Removing Dashboard Modules

If you find that your Dashboard contains a few modules that you just never use, you can get rid of them altogether by following these steps:

1. Click the Screen Options button at the top of the Dashboard.
The Screen Options pop-up menu opens, displaying the title of each module with a check box to the left of each title.
2. Deselect the check box for the module you want to hide on

your Dashboard.
The check mark disappears from the box, and the module disappears from your Dashboard.
If you want a module that you hid to reappear, you can simply enable that
module by selecting the module’s check box in the Screen Options menu.

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Arranging the Dashboard to Your Tastes

You can arrange the order of the modules in your Dashboard to suit your

tastes. WordPress places a great deal of emphasis on user experience, and a big part of that effort results in your ability to create a Dashboard that you find most useful. You can very easily change the modules to display and the order in which they display.

Follow these steps to move the Right Now module so that it appears on the right side of your Dashboard page:

 1. Hover your mouse on the title bar of the Right Now module.

When hovering over the title, your mouse cursor changes to the Move
cursor (a cross with arrows on a PC or the hand cursor on a Mac).

2. Click and hold your mouse button and drag the Right Now module to
the right side of the screen.

While you drag the module, a light-gray box with a dotted border

appears on the right side of your screen. That gray box is a guide that shows you where you can drop the module. See Figure 2-1.

3. Release the mouse button when you have the Right Now module

in place.

The Right Now module is positioned on the right side of your Dashboard page.

The other modules on the right side of the Dashboard have shifted

down, and the Recent Comments Module is the module in the top left of the Dashboard page.

4. (Optional) Click the title bar of the Right Now module.

The module collapses. Click the title bar again to expand the module. You
can keep that module open or closed based on your own preference.

 

Repeat these steps with each module that you want to move on the

Dashboard by dragging and dropping them so that they appear in the order you prefer.

When you navigate away from the Dashboard, WordPress remembers
the changes you made. When you return, you still see your customized
Dashboard, and you don’t need to redo these changes in the future.

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Other WordPress News

The Other WordPress News module of the Dashboard pulls in posts from a

site called WordPress Planet (http://planet.wordpress.org). By main-
taining 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 many interesting and useful tidbits if you keep this area intact. Quite often, we find great information about new plugins or themes, problem areas and support, troubleshooting, and new ideas, so we tend to stick with the default setting.

WordPress is all about user experience, however, so you can change the
options to specify what appears in this area. You can change the items in

this module in the same way that you change the options for the WordPress Development Blog module (see the preceding section).

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WordPress Blog

 

When you first install WordPress, by default, the WordPress Development

Blog module displays the two most recent updates from the official WordPress
Development Blog at http://wordpress.org/news. You see the title of the
last post, the date it was published, and a short excerpt of the post. Click a
title to go directly to that post on the WordPress Development Blog.

We highly recommend following the updates of the WordPress Development
Blog. Every single time you log in to your WordPress Dashboard, a glance at
this section informs you about any news, updates, or alerts from the makers
of WordPress. You can find out about any new versions of the software,
security patches, or other important news regarding the software you’re
using to power your blog.

Although we recommend that you keep the WordPress Development Blog

updates in this section, the WordPress platform lets you change this module to display posts from another blog of your choosing. You can accomplish this change by following these steps:

1. Hover your mouse over the WordPress Development Blog module
title and click the Configure link that appears to the right.

The module changes to display several options for adjusting the information contained in the module (see Figure 1-8).

2. Type your preferred RSS feed in the Enter the RSS Feed URL Here

text box.

3. Type your preferred title in the Give the Feed a Title (Optional)
text box.

4. Select a number from the How Many Items Would You Like to Display
drop-down list.

The default is 2, but you can display up to 20 by making a different selection from the drop-down list.

5. Specify whether you want to display the item’s content.

Item content refers to the text content of the post. If you don’t select the Display Item Content check box, WordPress doesn’t display an excerpt of the post — only the post title.

6. Specify whether you want to display the name of the person who
wrote the post.

Leave the Display Item Author if Available check box unchecked if you don’t want the author’s name displayed.

