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Site Specification Document

Jodi Richfield Photography


9 March 2011
Version 1.0
Site Specification Document for Jodi Richfield Photography | Version 1.0 | 03-09-2011


T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Overview................................................................................................................................ 3
Developer ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Site.................................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Purpose / Goals .......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Purpose ...........................................................................................................................................................................................4
Goals .................................................................................................................................................................................................4
The site will contain ..................................................................................................................................................................4
Audience .........................................................................................................................................................................................4
Technical Specifications ..........................................................................................................................................................5
Design ..............................................................................................................................................................................................5
Limiting Factors..........................................................................................................................................................................5
Competitors...................................................................................................................................................................................5
Accessibility...................................................................................................................................................................................6
Testing.............................................................................................................................................................................................6
Style Guide ............................................................................................................................. 7
Elements ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Colors .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 9
Imagery .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Planning ............................................................................................................................... 10
Information Architecture .................................................................................................................................................... 11
Wireframes................................................................................................................................................................................ 12
Homepage ................................................................................................................................................................................... 12
Bio .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 13
Using WordPress .................................................................................................................. 14
Login to WordPress ............................................................................................................................................................... 15
Blog Posts and Pages ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
Blog Posts: New Posts ............................................................................................................................................................ 17
Blog Posts: Editing/Viewing Exiting Posts ................................................................................................................... 19
Best Practices for Posting .................................................................................................................................................... 20
Visual Versus HTML Editor ................................................................................................................................................. 22
Pages ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 23
Pages: Blog Links ..................................................................................................................................................................... 24
Proof Galleries.......................................................................................................................................................................... 25
Accessing the Proof Galleries.............................................................................................................................................. 25
View List of Existing Proof Galleries................................................................................................................................ 25
Edit an Existing Proof Gallery ............................................................................................................................................ 26
Add a New Proof Gallery....................................................................................................................................................... 28
Photo Galleries ......................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Accessing the Photo Galleries............................................................................................................................................. 31
View List of Existing Galleries ............................................................................................................................................ 32
Edit an Existing Gallery ........................................................................................................................................................ 33
Adding/Uploading Images to an Existing Gallery and Creating a New Gallery .......................................... 36
Updating Plugins ..................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Backing Up Your Site ............................................................................................................................................................. 40
Back up your database.......................................................................................................................................................... 40
Back up your site files and folders.................................................................................................................................... 40

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Site Specification Document for Jodi Richfield Photography | Version 1.0 | 03-09-2011

O V E R V I E W

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Site Specification Document for Jodi Richfield Photography | Version 1.0 | 03-09-2011

Developer
Rick Garrett Design

Site
Jodi Richfield Photography

Purpose / Goals
Purpose
Redesign current site.
To increase traffic to the site in order to gain new clients.

Goals
To increase traffic by using relevant and useful content.
To increase traffic by making the site more visually appealing.
To increase sales of prints by creating a user-friendly interactive design.

The site will contain


Home page to showcase photography.
Galleries showcasing categories of photography work.
Proof page for clients to view, proof, and purchase their prints through PayPal.
A biography (bio) page.
Contact page with form.
A blog.
A pricing page.
The footer of every page will contain:
A brief intro to bio and offerings, linked to the more detailed Bio page.
Categories of photography options offered
Contact button
Purchase prints button
Shopping Cart button
Facebook button.

Audience
Age range: 25-50, mostly women
Entertainment & design professionals (actors, models, etc.)

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Technical Specifications
Domain: jodirichfieldphoto.com
Domain Registrar: xxxx
Hosting Company: xxxx
FTP and Control Panel:
Host: xxxx
Username: xxxx
Password: xxxx
Protosite/Template: constructed using XHTML/CSS
Actual Site: Protosite/template migrated into WordPress
Requirements for WordPress: PHP, MySQL (requirements met by fatcow.com)
WordPress Dashboard
Username: xxxx
Password: xxxx
WordPress Theme: Created using the protosite/template

Design
The design will be minimalist and secondary to the aesthetics of the photography.
Dark shades of gray will be used for the background to make the photos stand out.
Navigation design will be simple and intuitive to increase traffic and user experience.
The clients logo will be in the header and discreet courtesy links in the footer.

