Editing Pages
In WordPress, you can put content on your site as either a “post” or a “page”. When you’re writing a regular blog entry, you write a post. Posts, in a default setup, appear in reverse chronological order on your blog’s home page.
In contrast, pages are generally for non-chronological, hierarchical content: pages like “About” or “Contact” would be common examples. See below for examples of subpages in a hierarchy. Pages live outside of the normal blog chronology, and are often used to present timeless information about yourself or your site — information that is always relevant. You can use Pages to organize and manage the structure of your website content.
In addition to the common “About” and “Contact” pages, other examples include “Copyright”, “Disclosure”, “Legal Information”, “Reprint Permissions”, “Company Information” or “Accessibility Statement”.
In general, pages are very similar to posts in that they both have titles and content. WordPress Theme template files maintain a consistent look throughout your site. Pages, though, have several key distinctions that make them different from posts.
What Pages Are
- Pages are for content that isn’t specifically time-dependent, or which isn’t “blog content”.
- Pages can be organized into pages and subpages.
- Pages can use different Page Templates, including template files, Template Tags and other PHP code.
- More sophisticated themes may provide a wider range of adjustments or display options for individual pages.
- It’s quite possible to make a website using WordPress which only contains pages.
What Pages Are Not
- Pages are not posts, so they don’t appear in the time-structured views within a blog section of a website.
- Pages cannot be associated with Categories, but they can be assigned Tags. However, Tags on Pages are not included in lists displayed via the “tag” permalink.
- The organizational structure for Pages comes from hierarchical interrelationship, not from a system of categorization. (e.g. Tags or Categories.)
- Pages are not files. They are stored in your database, just like posts.
- Although you can put Template Tags and PHP code into a Page Template file, you cannot put these into the Page or Post content without using a WordPress Plugin. But be careful: integrating PHP code directly into page or post content may introduce a security problem, or an unexpected error on your website.
- Pages are not included in your site’s “feeds”. (e.g. RSS or Atom.)
- Pages and Posts can be interpreted differently by site visitors and by search engines. Commonly, search engines place more relevance to time-dependent site content – posts – because a newer post on a topic may be more relevant than a static page.
- A specific page (or a specific post) can be set as a static front page. Websites which are set up in this way usually have a secondary page defined on which the latest blog posts are displayed.
Pages Screen
Pages → Pages
The Pages Screen provides the facility to manage all the Pages in a blog. Via this Screen, Pages can be edited, deleted, and viewed. Filtering, and searching, also makes it easy to quickly find Pages matching certain criteria.
Several powerful features allow Pages to be edited in bulk (en masse) allowing fields such as Author, Parent, Template, Comments Allowed, Status, and Pings Allowed, to be changed for a whole batch of Pages. In addition, a Quick Edit feature provides an easy method to change a multitude of values, such as Title, Slug, Date, and Author, for a given Page.
Pages Screen
Table of Pages
A table lists all of your Pages, by row. The Pages are listed with the newest Page first.
The table of Pages contains the following columns:
- [ ] – This checkbox, when clicked (checked), ‘selects’ that particular Page to be processed by a Bulk Action.
- Title – This is the Page’s Title displayed as a link. Click the Title link to allow this Page to be edited in the Edit Page screen. Next to the Title, if a Page is of a Draft, Pending, or Password Protected nature, text will display showing that.
- “ID” – This is not a column in the Table, but by hovering the mouse over the Page Title, the Page ID is revealed as part of the URL displayed in the browser status bar (in Firefox the status bar is displayed at the bottom of the screen). A Page’s ID number is the unique number WordPress’ database uses to identify individual Pages.
- Author – Displayed in the form of a link, this is the author who wrote the Page. Clicking the author link causes all the Pages authored by that user to be displayed in the Table of Pages (thus allowing a Bulk Action to be applied to all Pages for a given author).
- comment bubble – A comment bubble is the column heading, and each Page row has comment bubble with the number of comments for that Page. If a Pages has any comments, then the number comments is displayed in a blue bubble. Clicking on a blue comment bubble causes the Comments Screen to be displayed to allow moderation of those comments.
- Date – The Date column for each Page shows the Date ‘Published’ for Published Pages and the Date ‘Last Modified’ for other Pages.
Sortable Columns
Some column headings, such as the Title, Author, and Date, can be clicked to sort the Table of Pages in ascending or descending order. Hover over the column title, for example Title, to see the up-arrow or down-arrow. Click the heading to change the sort order.
Under the Screen Options, the number of Pages displayed per page is determined. If more then one page of Pages is available, two double-arrow boxes to move to the first and last page are provided. Also two single-arrow boxes are displayed to move one page backward or forward. Finally, a box showing the current page number can be used to enter a page to directly display.