7. Specify whether you want to display the date.

Leave the Display Item Date check box unchecked if you don’t want the date displayed.

8. Click the Submit button to save your changes.

The Dashboard page refreshes with your new changes.

If you change your mind, click the Cancel link that appears to the right of the WordPress Development Blog title. Clicking Cancel discards any changes you made and keeps the original settings intact.

The title of the WordPress Development Blog module changes to the title
you chose in Step 3 of the preceding list. Figure 1-9 shows that we changed
the title to Lisa’s Blog, which now displays the RSS Feed from Lisa’s blog,
using the Feed URL: http://lisasabin-wilson.com/feed.

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Recent Drafts

If you’re using a brand-new WordPress blog and this is a new installation,

the Recent Drafts module displays the message There Are No Drafts at the
Moment because you haven’t written any drafts. As time goes on, however,
and you write a few posts in your blog, you may save some of those posts
as drafts — to be edited and published later. Those drafts show up in the

If you’re using a brand-new WordPress blog and this is a new installation,

the Recent Drafts module displays the message There Are No Drafts at the
Moment because you haven’t written any drafts. As time goes on, however,
and you write a few posts in your blog, you may save some of those posts
as drafts — to be edited and published later. Those drafts show up in the
Recent Drafts module.

The Recent Drafts module displays up to five drafts, showing for each the

title of the post, the date it was last saved, and a short excerpt. A View All

link also appears; click that link to go the Manage Posts page, where you can view, edit, and manage your blog posts (check out Book IV, Chapter 2 for more information). Figure 1-7 displays the Recent Drafts module, with five posts in draft status, awaiting publication.

 

 

The Recent Drafts module displays up to five drafts, showing for each the

title of the post, the date it was last saved, and a short excerpt. A View All

link also appears; click that link to go the Manage Posts page, where you can view, edit, and manage your blog posts (check out Book IV, Chapter 2 for more information). Figure 1-7 displays the Recent Drafts module, with five posts in draft status, awaiting publication.

 

 

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Plugins

 

We get into the management and use of WordPress plugins in detail in Book VII; however, for the purposes of this section, we discuss the functions of the Plugins module in the Dashboard.

The Plugins module includes three titles of WordPress plugins that are

linked to its individual plugin page within the WordPress Plugin Directory.
The Plugins module pulls information via RSS feed from the official
WordPress Plugin Directory at http://wordpress.org/extend/
plugins. This module displays a plugin from three different plugin

categories in the official WordPress Plugin Directory: Most Popular,

Newest Plugins, and Recently Updated.

The Plugins module doesn’t have an Edit link, so you can’t customize the information that it displays. Use this module to discover new plugins that can help you do some fun and exciting things with your blog.

The Plugins module does have a very exciting feature that you can use to install, activate, and manage plugins on your blog. Just follow these steps to make it happen:

1. Click the Install link next to the title of the plugin.

The Plugin Information pop-up window opens. It displays the various

bits of information about the plugin you chose, such as title, description, version, author, date last updated, and the number of times the plugin was downloaded.

2. Click the Install Now button.

This button appears at the top right of the Plugin Information window.

The Plugin Information window closes, and the Install Plugins page in your
WordPress Dashboard opens, displaying a confirmation message that the
plugin has been downloaded, unpacked, and successfully installed.

3. Specify whether to activate the plugin or proceed to the Plugins page.
Two links appear below the confirmation message:

•  Activate Plugin: Activate the plugin you just installed on your blog.

•  Return to Plugins Page: Go to the Manage Plugins page.

We cover the installation and activation of WordPress plugins in further depth in Book VII.

4. Click the Dashboard link to return to the Dashboard.

The Dashboard link appears at the top of the left menu on every page of your WordPress Dashboard.

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Incoming Links

 The module below the Recent Comments module in the Dashboard is

Incoming Links. It lists all the blog-savvy people who wrote a blog post that
links to your blog. When your blog is brand new, you won’t see any incoming
links listed in this section. Don’t despair, however; as time goes on, you’ll
see this listing of links fill up while more and more people discover you and
your inspired writings!