Limiting Factors
The process of purchasing prints must be simple and intuitive. The clients choice for
conducting payment is PayPal.
=> Research will be made to find the best solution for designing with PayPal.
The photo galleries must be fun and sleek without intruding on the art itself. Flash will be
avoided for SEO and accessibility reasons.
=> Research will be made to find a good alternative script.
My clients existing blog will need to be part of the site.
=> Research will be made to see if it can be incorporated in to the new site now, or if it
will be linked-to from the new site to be incorporated at a later date.

Competitors
Many competitors utilize Flash to build their sites, which looks pretty and cool, but falls short on
accessibility and SEO. I wanted my clients site to be as accessible as possible and to be as
optimized as possible for search engines, so the site was built without using Flash and the
following SEO practices were put in place:
Alt & title tags
Keywords researched & targeted
Title tag properly constructed using keywords
Header tags properly constructed using keywords
Keywords used on every page

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Accessibility
Alt & title tags on every image
Relative font sizes to allow users to resize fonts
Separating the design from the HTML markup using CSS

Testing
The site validates for XHTML transitional and CSS per W3C.
It validates against W3C Web content accessibility guidelines.
It tested compatible with the following browsers/systems:
o Safari Mac & PC
o Firefox Mac & PC
o Opera Mac & PC
o Chrome Mac & PC
o IE 6 + PC

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S T Y L E G U I D E

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Elements
Font Family:
Century Gothic, Sans-serif

Heading 1 (HTML code places h1 above main content of each page; CSS code places h1 in
the header as a result, h1 will be smaller than h2):
font-size 1.2 em
font-weight normal
letter-spacing 2px
color #999
Heading 2:
font-size 2em
font-weight normal
color #D0D0D0
letter-spacing .02 em
Heading 3:
font-size 1.4em
letter-spacing .02em
Heading 4:
font-size 1.2em

Heading 5:
font-sir5ze .97em

Paragraph:
.85em/1.5em
letter-spacing .07em
word-spacing .015em
color #999
Links:
color #A5C2D5 (main navigation color #777)
text-decoration none
Links Hover:
color #777 (main navigation color #A5C2D5)
text-decoration underline (main navigation text-decoration none)
Ordered & Unordered Lists:
list-style-type square

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Colors
Background:
#333 with textured image applied to html tag, bg-html.gif, set to repeat fixed
Image, bg-body.png, applied to body tag set to no-repeat top (for IE 6, this image is
styled out with IEstyles.css)

Colors Swatches:

#333333 #A5C2D5

#999999 #777777

#D0D0D0

Imagery
Imagery will be mostly limited to the photo galleries themselves. There will be a large
slideshow on the homepage and smaller slide shows on the gallery pages of the portfolio.
There will also be a 960x200 spotlight image on the Bio and Contact pages. There will be a
thumbnail picture of the client in the footer in the Bio column. The background will be a
gray textured, repeated image with non-intrusive graphics in the header and footer.

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P L A N N I N G

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Information Architecture

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Wireframes
Homepage


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Bio

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U S I N G W O R D P R E S S

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Login to WordPress

In order to make edits to the pages of your site, to upload photos to your galleries, add
client proof accounts, etc., open any Web browser and go to:
http://jodirichfieldphoto.com/wp-login.php

Username: xxxx
Password: xxxx

Once logged in, youll be at the WordPress Dashboard as seen below



The dashboard is the starting point for the backend of your Web site.

