Hi dreneri,
I remember using FrontPage when i very first started tinkering with websites, it was great. I want to do the best I can to give you a few pointers about WordPress, and being someone who knows FrontPage, hopefully my explanations will be somewhat relatable.
by the way, revirene.org looks great, I can see the donate button and the whole site is looking real nice.
Based on what you have said here is some info i think will be most helpful to you. Also remember the main difference between WordPress and FrontPage is that with WordPress you have to edit in the dashboard and preview or view your website by visiting the website url, as appose to FrontPage where you can preview on the SAME screen as editing.
Widgets
- ‘Enable Accessibility mode’ when on the widgets page: This feature is really great, it gets rid of the drag and drop mechanics on the widgets page and replaces it with a step by step form, now each widget has a ‘Add’ button next to it and clicking that button takes you to a uncluttered screen with fewer options. Which makes things a little easier.
To do this, when on the Widgets page, click the ‘Screen options’ button in the top right hand corner of the page, and then click ‘Enable accessibility mode’
Saving and Publishing
- The first thing i didnt get when i was using WordPress for the first time was, when i’m editing a page, why can’t i see all the colors and page elements when i’m editing and publishing text for a page. In FrontPage you could edit the website directly and see all the colors, fonts and page elements while you are editing. This is not the case for WordPress (although it does have some limited features like that), you can only edit a page in ‘text only’ mode. So lets say you are editing a page and you want to see what it looks like, you have two options, 1. Click ‘View Page’ or 2. Click ‘Preivew’, which is just above the publish button.
Changing page elements like buttons and widgets
- The next time you want to change somethiing, experiement with the feature ‘Customiser’. When in the WordPress dashboard go down to Appearance > Customise, this feature allows you to change page elements around in a visual mode, similar to FrontPage.
Adding special elements such as buttons and PayPal links
- The next time you want to add something like this, try typing into google exactly what you want, so for example: ‘How do i add a paypal donate button to my WordPress menu’ or ‘PayPal donate button WordPress plugin‘. Usually there is a plugin that makes things easy, once you have done this a few times you will see that you can generally find a free plugin to suit your needs within the first 4-5 google search results, installing a plugin is super easy.
Bandwidth Usage
This issue can be solved in a few ways, here is are two commonly used solutions:
- By using a type of WordPress plugin called a Content Distribution Network or CDN, most of your images and website files will be automatically stored on various servers besides your own, distributing the bandwidth and load on your server.
- By using a plugin like Jetpack – Photon and WP Super Cache you can quickly and easily reduce the load on your server. go into your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New and search for these plugins and then click install and your good to go!
