Feedback

Please provide feedback on your experience with your personal Faculty site at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

3 Replies to “Feedback”

  1. Hello,

    Intro:

    I’ve included the entire set of BETA users on this email in case you want to all discuss this via. email, just “reply-all”. There is also a discussion board called “Feedback” on the main https://faculty.mnsu.edu/feedback/ page that I’d encourage you to use for discussion of this new service.

    You’ve all had your user account and templated site created at this point. For all of you your site name is:

    https://faculty.mnsu.edu/yourname/ (where yourname) is YOUR name.

    The administrative interface for your WP site is:

    https://faculty.mnsu.edu/yourname/wp-admin

    Admin Area / Dashboard:

    Once you are signed into the administrative interface with your “Campus” username and password you’ll be presented with a “Dashboard”. You’ll want to select your site. To do that select “My Sites” from the left-navigation bar or the top bar. From the “My Sites” page you can then select “Dashboard” under the heading that matches your name.

    Once in the “Dashboard” for your named site there are a myriad of options. The two that I’ll cover here are “Widgets” and “Pages”.

    Shorthand:

    Before I move on, let me introduce a shorthand notation that I’ll be using below. Instead of saying:

    Go to the “Dashboard”
    Click on the “Appearance” menu
    then click on the “Widgets” menu
    then select “Main Sidebar”.

    I’ll use the notation Appearance -> Widgets -> Main Sidebar.

    Widgets:

    Let’s get started with Widgets. Widgets are the “boxes” on the right and bottom of each page. These are titled:

    Announcements
    Upcoming Events
    Education:
    Office Location:
    Office Hours:

    You will want to customize these with your information. Find the “Widgets” console at:
    Appearance -> Widgets -> Main Sidebar

    Once at the “Widgets” page find the “Main Sidebar” and click on it until it is expanded and you see: “My Calendar”, “Announcements”, and “Upcoming Events”.

    Click on Announcements. This will open the edit window.
    Click Visual (to turn on visual editing)
    Add content by typing your specific information to the widget.
    Click Save
    Click Close

    You can continue these steps for each of the widgets for the Main Sidebar and the three Footer Area widget containers.

    Pages:

    The pages console is where you define how your site is put together. The title, content, menu order, etc. are created with these tools. The example, below, will require a photo of yourself placed on the desktop of your computer (or some place you can find it later.) This image should be less than 1 megabyte in size.

    Example: Adding a photo of yourself and a short introduction.

    Find Pages at “Pages”.
    Mouse over the page that contains your name. A popup menu will appear.
    Choose Edit. The “Edit Page” will options will be shown.
    Click “Add Media”. An “Insert Media” page will be created.
    Click “Select Files”. A file browser will be created.
    Find the photo of yourself with the file browser and click on it, then press Open.
    Click the “Insert into page” button. This should have inserted a photo into your editing window.
    Now type a short into. that will introduce yourself to others when they find your site.
    Click the “Update” button to save.

    You should do these same steps for each of the pages in your site. You do not need to add an image to each page, that that would be an option if you wish.

    Viewing your site, finding the Dashboard

    At any point you can visit your site by going to the top bar and hovering over your name. Then clicking on “Visit Site”.

    If you want to get back to the Dashboard, hover over your name on the top bar and click “Dashboard”.

    There you go. Your 10-minute intro to WordPress.

    If you have any questions, let me hear em. I’ll be happy to help.


    Jeffrey Hundstad
    jeffrey.hundstad@mnsu.edu

  2. Jeff,
    When I’ve tried to insert an image into the textbox for “Don Larsson” on my homepage, I can’t get the text to wrap around the image properly. I’d like it to look something like the homepage for “Professor Einstein” on your sample (but not so inspiring, I’m afraid!). Also, I added a “Links/Resources” category to the menu ribbon at the top, just below the header, but I’d like to appear last, to the right of “Course Information.” Any advice?

  3. June 22–I had partial success with wrapping the image on the “Don Larsson” Home page, but it is still quirky. I can’t get the caption to show on only one line, for instance.

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