In the main content area, youll see a section that summarizes the number posts and pages
in your site, whether you have any posts or comments pending, and if any spam comments
have been detected. Theres also a section where you can write a post if you dont want to
go into the main post area (accessed via the left menu bar) and sections for recent drafts
and recent comments.

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On the left side of the page youll see the main menu bar. The items on this bar that youll be
most interested in are the following:

Posts
Hover over Posts and youll see options for the following:
o Posts lists all published posts
o Add New write a new post

Media
Hover over Media and youll see the following options:
o Library lists all media posted via your blog
o Add New add media

Pages
Hover over Pages and youll see the following:
o Pages lists all pages in the site
o Add New add new page

Galleries this is where you create and manage your client proof galleries (this will
be explained in more detail later in this document)

Tools has an option to backup the database that holds the data for your site (this
will be explained in more detail later in this document)

Gallery where you upload and manage photos to your portfolio galleries (this will
be explained in more detail later in this document)

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Blog Posts and Pages


Blog posts are the entries that you make on your Blog page. Pages are the actual pages of
your site like Bio, Contact, and the Blog page. The tools used to create and edit both blog
posts and pages are very similar.

Blog Posts: New Posts


There are 2 ways in which to write posts:

1. With QuickPress on the dashboard

After logging into WordPress, QuickPress is found in the upper right corner of the
dashboard as seen below.



This method of posting is good for quick text posts without photos even though
you can add media using this method, Id suggest just using it for text only and then
using the second method (discussed below) for posts with media.


















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2. From the left menu bar:

On the left menu bar, go to Posts > Add New, youll be taken to the following:



With this method of posting, youll see the following tabs just above the editing area:



These tabs allow you to switch between writing your post with HTML or writing
your post using Word-like tools.

Use whichever you feel most comfortable with; however, if you float a picture to the
left or to the right of text, and then add another picture below them, youll need to
add the below code on the HTML tab youll add the code directly below the picture
and the block of text that the picture is floated with. The code is:

<br class=clear />

Also, if your post ends with a picture, the bottom picture needs to have its float set
to none. Youll see float options when you add a photo by clicking on the image icon
described in the next paragraph.



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With both methods, adding media is done through the icons to the right of the words
UPLOAD/INSERT as seen below.



The first icon is for pictures, the second is for video, the third is for audio, and the fourth is
for other media. Hovering over the icons will display their function.

For every post you write that has pictures, you need to set the Featured image option seen
in the lower right corner of the Post editing page as seen below.


Setting this will ensure that the thumbnail to the left of your blog post excerpt on your site
will be set to the correct size. If you dont set this, WordPress will pick a photo at random
and it might not be sized or proportioned correctly. If youre post doesnt have a picture,
your post excerpt will just show text.

Blog Posts: Editing/Viewing Exiting Posts


To view all of your posts or to find a post to edit, go to the left menu bar and click Posts >
Posts. Youll be taken to a page that looks like the image below.





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Notice the Bulk Actions drop-down at the top. This menu allows you to perform actions on
checked posts such as editing or moving to the trash. You can also perform these actions by
hovering over the title of a single post notice how the blue links are showing under the
first post above.

One important thing to remember about choosing the Trash option is that this wont
permanently delete a post (same thing for pages), it will just move it to the trash can. This
is the same idea of moving a file on your desktop to the trashcan its not gone until you
empty the trashcan. For WordPress posts, you can see the Trash icon at the top of the page,
just above and to the right of the Bulk Actions menu. Click on the Trash icon to
permanently delete a post (this works exactly the same for pages).

To edit a post, just click on the blue edit link when you hover over a post title. Youll see the
same options you saw when creating a new post.

Best Practices for Posting


You can say or show the world anything you like on your WordPress site. Here are some
tips you need to know to help you write your posts in WordPress. These tips are taken from
WordPress.org.

Practice Accessibility
To be compliant with web standards for accessibility, be sure to include ALT and TITLE
descriptions on links and images to help your users, such as <a title="WordPress Codex"
href="http://codex.wordpress.org/">WordPress Codex</a>.

