Intermediate WordPress

This class is going to focus on Plugins and Widgets. As part of these topics, we’ll also be discussing custom menus, “widgetized areas”, and shortcodes, all of which are created by or used with widgets or plugins.

Today we are going to build on a basic knowledge of WordPress here at Wake Forest University (it is highly recommended that you have taken the WordPress for Beginners PDC course, or have previous experience with WordPress) and show you some additional ways to format display and organize your content in your WordPress site.

This class will be using as an example the WF College One Pro theme developed for the College by Robert Vidrine, but the concepts we cover will be relevant to most WordPress sites.

Intended Audience:

  • You are a WFU faculty or staff member who is (or will be) working on a WFU WordPress site that has been created for you.
  • You know how to make basic changes to the content of your site, and are ready to explore ways to change the design, layout or functionality.
  • You may have a basic knowledge of HTML or CSS, but are not necessarily a “programmer”.

For today’s class

You have each been set up as an Administrator of your own sub-site of the WordPress Training site. While this site is not fully configured, and there is very little to the site right now, this will allow you to experiment with a plugin, try out some shortcodes on a page, and insert a custom menu or other special content into a widgetized area, without bumping into the changes made by your fellow classmates.

You will have access to all the basics of creating, editing and publishing content to this site during the class. To make room for new participants, you will be removed from the site the day after the class.

What we’ll cover today

In today’s class, the facilitator(s) will

  1. Define some intermediate WordPress terminology and concepts such as plugins, widgets, widgetized areas, custom menus and shortcodes.
  2. Show you how to use the custom menu widget and text widget included with the WF College One Pro theme.
  3. Show you how to insert a shortcode and what it does.
  4. Share some of techniques for determining whether a plugin is well-made or not.
  5. Answer your questions and talk about what else you’d like to learn about WordPress.

Class Learning Objectives

  1. Become familiar with some Intermediate-level WordPress terminology.
  2. Know the benefits of a custom menu and how to implement one.
  3. Understand what a “widgetized area” is and why they are often called “sidebars”.
  4. Be able to quickly judge the basic qualifications of a plugin

Let’s jump into the training site that’s been created for each of you and discover how to use some of the intermediate features of WordPress!

There are some new menu items we didn’t get to explore in the Beginner class. Let’s take a look at the Administrator menus.