pages view
The more Pages that a minisite has, the more you may benefit from organizing the view that you see on the Pages Admin Screen. These two attributes will be particularly helpful:
Any changes you make only affect the view of the Pages Admin Screen, and don't affect the appearance of the minisite menu or what visitors to your minisite see.
Default Pages organization
By default, the Order for each Page is set to 0, and Pages are listed in reverse chronological order by Page creation date. Clicking the Title header or Date header will change the order of Pages on the list, but only temporarily.
To manually order Pages in the list, edit each Page's Order attribute. The lower the number, the higher it appears on the list: a Page with an Order of 0 appears higher on the list than a Page with an Order of 100.
By default, Pages are all "top-level" items, meaning that no Page is nested within another Page. To help structure your Pages view, edit the Parent attribute to nest Pages within other Pages. A Page must be published before it can be selected as a parent.
Note that after you make a change to any Page's attributes, you must refresh the Pages Admin Screen to update the Pages view.
Recommended approach
Our recommended sequence of action for ordering the list of Pages:
- Publish any Page that will have other Pages nested underneath it.
- Use Quick Edit to set the Parent attribute for nested Pages.
- Use Quick Edit to set the Order attribute, and refresh.
Demonstration of recommended approach
Suppose that you want to create the following structure:
- About
- People
- Faculty
- Graduate Students
- Staff
- Events
- Upcoming Events
- Past Events
- Recordings of Past Events
Here's how you would follow our recommended approach:
- Publish any Page that will have other Pages nested underneath it.
- In this example: publish About, People, Events, and Past Events.
- Use Quick Edit to set the Parent attribute for nested Pages.
- In this example: assign "People" as the Parent for Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff. Assign "Events" as the Parent for Upcoming Events and Past Events. Assign "Past Events" as the Parent for Recordings of Past Events.
- Use Quick Edit to set the Orderattribute.
- By default, the Order for every Page is set to 0. Assign a higher number to move a Page lower down on the list. You must use whole numbers (no decimals). You can skip numbers: for instance, you can assign a Page an Order of 100 to place it at the bottom of the list, even if you only have 5 Pages in all.
And here's how the final list looks in the Pages Admin Screen, with the Parent and Order attributes labeled for your reference on the right side:
Duplicating a Page
- Go to Pages.
- Hover over the title of a Page you want to duplicate. Click Clone.
Password protecting a Page
You can set a password on a Page to ensure that only visitors with the password can access the Page contents. Be aware that:
- Passwords are case-sensitive
- Once you are ready for the Page to be viewed, you must publish it: visitors cannot view draft Pages even if they have the password
Set a password while editing a Page
You can set (or change) a password using the settings in the right panel. Depending on the Page template you're using, this may look slightly different.
Default template and Content Detail
- In the Settings panel, next to "Visibility," click Public.
- Select Password protected and type a password.
- Click Save draft or Update in the top right corner.
Chaptered Page, News Listing, Person Listing, Event Listing, and Video Listing
- In the right column, next to "Visibility: Public," click Edit.
- Select Password protected. Then, type a password and click OK.
- Click Save Draft or Update.
Set a password using Quick Edit
You can also add password protection to a Page from the All Pages list:
- Click Pages in the left menu.
- Hover over the Page title and click Quick Edit.
- In the "Password" field, type a password. Click Update.
- Now, "Password Protection" appears next to the Page title to indicate that it is password protected.
Setting a homepage/Front Page
The minisite homepage is what viewers first see when they navigate to your minisite from the global (website-wide) Dornsife menu. Another term for the homepage is "Front Page." It is also the only page on the minisite that will display a Featured image (for information about the Featured image, refer to Using the WordPress editor to add and edit content: Adding a featured image).
This feature is not managed in the Pages Admin Screen, and you will need Administrator access to the minisite to set the homepage.
Use the Settings Admin Screen to set a Page as the minisite homepage:
- First, make sure that the Page is published (aka does not have "Draft" label after its title).
- Go to Settings > Reading.
- In the "Your homepage displays" field:
- Make sure that A static page is selected.
- Next to "Homepage," click the dropdown and select the Page you want to use.
- Click Save Changes.
Now, in the Pages Admin Screen, the "Front Page" label will display after the title of the Page you selected.