Use Paragraphs
No one likes to read writing that never pauses for a line break. To break your writing up
into paragraphs, use double spaces between your paragraphs. WordPress will
automatically detect these and insert <p> HTML paragraph tags into your writing. An
example is:

<p>An example of a paragraph.</p>

Using Headings
If you are writing long posts, break up the sections by using headings, small titles to
highlight a change of subject. In HTML, headings are set by the use of h1, h2, h3, h4, and so
on. By default, most WordPress Themes use the first, second, and sometimes third heading
levels within the site. You can use h4 to set your own headings. Simply type in:

<h4>Subtitle of Section</h4>

with double lines before and after and WordPress will make that title a headline in your
post. To style the heading, add it to your style.css style sheet file. For more information
on styling headings, check out Designing Headings.



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Use HTML
You don't have to use HTML when writing your posts. WordPress will automatically add it
to your site, but if you do want control over different elements like boxes, headings, and
other additional containers or elements, use HTML.

Spell Check and Proof
There are spell check Plugins available, but even those can't check for everything. Some
serious writers will write their posts in a text editor with spell check, check all the spelling
and proof it thoroughly before copying and pasting into WordPress.

Think before you post
Ranting on blogs is commonplace today, but take a moment and think about what you are
writing. Remember, once it is out there, it can be seen by many and crawled by search
engines; and taking things back is harder once it is public. Take a moment to read what
you've written before hitting the Publish button. When you are ready, share it with the
world.

Write about what you like
Youve heard this a thousand times before and it sounds too clichd, but it is true. If you
force yourself to write something that you dont really enjoy, it will show. Perhaps you
might not have a specific theme for writing when you just start, but thats ok. Youll become
more focused later. Just enjoy the experience and write what you like.

Write frequently
Write as frequently as you can, may be even more than twice a day, but dont let quantity
get in the way of quality. Your viewers come for content, dont give them useless stuff.

Dont use too much slang
Not all the readers will be from your part of the world so make sure people can understand
easily.

Don't hide your emotions
Tempting as it might be, dont hide your real emotions. After all that is what a blog is about.
If you want, you can stay anonymous and voice your feelings on whatever you are
passionate about. You might have strong views on various subjects but let your readers
know your passion. What is passion worth if you cant even share it? Youll actually love the
discussions it can lead to. The discussions will broaden your own thinking and you might
end up making some really good friends.

Consider your readers
Perhaps this sounds weird, but consider who needs to know about your blog before you tell
them about your new blogging hobby. Will you be able to write freely if you tell them? How
much should you let your readers know about you? Is it ok if your boss or girlfriend reads
your posts? If you dont want them to read, take anonymity measures accordingly.



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Make use of comments
Comments let people share their ideas. Sometimes, they might not be good, but you can ask
such people to shut up. Most of the times, they will and if they dont you can delete their
comments. Blogging like real life, can be both fun and not so fun at times. Be prepared. Also,
give your people a place to contact you in private if they want to write to you.

Worry about blog design later
Blog design matters, but only to an extent. Dont give up on blogging just because the
design isnt coming up as youll like it to be. Sooner or later, youll get around the design
problems with ease. But continue writing. Content is what attracts your readers, not just
the look of your blog.

Dont play too safe
Talk about the real you. Readers arent impressed by how big your house is, which cool
club you belong to, or what the weather is in your hometown. Dont be a bore and put a
long post on how you fixed the leaking tap in minutes. Readers dont care about braggers,
they care about the real you--how you feel, what gets you excited, why you are the person
you are. But if achievements are all that you can talk about, you will bore your readers.

Use pictures and videos
They make the pages colorful and viewers get to see a little of your part of the world. They
feel connected.

