A Place For Stephen

Generic Changes – these will work with ANY WordPress template.

From the WordPress ADMIN section:

• Options / General – change your TIMEZONE
  
• Options / Writing – change the “Size of the post box” to 15 or 20 lines
  
• Options / Permalinks – select “Date and name based” option
  
• Options / Discussions – check “An administrator must always approve the comment” box
  
• Options / Reading – select the number of posts (default = 10) to show on home page, and in syndicated (RSS) feeds = 50+ for busy site, or default = 10 for slow site
  
• Manage / Posts – delete/change the “Hello World” post
  
• Manage / Blogroll – delete the default links and add your own
  
• Manage / Pages – update the About page
  
• Presentation / Header Image and Colour – change the background and text colors used in the header of your site.

When writing posts get into these habits right from the start:

• remember to select a CATEGORY for the post
  
• if necessary, change the POST SLUG to something shorter
  
• add a “keyword enhanced” OPTIONAL EXCERPT for the post
  
• split long posts with the <!--nextpage--> tag

Decide whether you wish to use the <!–more–-> tag in your posts, or CHANGE the template and post an OPTIONAL EXCERPT. This decision will affect what people see on the home, archive and category pages.

Theme Specific Changes - you may need to change these options in EACH template you decide to install.

Again, from ADMIN, select Presentation then Template Editor. The template files listed on the right hand side can be edited from here.

• In the main index.php template, look for
  <?php the_content('Read the rest of this entry »'); ?>

  OPTIONAL - You can change the 'more' message above - the bit between the 'single quotes' - and that will display the text in the post down to the <!–more–-> tag and then display your "more" link (if you use it)

  OR

• In the main index.php template, change the above line to
  <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
  to show either the OPTIONAL EXCERPT field data with the post, or just the first 55 words instead. If you use this option, there may ALSO be other template pages where the change should be made.

• in the SIDEBAR.php file, remove the XHTML, XFN and WordPress links.
  

Hints to Date:

1. When you are looking around at other WordPress sites... if you like the theme used, check the VIEW/SOURCE of the page - right up near the top there will be a link which identifies the local path to the theme directory style sheet. Then do a Google search to track down where the theme's home page might be. You might also find out some of the plug-ins that are installed by looking at the source code.

2. “Play” with the Optional Excerpt field to include an introduction/ RSS description that might be a little more keyword relevant and/or customer enticing than the introductory 55 words of your post.

Update 1st June...

Forgot to do this until now, but here's the screenshot I just took which shows the home page with only the changes I've made to date... and BEFORE I installed any plug-ins.

Doesn't look too bad at all, at all..

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