Introduction

Welcome to our new website!

This page will attempt to quickly familiarize you with some of the changes, the new features and how to navigate the site.

Our old website was a Google Site which allowed us to show off all of our web albums using slideshows.  We wanted to offer more features to our visitors so we switched our site to a professional blogging engine called WordPress.  Now in addition to our web albums we can also post articles on the site, create custom pages, allow users to register, allow users to sign up for RSS feeds, and much more.

Posts & Pages (AKA: What’s Going On Here?!?)

Before we get to registration and navigation let’s first figure out what we are looking at.

Posts…  when you first arrive at jjwinter.com in the main area of the page you are seeing all of our latest “posts”.  These posts might be articles of interest, family news, jokes, videos…  pretty much whatever we feel like blabbing about at that particular time.  The main page will show the ten most recent posts and then older posts will get bumped out to another page.  You can find older posts using the calendar.

Pages…  pages are not “posts” (like the main page), instead they are “static” pages with specific information, for example…  all of our web albums are displayed on this site using custom pages.  Links to all of our pages can always be found in the sidebar and, depending on the current site theme, across one of the sides of the screen (usually along the top).

Site Registration & User Profiles

If you would like to register on this site please use Site Stuff > Register.

Once you are logged in you can adjust your profile using Site Stuff > Site Admin.

There are three “Site Admin” pages that every registered user can access:  The Dashboard is simply an overview of the site showing total counts for pages, posts, categories and tags.  The information “panels” that you see in the dashboard can be changed by clicking the “Screen Options” button near the top right side of the Dashboard page.  Your Profile page allows you to input information about yourself including your email and instant messaging accounts and a profile picture.  The Tools page allows you to install Google Gears in your web browser to speed up performance and offer more features to the JJWinter.com site.  When you are done with the Site Admin stuff you can click here to get back to the main page.

We are trying to locate a plugin that will allow all users to optionally sign up for email notifications.

Navigation

Getting around on a website is very important so let’s cover that quickly.

• Sidebar

The sidebar is probably the most consistent method for moving around on our website.  The sidebar contains many sections, each with different functionality.  The “Tags” section allows you to see “at a glance” what our posts are about.  Larger words indicate more posts for that topic.  If you click one of the tags the main area will only show posts related to that tag.  This is a very easy way for you to filter out what you want to see.  The “Pages” section shows all of our custom pages.  The “Links” section actually contains a few sub-sections:  the “@JJWinter.com” sub-section is a helpful area only for family members who already have @jjwinter.com email addresses, the “Facebook” sub-section contains links to everyone’s Facebook page, and the “Links” sub-section contains a few other possible sites of interest.

The sidebar may also contain a section for post archives, a calendar or other helpful “widgets” to help with site navigation.

• Additional Navigation

Some themes will also show a series of buttons or tabs across one side of the screen (usually near the top) that allow you to jump between custom pages.  This is theme controlled and may not always be available.

Themes

We can now easily change the theme of the site very easily.  Let us know what you like best!

Comments

Anyone that is logged in can now leave comments on any post or page.  Tell us what’s on your mind!

Really Simple Syndication (RSS)

RSS allows you to get updates from our site in your RSS reader or in any browser that offers “live bookmarks” (like Mozilla Firefox).

You can subscribe to our RSS feeds for either our posts or site comments.

Closing

We hope this information helps and we really hope you enjoy the new website!!!