Working with the WordPress Dashboard
Before you get to the graphic look of your site, let’s do a little more administration to your site to set it up. Consider making your first plugin installation the Codex and Forum Searcher Plugin. It allows you to search both the WordPress Codex and WordPress Support Forum from your WordPress Administration Panels. Click on one of the search results and the page will open in a new window or tab so you can have the article or discussion open while working on WordPress. This will make your transition to WordPress a much gentler one with information right at your fingertips.
You can also work from this page by clicking on a link with a Right Click and opening the documents in a new window or tab, so you can read along as you work on your site.
Let’s start with making those categories written down on your list.
Create Categories
In the Manage > Categories tab, click Add Category and fill in the information about your category. Continue to add your parent categories, going down the list. Hold off on entering sub-categories until all the main categories are entered.Manage Categories Screen.
NOTE: You can add any new categories any time, but make a note of the fact that categories can be sorted in WordPress in two ways: by name (alphabetically) or by ID number. As you enter the categories, they are assigned an ID number. It is difficult to change this, so if you don’t want your categories sorted alphabetically, enter them in the order you want to see them presented on the screen.
WordPress Admin Manage Categories
When you have the parent categories entered, enter your sub-categories. In the pull down menu for Parent Category, you can select the parent to the sub-category you are adding. When you view your categories in the Manage > Categories panel, you would see the categories listed like this:
Computer Tips
– Windows
– Linux
– Mac
Internet News
Web Page Design
– Web Standards
– WordPress
– – Plugins
– – Themes
Put Posts in Categories
If you have started working on your WordPress site put some of your posts into categories so you can see how this works.
WordPress Admin Manage Posts
From the Manage > Category panel, click on the tab for Posts. You should see the test posts you entered here. To the right are three links that say: View – Edit – Delete. Click on Edit to edit one of the posts. On the right side of the Edit Post screen you will now see your Categories. Choose one of them by clicking in the box next to it. Then scroll down the page and click SAVE. Repeat this for your other test posts, putting each one in a different category.
Now view your page by clicking View Site at the top of the Admin panel. Do you see the categories listed in the sidebar now? Great. If you are missing a category, that usually means that there are no posts in it. This is the default function of WordPress, so not to worry. When you add a post to the “missing” category, it will appear on your web pages. Click on one of the categories and you will be taken to a page for just that category. You should see the posts that went into that category. This is a generated Category page.
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