In the meantime, the Incoming Links module shows, “This dashboard widget
queries Google Blog Search so that when another blog links to your site it
will show up here. It has found no incoming links . . . yet. It’s okay — there is
no rush.” The phrase Google Blog Search is a link; when you click it, you go
to the Google Blog Search directory, which is a search engine for blogs only.

Follow these steps to edit the Incoming Links module:

1. Hover your mouse on the title of the Incoming Links module.

A new link labeled Configure appears directly to the right of the Incoming Links title.

2. Click the Configure link.

The Incoming Links module expands and you see settings that you can configure (see Figure 1-4).

3. Add a URL in the Enter the RSS Feed URL Here text box.

You can enter the URL of any RSS feed that you want to display incoming
links to your site. Examples of feeds you can use include such sources
as Technorati (http://technorati.com), Yahoo! Search (http://
search.yahoo.com), or Social Mention (www.socialmention.com).
You’re not restricted to using the Google Blog Search engine (http://
blogsearch.google.com) to provide your Incoming Links information.

4. Select how many items you want to display from the drop-down list.

The default is 5, but you can display up to 20 items (incoming links).

5. Check the Display Item Date box if you want each incoming link to
display the date the link was created.

If you don’t want the date display, leave that box blank.

6. Click the Submit button to save all your preferences.

Clicking Submit resets the Incoming Links module with your new settings saved.

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Recent Comments

 

The module below the Right Now module is the Recent Comments module, as shown in Figure 1-3. Within this module, you find

✦ The 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. This section also displays the author’s picture (or avatar),
if he or she has one.

✦ 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, and you go to that
post in the Admin panel.

✦ An excerpt of the comment: A short snippet of the comment left on
your blog.

✦ Comment management links: When you hover on the comment with your
mouse cursor, five links appear below the comment. 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 mod-
eration turned on. (Find out more about moderating comments in Book III,
Chapter 5). The other four links are Edit, Reply, Spam, and Trash.

 

✦ View All button: This button invites you to see all the comments on
your blog. Clicking the View All button takes you to the Edit Comments

page, where you can view, edit, moderate, or delete any comments on your blog.

 

 

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Navigating the Dashboard

✦ The number of tags: The number of tags in your blog, which changes

when you add and delete categories. Figure 1-2 shows that this blog has
one tag.

Clicking this link takes you to the Tags page, where you can add new tags and view, edit, and delete your current tags. (You can find more information about tags in Book III, Chapter 7.)

✦ The number of comments: The number of comments on your blog.
Figure 1-2 shows that this blog has two comments, two approved
comments, 0 (zero) pending comments, and 0 (zero) comments
marked as spam.

Clicking any of these four links takes you to the Edit Comments page, where you can manage the comments on your blog. We cover the management of comments in Book III, Chapter 5.

The last section of the Dashboard’s Right Now module shows the following information:

✦ Which WordPress theme you’re using: Figure 1-2 shows that the exam-
ple blog is using the theme Twenty Ten. 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.

✦ How many widgets you’ve added to your blog: The number of

WordPress widgets you’re using in your blog. Figure 1-2 shows that this
blog has two widgets. The number 2 is a link that, when clicked, takes
you to the Widgets page, where you can change your widget options by
editing them, moving them, or removing them. (Widgets are covered in
detail in Book VI, Chapter 1.)

✦ Change Theme: Clicking this button takes you to the Manage Themes
page, which lists currently active and all available themes for your
WordPress blog. Your active theme (the theme that’s visible on your
active blog) appears at the top of the page, below the Current Theme
header. All other available themes are listed below Available Themes.
Click any theme on this page to use it on your blog.

✦ The version of WordPress you’re using: The last statement in the

Right Now section. Figure 1-2 shows that this blog is using WordPress version 3.1. 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.

