A concise user manual for posting on this site.

1. Log in

Go to https://drh.voice4thought.org
From the Account dropdown, select ‘Log in/Log out’
 
Log in with your username and password (you may change your password later).

2. The WordPress Backend

After logging in you will notice three shortcut buttons: Dashboard, My Posts, and Create a new post. Dashboard and Create a new post can also be reached through the black menu bar at the top.
In WordPress, the Dashboard is the backend of your site. For DRH, we use the dashboard mostly to access our posts. While on the Dashboard page, you will find some shortcuts in the vertical menu bar on the left:
  • Posts (All Posts) – an overview of everything you posted, including links for editing existing posts
  • Posts / Add New – the form that you will use to create a new post
  • Media – an overview of all the images, mp3s and other media files that you created
  • Media / Add New – a form for uploading media files
  • Profile – to change your password, name, etc.
There is already a post created under your name. Within the DRH website, this post will be your Portfolio with an overview of everything you have posted. An overview of all student portfolions can be found on the course page, for example this one.

3. Creating a new post

You can create a new post using the ‘Add new’ link from the vertical menu in the Dashboard (or the plus sign in the menu at the top).
 
Each post should at least have a title, a category, a featured image and text or other content.
 
Add a title (top), category (for example, if you’re in the ‘Researching Africa in the 21st Century (2023-2024)’ class, you are only able to post into that category), post content, and a featured image (right column).
 
The content of your post should be placed in the large white box directly below the ‘Add media’ button. If you copy content from Word or another website then all design (font etc.) will also be copied. If you do not want this, you can switch from Visual to Text mode. In Text mode, any code, design elements, etc. will not be copied. In Visual mode, you can easily add your own styling such as bold or italic text, add links, etc.
 
Photos and other multimedia can be added with ‘Add media’.
The ideal size of an image is up to 1200 pixels (width or height).
 
The best way to add videos on the site is via a Youtube link.
 
Copy/paste the link into your post and it will be embedded automatically.

4. Featured image

Under ‘Featured image’ you can upload an image, which will be used on overview pages where your post is shown. The featured image is important, because otherwise your post will be displayed with a title only on the course pages and on the homepage.

5. Creating hyperlinks

In the text you can link to other pages. Just copy the URL you want to use, select the text to be clickable and click the ‘insert link’ icon in the toolbar above the text screen. Images can also be made clickable in this way.

6. Draft or Publish

Save as draft makes sure that your changes are saved, but only visible to you. If you publish (the ‘Publish’ button), the post is visible and will also appear in the overview on your Portfolio page.

7. Preview

After saving your post, you can visit it by opening its URL, which you will find under ‘Permalink’ (just below the post title).
If you would like to preview changes that you are working on without publishing them, click the ‘Preview changes’ button (right side of the page just above the Update/Publish button). If you make any additional changes, you have to click Preview changes again to see the results.

8. Creating a series

You can now create a series of posts and link them together. For example, an article with an introduction page and table of contents, from which you link to your other posts. And on each post you could then link back to the ‘front page’.  Example of an earlier student project: