New User Training Outline

Updated February 2024

This page covers a basic training outline to help you get started with your BirdPress website. More in-depth documentation can be found across pages and posts on this website. Every site is different and will have some more specific requirements that we can cover in training. Be sure to look over the Get Started page before you begin editing your website. If you haven’t done so, you should also explore the Quick Start Guide on the Lab’s Brand Guidelines website.

The Advancement Tech Team will get you started with the initial set up of your website.

Customize Your BirdPress Site

Change some main elements of your theme like site identity, color scheme and what appears in the header and footer.

Access Customize Options

• From dashboard left-side navigation bar, click Appearance > Customize
• From the logged-in Site Title dropdown menu > click Customize 

Available options

Site Identity

• Set the site title

Theme Settings

• Choose from one of theme colors
• Pick global page width
• Show Related Articles on Posts only
• Show date on Posts only

Header & Navigation

Header Layout

• Choose the header layout – columns (preferred) or stacked (for larger navigations)
• Toggle the search icon
• Add a site name if there is not a logo lock-up

Logos

• The primary Cornell Lab logo is on the site by default and does not need to be added here
• The logo can be replaced if a lock-up is available – this task will be performed by the Advancement Tech Team since it requires an SVG file
• The Lab logo can be disabled in the header (but not the footer)
• Note: The Advancement Tech Team will set up your logos

Footer

• LIMITED USE ONLY: You can toggle off the Cornell University logo (example: https://birdcount.org scroll to footer and see that Wild Bird unlimited added as a widget)
• Add social media links
• Add a donate button
• Custom copyright text to be changed by the Advancement Tech Team only

Blog Layout

• Change the default display for blog, category and archive pages (does not affect article list layouts)

Sharing & Comments

• Toggle social sharing options on pages and posts.
• Allow comments on posts

Menus

• Create and edit menus

Menus and Navigation

BirdPress starter sites come with some menus already set up and activated.

Access Menu Admin

• From the logged-in Site Title dropdown menu > click Menus 
• From dashboard left-side navigation bar, click Appearance > Menus

Select a Menu

Once in menus, “Select a menu to edit:”, choose from the dropdown and click the “select button” to bring that menu up and edit it.

Create New Menu

Once in menus, click “create a new menu”, give it a name “Menu Name” and click the blue “Create Menu” button

• You can pull in pages, posts, categories, and custom links into the Menu 
• Structure and drag the items around to the order you would like for the display.

Main Menus

Primary Navigation

• Required main site navigation

Tinybar Navigation

• Optional smaller navigation with optional button

Footer Navigation

• Optional site map

Contact Navigation

• Extra links above the accessibility navigation in the footer

Page & Post Menus

Sub/Secondary Navigation

The subnav is pulled in to display at the top of Pages/Posts. It gives a way to tie a group of pages/posts together and let users jump around between that group.

Anchor/Tertiary Navigation

The Anchor Nav offers a nice way to set up a vertical sticky menu on the upper right side of a Page/Post that anchor hot links to key headers/pieces of content on that page.

Pages and Posts

Make sure, with the existing Page/Posts in your starter site, that when you edit your Page/Post titles, you edit/set your permalinks to match (the permalink is the URL of the page after the domain).

There are no hard fast rules on when to use Pages and when to use Posts. 

• Pages are typically used for evergreen content such as “About” or the items that show on your navigation. 
• Posts are usually used for article type content
  • where a date might matter
  • and if you want to assign it to one or more categories
  • can be used to list staff and students

Pages

Right Sidebar

Summary panel

• Visibility: most pages will be public unless you want it under a password protection or available only to site editors
• Publish: edit the publish date
• Template – there are three templates available – default, article list and full page layout (special use case)
• URL: edit the page permalink

Featured image Panel

• Featured images won’t be displayed in page/post content when set, but they will be the representative thumbnail image used in ANY article list that contains the page/post
• See Images for size and ratio recommendations

Excerpt panel

• Add an excerpt to the page that will show up on article lists where applicable

Page attributes panel

• Set the parent page for a hierarchy of pages

Custom Fields

• Set the hero image & choose options
• Set an external page URL for the post
• Override some global settings (hide from search engines, page width, hide global CTA)
• Add sub and anchor navigation menus as explained under the Menus header
• Set next and previous page linear navigation

Main Content Area

Click right into the content to edit titles, add/paste in paragraph text, and add blocks. 

• Hit “return/enter” in the content, where you want a block, a  +  will appear, hover it and click the  +  to bring up a quick edit block palette. The palette lets you search for blocks and see the last blocks used. Add the block you want.
  • Click the palette’s bottom “Browse All” button to open all the blocks (reusable and patterns)
  • When you have a block selected and the “Block” tab in the right sidebar is activated, you can see all options for that block
• If you have content that will be the same on multiple pages, you can create a Synced Pattern that can be edited from one location.
• To change a block type for existing content (for example, from paragraph to heading) click on the block’s icon in the block toolbar and select the new block.

Posts

Posts are very similar to Pages but they have a couple of options that pages don’t.

Post Specific Functionality 

• Assign a Post to one or more categories.
  • Once checked with one or multiple categories, you can pull that Post into an appropriate article list block, onto an Article list page, or into a “More to read” section.

• Set up a Post that links off/out to another site
  • With the right sidebar BirdPress Custom Settings Pencil icon selected, scroll down to the “Post Options” and 
  • Fill in the “External Link” field for a Post. The Post’s header (title), excerpt, and featured image will get displayed in an article list block, on an Article List template page, in the “More to Read” section, or in a blog display.

Working with Images

Images should be optimized for web. We have added a Smush image management plugin to BirdPress that will help compress images, reduce file sizes, and speed up the site’s load time. 

It is important for Content Managers to get familiar with which images work best for the new theme.

Also, remember, for accessibility, image alt tags should be different from captions. 

• Think of using alt tags as a way to quickly and concisely convey meaning to an image for non sighted/visually impaired users. Give them a bit of the details everyone is getting and they are missing.
• Most teams use captions to add photo credits or to create context around the image for everyone. Do not add photo credits to alt tags.

For more helpful tips on images, see our Images page.