Some bits and bobs to get you underway.
Jill, I’m bound to have missed something but, this should give you an overview. If I were you, the first thing I’d focus on is the ‘Home Page’. It’s completely out of date and the most important page on the site. I would recommend you keep its structure and content relatively simple (as is). Less is more. We talked of me adding a small ‘Duplicate’ link to the pages but, that got messy very quickly. So, the solution to make an endless stream of duplicate pages upon which to practice your craft is as follows;
- In the Admin dashboard, go to Pages (it’s on the left pane of the screen),
- At the top of the ‘Pages’ page, press the ‘Add Page’ button,
- A new page will open and your cursor will be flashing over the word ‘Add Title’ – give it a name (eg A, as it will be listed first on your list of pages,
- Click the blue ‘Edit with Elementor’ button at the top of the page,
- This will open your newly created (blank) page in Elementor. In the centre of the screen you will see four icons (+, a folder…). Select the ‘Folder’ icon,
- This will open a ‘Library’ window. On the top of this new white window, select ‘Templates’,
- You will see some templates. You want – ‘Jill’s Homepage ‘Sand Pit’. To load it…. select the pink ‘Insert’ link on the right of the panel,
- This will load your copy homepage upon which you can practice. Simply ‘Publish’ the page in the top right of the Elementor screen and you’re away,
- You can repeat this as many times as you like should you destroy the page,
- To view the page you can use the ‘eye’ icon near the publish button on Elementor or, from the ‘Pages’ menu in your WordPress Dashboard (where you started).
Follow this link for a quick view…Jill’s Sand Pit
As it stands, I’ve added the members post section at the foot of the ‘English’ page. This will allow you and anyone who you add as an ‘Author’ via the admin interface to post and edit articles. They will auto load on the articles page. Once you get one or two posted, you can manually delete the old ‘dummy’ posts via the ‘Posts’ section of admin (it’s on the left pane of the WordPress admin). I’ve not done anything with the French side – you’ll discover the delights of that (it does need work as the lady who was ‘managing’ the site has left it in a sub-optimal state)
The last thing you will certainly need to consider sooner, rather than later, is accessing HelloAsso. If you want to sell/manage tickets for events, you need to get that in place.
Yet more interesting 'stuff'
These are the elements in which you’ll be most interested (yawn). The parts that visitors are going to see.
Pages
You can, of course, make any changes you wish to the site. All pages are found in the ‘Pages’ link on the left of the admin panel. You will see again, that ALL pages need to be translated for the site to function properly. Any edits you make will need to be undertaken on their corresponding different language page too. When adding a new page, ensure you select that page’s language before ‘publishing’. This will allow you to create its twin via the ‘Pages’ section by simply clicking the ‘+’ icon next to the pages national flag.
Articles
As with the rest of the site, any articles added will need to be translated for each language. Any news or articles for the site can be added in 2 ways.
1) You can add them through the back-end by using the ‘Posts’ link on the left of the admin panel but, it may be simpler using the front page tool to do so. That being said, you will see all posts currently displayed on the site via the ‘Posts’ section in admin which is where you’ll translate. The article shown on the homepage will be the latest post. All articles are shown on the articles page.
2) Others will be able to contribute (provided you have given them an account with ‘Author’ rights) articles to the site. They will not have access to the back-end….they will use the orange ‘Post’ button on the articles section of the homepage.
Media
All media files are handled by ‘Real Media Library’. You will access this via the ‘Media’ link on the left of the admin page.
Uploaded files are stored in the ‘All Files’ folder. I would recommend you create individual folders for different events and activities on the site. This will make ongoing management a simpler task.
Gallery
To create different photo galleries, use the ‘SimpLy Gallery’ link on the left of the admin panel. To add or manage a collection of photographs, use the ‘Galleries’ section. At the moment, only the ‘Summer 2022’ gallery exists – although it has been removed from the front edit (not by me). I have set up the display of photo galleries on the website using URL links. This page uses the SimpLy Gallery Elementor block to add the gallery. This block can be placed anywhere on a page.
Your Plugins
These aren’t something you need to worry about too much, Jill. If we automate their management, you’ll receive a system email saying if any have been updated – worth having a look at the site to see all is funky, after this.
Complianz | GDPR/CCPA Cookie Consent – Cookie consent and GDPR compliance.
Contact Form 7 – Allows email contact via the website. Primary tool for visitors to reach you.
Content Control – Manages access to registered user for content posting.
Elementor – A site building framework, similar to the one you’ve seen in Wix. This will be your primary ‘tool’ for updating any webpages.
EWWW Image Optimizer – Automatically optimizes uploaded images to the site for faster/better delivery.
Frontend Admin – Enables registered users to post content on the latest news/articles section of the site (this obviates the need of giving more general access to the administrative back-end). It’s what lives behind the orange ‘Posts’ button
LoginPress – A log-in box for remote access to the admin back-end (what you see on the cantavivace.com/wp-admin page).
Polylang – A multi lingual site tool that allows for semi-automatic generation of translated pages and/or content. The sad news is you will have to use this for every page/post you write if your to have a dual language experience 🙁
Real Media Library (Free) – Uploaded media/file organiser. An essential in the longer term.
Royal Elementor Addons – Extension to ‘Elementor’.
Seraphinite Accelerator -It’s a Cache and ‘Content Delivery Network’. It speeds things up for the users. It will do it’s thing in the background without ‘help’.
SimpLy Gallery Block & Lightbox –Tool to display image galleries on the site and build different albums for separate events.
Theme Builder For Elementor – No need to touch this. It’s a skeleton theme used for site architecture.
Ultimate Addons for Elementor Lite – Used to build the footer element of the site. You will use this to change the address shown in the footer.
WP Blog Post Layouts – This controls the layout and appearance of news and latest articles posted on the site.
All plug-ins are currently manually updated to allow for roll out testing ahead of updates. I think we should automate this to reduce your admin overhead – you will be sooooo bored by it all.
Email Client
Jill, this will need to be set up on your phone and/or desktop. In fact, anywhere you wish (another of my belly laughs) to send receive emails for Cantavivace. This will ultimately be your choice.
admin@cantavivace (catch all)
Password = C@nt@tr!c3
Incoming server: imap.titan.email
Port: 993
Encryption method: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password
Outgoing server: smtp.titan.email
Port: 465
Encryption method: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password
Master these fundamentals and it’s plain sailing. You’ve got this, it’ll all be fine. Just remember not to panic…but if you must, don’t panic unduly. G
