Images need to be resized.  There are several ways you may do this.  If you resize the images before uploading to WordPress, this will conserve your site space.  Resize all images to 1024 x 768.

•  Irfanview is on all computers in Jefferson County Schools.

• Porta  is open source software and free.

• Picnik -   This site is great because it is free, no login, no account

Multiple Images may be added to your site using several different image plugin options:  carousel, slideshow, rotating images, and accordion.

Carousel lets you display rotating sets of images anywhere on your site with customizable content and effects.

Key Benefits of Carousel:

• Upload images or use existing Media Library images.
• Fully customizable speeds & display options.
• Horizontal & vertical modes.
• Optional navigation elements, pause on hover, & more.
• Unlimited groups of images.
• Widget support
• Shortcode support
• Automatic upgrades

Rotating Images display images in a widget area or shortcode with animated transitions or display randomized static images.

Key Benefits of Rotating Images:

• Create multiple groups of images.
• Fading & sliding animation options between images.
• Optionally link images to a URL.
• Widget & shortcode support.
• Option to randomly display a static image.
• Stylable text overlay option.

Slideshow lets you display image slideshows anywhere on your site with fully customizable animated transitions and advanced effects. Multiple groups of images may be created for use anywhere on your site. Each group can be fully customized.

Key Benefits of Slideshow:

• 50 transition special effects including random options.
• Upload images or use existing Media Library images.
• Fully customizable speeds & display options.
• Captions over images.
• Optional navigation elements, pause on hover, & more.
• Unlimited groups of images.
• Widget support
• Shortcode support
• Automatic upgrades

Accordion allows you to group items for display inside an accordion.

Key Benefits of Accordion:

• Group items together (posts, images, shortcodes) into Accordions
• Display the Accordion anywhere via shortcode or widget
• Four different themes to choose from (two horizontal and two vertical)
• Makes use of a post’s featured image to make the accordions look gorgeous
• Numerous options to adjust the accordion’s width, height, and behavior

New features now available with the latest update

1. You may crop, rotate, flip vertically or horizontally an image that has been uploaded to the media library.

2. More speed with loading pages and uploading information.

Theme 2011

Advantages

Theme format:  Select Appearance, then theme options. There are THREE OPTIONS.

1. Select from a light or dark layout. Select Appearance, then theme options

2. Page Layout – Select from no sidebar, sidebar on left or right. No sidebar is the default; so when creating a new page and you desire a sidebar if must be selected from the right hand column “Page Attributes.”

3. Hyperlink text color.

Background :

o Select a background color from the color and gives the color in hex format.

         Background image – upload from your computer

o Display option include: position (single image), repeat (tiled), attachment (allows the background to scroll with the page or you may select fixed and the background will not move but the page will scroll).

 Header

o Custom header images. You may upload several images and rotate between your selected images. This random rotation. Image must be exactly 1000 x 288 or the theme will crop your image to that size.

o Option to display text

o Select text color

Widgets

o Footer area has three areas and you may place a text widget in any of the three. NOTE: The disclaimer for links leaving our page will be displayed at the bottom of every page.

 Disadvantages

o Header size is very large not individually adjustable.

The calendar application has made WordPress sites more functional for our teachers.  Visit the Creating a Calendar for WordPress tutorial for more information on how to set up your calendar and how to manage the dates and events on the calendar.

There is a new default wordpress theme called Twenty Eleven.  There are many features that some of you will LOVE!  Features that I think that are GREAT include:

• ability to have a sidebar or not on a page ( gives more room for content if needed)
• ability to easily have rotating images in the header
• light and dark theme layout
• several page layouts to choose from (all pages do not have to have the same layout
• change the color of text in your header
• change the color of links

The plugins for images (rotating and slideshow) has also been updated and makes working with images must easier and provides a more professional appearance.

We have been making more changes to WordPress.  The themes have been updated and many have been removed and replaced with new themes that allow for more configuration and customization.  We now have the calendar page which you will love.  We have also acquired some plugins for rotating images, slide shows and a few other features you will love.  Be watching  for tutorials (coming soon) on how to use these new features.   There will be a class to show how to configure these new themes and plugins on March 1, 2011.  Sign up now!

Many teachers are having difficulty remembering how to access their WordPress website.   The address is http://web.jc-schools.net for the main site.  Following the.net, you will add a /then your user name which is last name and first initial.  Example:  http://web.jc-schools.net/coleyj.  This will take you to your page.  Now, you need to be able to access your dashboard in order to edit content.  If you page has a META on it, you may click on “login”.  If your page does not have a META, then you may access your dashboard by adding wp-admin following another/ after your username.  Example:  http://web.jc-schools.net/coleyj/wp-admin.

Two important things to remember.

1. There is no www in the url.
2. You password has to be atleast 7 characters in length.