As it says on our About page, this website is built using the WordPress web software. While the Content Management System that comes with that software will be familiar to anyone with a WordPress account, it might take a little getting used to for those who don't. That is why we decided to provide a small introduction to our website's CMS.
Logging in
In most cases, when you visit the website, and you have told your browser to remember your password, you will be logged into the website automatically. You will know that you are logged in if you can see a vertical bar at the top of the page with the WordPress logo on the lefthand side, and the text 'Howdy, [your username]' at the righthand side. If you are not yet logged in, you'll notice that the website's menu bar is limited to the options 'Welcome', 'More Info', and 'Log in', rather than giving you more options such as 'General Remarks', 'The Tags', etc. To log in, you can either click on the 'Log in' button in the menu bar, or on the link you'll find in the sidebar of our homepage. These links will direct you to a place where you can fill in your username and password, that will give you full access to the website.
The Dashboard (WordPress CMS)
Once you are logged in, you will have access to the 'Dashboard', which is what WordPress calls its Content Management System. You can visit the dashboard either by clicking on the Log In button in the website's menu bar, or by clicking on the button with these 'dashboard' icon that you will see on the top left of the screen:
To navigate out of the dashboard again, just click on the same button with a 'home' icon:
Profile
In the dashboard, you can edit your profile settings, like change your user name, password, etc. To do so, you just click on the 'Profile' button on the left hand side of the screen:
To change your user name, scroll down a little to the 'Name' field, and fill in your 'First Name', 'Last Name', and/or 'Nickname'. Once you filled those in, you can pick any of those names as your 'public' username in the drop-down menu below (called 'Display name publicly as'). This will of course change your username anywhere it is displayed on the website. (But you can always change it back).
Below the 'Name' field, you will find a field where you can change your e-mail address; and at the bottom of the page you will find a field where you can change your password.
Sadly, you will not be able to choose your own profile picture in the Profile Settings. Instead, you will be assigned a random profile picture through WordPress. If you want to change your profile picture, you will have to create an account on WordPress.com or on Gravatar.org, with the e-mail address that you use for this website (!). Once you have set up an account there, and chosen a profile to go along with it, the same profile picture will also be displayed behind your name on this website.
Media
As a contributor, you will also be allowed to upload images, to use in the Forum for example. In the dashboard, this will give you acces to the website's media library by clicking on the 'Media' button on the left hand side of the screen:
This library holds all of the images that are used on the website. Although you can use this menu to upload new images, you won't really have to, because you will also be able to do so in the forum itself. Still, this is a useful part of the dashboard, because it is the place where you can delete images that you uploaded by accident. Just be careful when you do so: when you delete an image, it will disappear from the website completely, in all of the places where it may have been used.