WordPress Publishing News and Tutorials

How to Create an Inbox for WordPress Authors

Written on October 12, 2021.

This week, we talked with a PublishPress customer who has a busy site with many posts from different authors. They wanted to create an “inbox” effect, where the WordPress “Posts” screen is like a personal email inbox for each author.

In the image below, you can see posts from multiple different authors. This can be confusing for users. Our customer wanted to avoid that situation. They wanted to create an inbox where your authors can only see their own posts.

How to Hide WordPress Metaboxes in the Post Editor

Written on September 1, 2021.

A WordPress website always starts by looking very clean. But after you choose a theme and install a lot of plugins, the user interface quickly becomes very crowded.

In other guides, we've shown you how to hide WordPress admin menus, hide the admin toolbar, and hide dashboard widgets. In this tutorial, we'll explain how to hide the “metaboxes” that appear below your WordPress posts and in the sidebar, when you're editing a post.

In the image below, you can see some typical metaboxes from Yoast SEO, the PublishPress plugin, TaxoPress, and others.

What Do WordPress Users See in the Admin Toolbar?

Written on March 23, 2021.

WordPress sites display an admin toolbar for all logged-in users. This is visible on the frontend of your site and also in the WordPress admin area.

This toolbar contains shortcuts to key features in WordPress. A user in the Subscriber role will only see a few features. A user in the Administrator role may see a very busy toolbar, particularly on a site with many plugins.

In this blog post, we'll give you an introduction to what users in different roles may see in the admin toolbar. If you want to hide the admin toolbar for users, follow this guide.

How to Hide WordPress Dashboard Widgets

Written on March 20, 2021.

When you log in to a WordPress site, you will see boxes full of information. These are called “Dashboard Widgets”.

You will probably see a “Welcome to WordPress!” widget with lots of useful links.

There's also “Quick Draft” widget so you start a draft blog post with some test ideas.

There's an “At a Glance” widget so you can quickly see key statistics for your site.

User Capabilities Are Different on Multisite Networks

Written on February 25, 2021.

WordPress allows you to build multisite networks. This is an awesome feature and enables you to manage many sites from a single WordPress installation.

However, some WordPress features do work differently on a multisite network. If you normally manage a single site, you may have to adjust your thinking. One of these features is permissions.

In this guide, I'll show what to look out for when you're managing users on a multisite network. Click here to see how to modify user permissions on multisite.

Automatically Create Tags for Users in WordPress Roles

Written on February 15, 2021.

We had an interesting question from a PublishPress user this week:

“Is there any way to automatically add a specific tag if the user is in a certain role?“

For example, Authors will always get “Tag A” added and Editors will always get “Tag B” added. Yes, this is possible with a little code.

Once this is done, you can use the Tags to organize the content or to trigger other functionality. For example, you can use PublishPress notifications to send an email for any post that has the Tag you choose.

How to Use the Last Modified Date for WordPress Posts

Written on February 4, 2021.

The Last Modified Date is a useful WordPress feature that shows when content was last changed.

This can be helpful if you want people to know when the post was updated. I've seen this used for news articles, documentation, and even legal and technical information. It can also be helpful if you use a content schedule to plan your WordPress content.

The Last Modified Date does not appear by default on most WordPress sites. You won't see it in the WordPress admin area, or on the frontend.

I'm going to show you how to enable this feature on your site.

What are Private Posts and Pages in WordPress?

Written on February 3, 2021.

“Private” is one of eight post statuses available in WordPress. These statuses control whether WordPress posts are visible to the entire world, waiting for moderation, or sent to the trash to await deletion.

When you write in WordPress, you will most commonly see the Draft, Pending Review and Publish statuses.

The Private status is used less frequently, but it can be useful in some situations. Private posts are for content that you only want high-level users to see. These posts are most useful for internal communication and documentation. I would not recommend storing top-secret information in these posts, but rather want to hide content from regular users.

What is the Excerpt for WordPress Posts?

Written on February 1, 2021.

Many WordPress themes rely on Excerpts, but they can be a mystery to many users.

In this post, I'll explain what an Excerpt is, how you create them, where they appear, and how you can get more control over how they're used on your site.

WordPress is Part of the Renaissance in Local News

Written on January 8, 2021.

This entry is part 6 of 9 in the series WordPress Publishers

We all know that local newspapers are in trouble. At least 25% of US papers have closed in the last 15 years. But there are also positive signs: if you look carefully, we're seeing many fresh, independent media projects.

These new projects are innovative, diverse, making money and overwhelmingly using WordPress. That last point really hit home when I was reading this article in the Los Angeles Times. All the newsrooms in the article are using WordPress. And so are all the organizations helping them grow.

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