The control section of your website is called the “Dashboard”. This is a WordPress term. Other sites typically refer to this function as the control panel, management panel, or back end. There will be a lot of unique WordPress jargon that is going to crop up as you use your MSMOsites website, web store, or blog. It will become second nature in no time. I will explain each new term as it comes up in these notes.
Accessing The Dashboard
To access the Dashboard look for the Dashboard link just above the copyright line at the bottom of your website, web store, or blog. It should be visible on most any page of the site. Click this link to open the login screen. This will look like the image to the left.
When you subscribe to your MSMOsites website, webstore, or blog, you are provided with a Username and Password for you website. Use these to login. Your username and password are case sensitive. You need to type them exactly as provided including using upper and/or lower case letters.
If you should forget your password you can use the link immediately below the login panel and a new password will be assigned to you by email. This new password will replace the one you had previously been assigned or the one you had set for yourself.
Keep in mind that you will probably want to change any password that is provided to you to something more familiar and more secure. (See Users page)
Once you login you will find a screen with two main points of interest (see image below). These are:
1 – a vertical menu to the left, and
2 – an information/function area covering most of the page to the right.
The information/function area will change in accordance with your menu selections on the left. We’ll go over each menu item in turn, but first the contents to the right when the Dashboard first opens:
There are seven “boxed” areas in two columns. Most of these are general information boxes and will become obvious as you use the system. You won’t need to refer to much of this but it’s nice to know it’s there so you might want to take a brief look at each.
There are two you should note:
a) In the “Right Now” box there is a button to “Change Theme”. Your site theme (the look or design of the site) is pretty much fixed and tied to the function of your site so, generally, you will never use this feature.
b) The “Quick Press” box is a place where you can add quick blog entries. You may or may not choose to use this as the main blog entry function is, in my opinion, a better choice. You may do as you find works best for you.
The menu to the left is a list of functions, some of which open extended pull-down menus. You can open/close these pull-downs with the little arrow to the right of each title. Other pages of this help section cover each of these menus, and their functions, in turn.
The first item (1 in the image below) is probably already open when you first arrive. If not, click the little down-arrow to the right of the name (Dashboard) and it will open. It contains two entries: Dashboard and My Blogs.
Clicking on the first item will always bring you back to the main Dashboard page just like when you first arrived. Clicking on the second provides a list (2 in the image above) of blogs (websites) of which you are a member. Initially this will be usually be one site. If you subscribe to more than one MSMOsites website, web store, or blog, you will see each listed here. If you become a user on someone elses blog site you will also see that site listed here.
MSMOsites is a multi-website community. Many of our sites are built on the WordPress blog engine and tie together in this fashion. Each of your sites shown on this page will have Visit | Dashboard links. Clicking on Visit will take you to the home page of the website. Clicking Dashboard will take you to the Dashboard for that site. Your access to the Dashboard features on each site will be determined by your User level as set by the administrator of that site.
You can return to your website from the Dashboard at any time by clicking the Visit Site link (3 in the image above). The New Post button (4) allows you to quickly go to the Add New Post page. It also contains a pull-down menu of often used functions.
To the right of the new posts button (5) is your user name, linked to your user profile, a Turbo link which takes you to the Tools page, and a Log Out which logs you out and takes you back to the login box.
Click Here for a short (about 5 minutes) video that might help put this all in context. You’ll need a Macromedia Shock Wave Flash player plugin for your browser (most people already have this) to see this video.
