Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
IV
There are 10 top-level menu items:
Posts
Media
Links
Pages
Comments
Appearance
Plug-ins—the new one
Users
Tools
Settings
Each top-level menu in the navigation panel expands when you click it, revealing more choices in
that area. We'll be discussing most of these settings in the coming chapters.
Moving to the middle column, the Right Now module tells you many things about your blog at a
glance. The main difference from the WordPress.com module is that it displays the version of the
WordPress software you are running (and tells you if it's time to update). You also get the Change
Theme button to simplify that process when you feel the time is right.
The next two modules report on people who have found your blog interesting enough to respond to
it. Recent Comments lets you see who's been directly responding to your posts in the recent past,
and makes it easy to reply to them on your blog. If commenters left their URL behind, you can also
go visit them. Even if you haven't posted yet, the software tests itself by allowing Mr. WordPress to
leave a comment explaining what a comment is.
Incoming Links tells you who has been quoting you elsewhere on the Web. This module uses
Google Blog Search to find links to your blog site. It might not generate a long list to begin with,
but as your sparkling, sassy prose gains buzz, this module will help document it.
The last module in the middle is a sort of news feed for plug-ins. Learn what is currently the most
popular plug-in in the WordPress Plug-in Directory, and what the directory's newest and most
recently updated plug-ins are. The Install link makes it easy to add one or more of these to your
blog.
In the right column, the QuickPress editing module is identical to WordPress.com. We described this
in Chapter 4, “Creating Your First Post.” Below the QuickPress editing module is the Recent Drafts
module, showing QuickPress items saved as drafts.
Below these two writing and editing tools are two RSS feeds offering news about WordPress. These
feeds replace the Stats module so prominent in the WordPress.com Dashboard. Stats junkies need
not panic, though. You have to install the Stats module as a plug-in before you can store it on your
Dashboard, but we cover that process later, in Chapter 13.
The first feed is the WordPress Development Blog, and it is news directly from the WordPress devel-
opment team, as you might expect. Find this blog at http://wordpress.org/development. Most
important, this feed notifies you about new updates of the core software and occasional glimpses
into what the people who work on WordPress are thinking about.
The second RSS feed is called Other WordPress News, and is an even closer look at what people in
the WordPress community are thinking. The feed comes from Planet WordPress at http://planet.
wordpress.org. It is a collection of about 30 blogs focused on WordPress by people actively involved
in developing the core software, themes, widgets, and other material related to the platform.
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