The Basics: Setting Up & Editing Your Website
Recommended for: New WashU Sites users
In this hour-long video training, you’ll learn about important settings for building your site, as well as features specific to the WashU Web Theme.
Topics include:
- Logging in and navigating the dashboard – 0:38
- Adding new users to your site – 2:10
- Pages v. Posts – 3:52
- Creating a new page – 5:31
- Understanding permalinks – 6:03
- Adding content using blocks – 8:26
- Rearranging and deleting blocks – 10:38
- Editing block settings – 12:37
- Document settings – 19:40
- Revision history – 19:50
- Setting a featured image – 20:20
- Page templates – 21:39
- Setting a parent page – 22:48
- Site Structure 101: Page hierarchies – 23:11
- How navigation menus work – 25:42
- Reordering items in the top and sidebar menus – 30:24
- Headings – 33:47
- Adding links – 36:37
- Creating layouts with columns and cards – 40:22
- Creating lists – 50:07
- Embedding video – 52:38
- Adding images – 53:49
- Adding categories to posts – 1:00:01
- Editing the footer – 1:02:14
Recommended tutorials for new users
Adding Buttons
Make a critical call to action stand out from other content on the page using a button.
Adding New Pages
Use pages for relatively static content that makes up the architecture of your site.
Editing the Footer Contact Information
Visitors to your site will expect to find contact information in the footer, which appears at the bottom of every page.
Editing the Site Name & Affiliation
Your site name appears at the top of every page and is the same on every page.
Embedding Video from YouTube, Vimeo or Box
Inserting video from other websites is as simple as clicking copy and paste.
Formatting Text
Add subheadings, body text, links, bulleted lists and more using basic formatting blocks.
Image Size Cheat Sheet
Images in the WashU Web Theme require specific dimensions to display properly.
Making a Site Visible to Search Engines
To publicly “launch” a site, change the visibility settings so search engines can find it.
Options for saving drafts, previewing and publishing content
Once a page is live, saved updates are publicly visible. Know your options for controlling the visibility of pages.
Organizing Information with Cards
Use the cards block to highlight and group related bits of information.
Reverting to a previous version of a Page or Post
View the revision history and restore an earlier version of a page or post.
Saving Images for the Web
Crop and optimize your photos before uploading to your site for crisper, faster-loading images.
Selecting Featured Images for Pages
On pages, the featured image spans the full width of the page and requires special consideration.
Troubleshooting
Something off? Check these tips when saved changes don’t show, images aren’t quite right, or extra spacing appears.
Understanding & Editing Permalinks (URLs)
By default, a page’s URL matches its title. You can edit the URL by changing the slug.
Using Blocks: An Intro to the Page Editor
Laying out pages and editing content is a snap with your site’s block editor.