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Discovering the admin bar

New to WordPress 3.1 is a navigation menu,
the admin bar, which you see across the top of
Figure 1-1. The admin bar appears at the top of
every page on your site, by default, and across
the top of every page of the Dashboard if you
set it to do so in your profile settings (Chapter 3
of this minibook). The nice thing is that the
only person who can see the admin bar is you
because it displays only for the user who is
logged in. The admin bar contains shortcuts
that take you to the most frequently viewed
areas of your WordPress Dashboard. Across
the top, from left to right you find that your photo
and name display with a drop-down menu when
you hover on them. The drop-down menu pro-
vides you with quick links to three areas in
your Dashboard: Edit Your Profile, Dashboard,
and Log Out. The next link in the admin bar is

called New; hover on that and you find links to
Post and Page, which you click to go to either
the Add New Post page or the Add New Page
screen. The next link is Comments; click that
and visit the Manage Comments page in your
Dashboard. The last link is Appearance; hover
on that link and the Widgets and Menus links
appear. When you click one, you can visit
either the Widgets page or the Custom Menu
page in your Dashboard. Additionally, on the
right side of the admin bar is a search form
that you can use to search for items on your
site by using keywords.
Again, the admin bar is seen only by you at the top of your site, no matter what page you’re on, as long as you are logged in to your WordPress site.

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Right Now

The Right Now module in the Dashboard shows what’s going on in your blog right now — right this very second! Figure 1-2 shows the expanded Right Now module in a brand-spanking-new WordPress blog.

 

 

The Right Now module shows the following default information below the Content and Discussion headers:
✦ The number of posts you have: This number reflects the total number of
posts you currently have in your WordPress blog; the blog in Figure 1-2
has one post. The number is blue, which means it’s a clickable link. When
you click the link, you go to the Edit Posts page, where you can edit the
posts on your blog. We cover editing posts in Book IV, Chapter 1.

✦ The number of pages: The number of pages on your blog, which
changes when you add or delete pages. (Pages, in this context, refer
to the static pages you create in your blog.) Figure 1-2 shows that the blog has three pages.
Clicking this link takes you to the Edit Pages page, where you can view, edit, and delete your current pages. (Find the difference between
WordPress posts and pages in Book IV, Chapter 2.)
✦ The number of categories: The number of categories on your blog,
which changes when you add and delete categories. Figure 1-2 shows
that this blog has one category.
Clicking this link takes you to the Categories page, where you can view,
edit, and delete your current categories or add brand-new ones. (For
details about the management and creation of categories

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Navigating the Dashboard

The navigation menu in the WordPress Dashboard appears on the left side

of your browser window. When you need to get back to the WordPress
Dashboard, click the Dashboard link that appears at the top of the naviga-
tion menu of any of the pages within your WordPress Dashboard.

In the following sections, we cover the Dashboard page as it appears when you log in to your WordPress Dashboard for the very first time; later we show you how to configure the appearance of your Dashboard so that it best suits how you use the available modules. Also, check out the nearby “Discovering the admin bar” sidebar that covers the menu located at the top of every page in your Dashboard and site.

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Navigating the Dashboard

You can consider the Dashboard to be a control panel of sorts because it

offers several quick links and areas that provide information about your
blog, starting with the actual Dashboard page, as shown in Figure 1-1.

You can change how the WordPress Dashboard looks, at least in terms of
the order the modules appear on it. You can expand (open) and collapse
(close) the individual modules by clicking your mouse anywhere within
thegray title bar of the module. This feature is really nice because you can
use the Dashboard for just those modules that you use regularly. The con-
cept is easy: 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 needs.

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Navigating the Dashboard

1. Open your Web browser and type the WordPress login page address

(or URL) in the address box.

The login page’s address looks something like this (exchange that .com for a .org or a .net, as needed):

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.

2. Type your username in the Username 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 and e-mail address, and then click the Submit button.
WordPress resets your password and e-mails the new password to you.

3. 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. Additionally, because
this option tells the browser to remember your login, we 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 config-
ured to allow cookies. (If you aren’t sure how to do this configuration,
check the help documentation of the Internet browser you’re using.)

4. Click the Log In button.

After you log in to WordPress, the Dashboard page appears.

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Logging In to the Dashboard

The direct approach (also known as jumping in) usually works best when

you want to get familiar with a new software tool. To that end, just follow
these steps to log in to WordPress and look at the guts of the Dashboard:

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