Screen Options
The Screen Options allow you to choose which columns are displayed, or not displayed, in the underlying Table. Clicking on the Screen Options tab shows a list of the columns with a check-box next to each column. Check the box for each column you want displayed in the Table, or uncheck the box to not display that column. In addition, the number of Pages per page can be set. Click the Screen Options tab again to close the Screen Options.
Search
Above the Table, to the right, is a search box where you can enter a word, or series of words, and click the “Search Pages” button to search and display all the Pages meeting your search words.
Filtering Options
At the top of this Screen are links such as All, Published, Pending Review, Draft, Private, that when clicked, will cause just the Pages of that type to be displayed in the underlying Table.
Below that, and to the right of the Bulk Actions Apply button, are one other filter option:
- Show all dates
- This dropdown allows you to select, by date, which Pages are displayed in the Table of Pages. By default, “Show all dates” is selected and all of your Posts are displayed.
- Filter
- Clicking this button applies the settings you select in the dropdowns.
Using Selection, Actions, and Apply
Selection
- This Screen allows Bulk Actions to be performed on one or more Pages selected in the Table. For Bulk Actions to be performed on multiple Pages at once, those Pages must be first selected via one of these methods:
- Select one Page at a time – To select a Page, the checkbox to the left of the Page entry must be checked (clicked). It is possible to keep selecting more Pages by checking their respective checkbox.
- Select all Pages in given Table – All Pages in a given table can be selected by checking the checkbox in the Table’s title, or footer bar. Of course, unchecking the header or footer title bar checkbox will cause all entries in that Table to be unchecked (NOT selected).
- Reverse Selection – A Reverse Selection means checked items become unchecked, and unchecked items become checked. A Reverse Selection is accomplished by holding the Shift key on the keyboard and clicking the header or footer title bar checkbox.
Actions
- Actions describe the process to be performed on particular Pages. There are two styles of Actions that will be referred to as Bulk Actions and Immediate Actions. The following describes these Actions:
- Bulk Actions – These Actions can be performed on one, or more Pages, at one time, if those Pages have been previously selected. Bulk Actions are available, when appropriate, as choices in the Bulk Actions pulldown box, above the Table. The only Bulk Actions allowed are Edit and Delete.
- Immediate Actions – Immediate Actions are performed Immediately, on an individual Page. Hovering the mouse cursor over the Page row reveals the Edit, Quick Edit, Delete, and View options under the Title column, in that Page’s row. Clicking on a Page Name will also initiate the Edit Action.
- The available Actions are described below:
- Edit – This Action can be either an “Immediate Action” or a “Bulk Action”. The Immediate Action, initiated by click on the Title or clicking on the Edit option just below the Title, causes the Edit Pages screen to display. Edit is also available as a Bulk Action for the selected Pages, so see the Bulk Edit section for details on the Bulk Editing process.
- Quick Edit – Quick Edit is an “Immediate Action” that allows a quick in-line edit of certain fields related to a Page. See the Quick Edit section for details on this Action.
- Delete – This Action deletes the Pages. Delete is available both as a Bulk Action, and an Immediate Action.
- View – This Action presents the Page as it appears in a single Page view on your blog. View is available only as an Immediate Action.
Bulk Edit
- The Bulk Edit Pages ‘screen’ is displayed below the Table Of Pages header once, one, or more, Pages have been selected, and the Bulk Action of Edit is Applied. Bulk Edit allows the fields Author, Parent, Template, Comments Allowed, Status, and Pings Allowed, to be changed for all the selected Pages.
- Cancel – Click Cancel to cancel and abort the Bulk Edit of these Pages.
- Update – Click Update to save the Bulk Edits made to these Pages.
Quick Edit
- Quick Edit is an Immediate Action performed on one Page by clicking the Quick Edit link under the Page Title in the Table of Pages. Quick Edit is just an in-line edit that allows you to change the following items–Title, Slug, Date, Author, Password or Private page box, Parent, Order, Template, Allow Comments, Allow Pings, Status.
- Cancel – Click Cancel to cancel and abort the Edit of this Page.
- Update – Click Update to save the Edits made to this Page.
Editing Individual Pages
This mode is essentially the same as the Pages Add New Screen so see that Screen for the specific details of writing a Page. The only difference is that the button to save your work is called “Update” instead of “Publish“.
Apply
- After one or more Pages are selected, and after a Bulk Action is specified, the Apply button performs the given Action on the selected Pages.
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- Apply – Click the Apply button to execute the Bulk Action, specified in the Actions pulldown, on the selected Pages. Remember, prior to executing Actions, one or more Pages must be selected, as described before.