Keep writing
Dont stop blogging. If you dont have anything to write about, chances are, you are still
holding back. Let loose. Perhaps surf more blogs and maybe youll get an idea. You can
write about your friends, complain about your boss, or simply rant about whats gone
wrong. Yet if nothing else works, just write a review on the latest movie, book, or product.
Easy actually.

Save your posts
Save your posts before you press the publish button. Anything can happen with your
computer or with an internet connection. You dont need to lose your post.

Visual Versus HTML Editor


When writing your post, you have the option of using the visual or HTML mode of the
editor. The visual mode lets you see your post as is, while the HTML mode shows you the
code and replaces the WYSIWYG editor buttons with quicktags. These quicktags are
explained as follows (These tips are taken from WordPress.org):

b - <strong></strong> HTML tag for strong emphasis of text (i.e. bold).
i - <em></em> HTML tag for emphasis of text (i.e. italicize).
b-quote - <blockquote></blockquote> HTML tag to distinguish quoted or cited text.
del - <del></del> HTML tag to label text considered deleted from a post. Most
browsers display as striked through text. (Assigns datetime attribute with offset
from GMT (UTC))

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link - <a href="http://example.com"></a> HTML tag to create a hyperlink.
ins - <ins></ins> HTML tag to label text considered inserted into a post. Most
browsers display as underlined text. (Assigns datetime attribute with offset from
GMT (UTC))
ul - <ul></ul> HTML tag will insert an unordered list, or wrap the selected text in
same. An unordered list will typically be a bulleted list of items.
ol - <ol></ol> HTML tag will insert a numbered list, or wrap the selected text in
same. Each item in an ordered list are typically numbered.
li - <li></li> HTML tag will insert or make the selected text a list item. Used in
conjunction with the ul or ol tag.
code - <code></code> HTML tag for preformatted styling of text. Generally sets text
in a monospaced font, such as Courier.
more - <!--more--> WordPress tag that breaks a post into "teaser" and content
sections. Type a few paragraphs, insert this tag, then compose the rest of your post.
On your blog's home page you'll see only those first paragraphs with a hyperlink
((more...)), which when followed displays the rest of the post's content.
page - <!--nextpage--> WordPress tag similar to the more tag, except it can be used
any number of times in a post, and each insert will "break" and paginate the post at
that location. Hyperlinks to the paginated sections of the post are then generated in
combination with the wp_link_pages() or link_pages() template tag.
lookup - Opens a JavaScript dialogue box that prompts for a word to search for
through the online dictionary at answers.com. You can use this to check spelling on
individual words.
Close Tags - Closes any open HTML tags left open--but pay attention to the closing
tags. WordPress is not a mind reader (!), so make sure the tags enclose what you
want, and in the proper way.

Pages
Creating and editing pages is very similar to creating and editing posts.

To edit a page, go to the left menu bar and click Pages > Pages. When the list of pages
appears, hover over the title of a page and click the Edit link when it appears. Most of what
is described in Best Practices for Posting and Visual Versus HTML Editor in the previous
several pages can be applied to pages.

Be extremely careful when editing your pages always copy and paste the content into a
text editor to save as a back-up before you start editing.

The content of some pages is in the template files themselves, so editing that content will
take more effort and more advanced knowledge of html and php.

The content in the header and footer is also in template files and requires more effort and
skill as well.

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Pages: Blog Links


To edit the links on your blog page, go to the left menu bar and click Links > Links. When
the list of links appears, hover over the link title that you want to edit or view and then
click on the Edit link that appears.

To create a new link, go to the left menu bar and click Links > Add New. Then fill in the
necessary information.

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Proof Galleries
Accessing the Proof Galleries

In the left menu bar, youll see a link called Galleries (dont confuse this link with Gallery
or Gallery (Smooth)).

Hover over Galleries and the sub-menu will appear as seen below.

View List of Existing Proof Galleries



To view the list of existing proof galleries, go to the left menu bar and go to Galleries >
Galleries.

You will be taken to the list of existing proof galleries as seen below.




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Hover over the bolded name of a gallery to get the option to edit the gallery. In the image
above, the mouse is hovered over the bolded title Rick Garrett which has brought up the
edit option in blue.

Clicking on edit will bring up that gallerys editing options.

Edit an Existing Proof Gallery



Click edit and youll be taken to that gallerys page where you can do the following:

1. Add images (found in the middle of page)



2. Delete images (found below Import Images)

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3. Set a password for the gallery (found in right column click on edit to the right of
Visibility: Password protected.




4. Change the gallery ID (found just above Import Images)





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Once you have finished editing the gallery, click on Update in the upper right corner as
seen below.


Add a New Proof Gallery

To add a new proof gallery, go to the left menu bar and click on Galleries > Add New

You will be taken to the screen seen below.



Enter the name of the new proof gallery in the top box.


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In the right column, under Publish, click on the edit link next to Visibility: Password
protected this is where youll set the password for this gallery as seen below.



In the middle of the page, youll see a heading called Gallery Information which is where
youll change the Gallery ID to something that you can remember. An ID is automatically
generated; however, you can change it. As seen below, the Gallery ID was changed to test.

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Around the bottom of the page, youll see a heading called Import Images which is where
youll add the clients proof images.

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Photo Galleries

Accessing the Photo Galleries



In the left menu bar, youll see a link called Gallery (dont confuse this link with Galleries
or Gallery (Smooth)).

Hover over Gallery and the sub-menu will appear as seen below.

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View List of Existing Galleries



To view existing proof galleries, go to the left menu bar and go to Gallery > Manage Gallery.

You will be taken to a list of existing galleries as seen below. In this image, you can see a list
all of your galleries with the gallery ID, the gallery name, and the number of images in that
gallery. (Dont confuse this gallery list from your proof galleries as described in the last
section they are separate).

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Edit an Existing Gallery



To edit an existing gallery, click on a gallery name to go to the editing options for that
gallery as seen below.

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From this page, you can do the following:

1. Sort images

Click on the Sort gallery button



When you click the Sort gallery button, youll be taken to a view where youll be
able to move the photos to the desired location as seen below. When youre done,
click Back to gallery






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2. Delete Images, Set Watermark, Resize, Other Options

After clicking Back to gallery, youll return to the gallerys editing options page.
Above the images area of the page, youll see a drop-down list with the words Bulk
actions as the label.

Check the box to the left of the image(s) that you want to make editing changes to,
then click on the drop-down box to see the editing options as seen in the image
below.



Once youve made your editing selection, click Apply, then Save Changes.

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Adding/Uploading Images to an Existing Gallery and Creating a New Gallery



To add/upload images to an existing gallery or to create a new gallery, go back to the left
menu bar and click on Gallery > Add Gallery/Images


Youll be taken to a page where you can perform these actions as seen below.

Uploading Images:









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Add new gallery:

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Updating Plugins
Plugins are applications that are downloaded to your WordPress installation that perform
specific functions. For example, your proof galleries and your photo galleries are controlled
by plugins. You contact form is also controlled by a plugin.

At least once a week, youll discover that one or more of your plugins will need to be
updated. This is a simple process and only takes minutes.

Youll know that there are updates when you login to WordPress and see the red circle with
a number in as in the image below look to the left of the Plugins link.



The easiest way to get to the list of plugins that need updating is not to click on Plugins,
but to hover over the Dashboard link youll see the fly-out menu below with the
Updates option.

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Click on Updates and youll be taken to the screen you see below.



Check Select All under the Plugins section in the middle of the main content area. Then
click on the Update Plugins button above it all of the plugins listed will automatically
update. Youll see a message telling you that all plugins have been updated once the process
is complete. It should only take a minute or two, depending on how many updates you
have.

Occasionally, WordPress itself will need to be update. Updating WordPress is the exact
same process as updating the plugins. Just follow the same steps.

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Backing Up Your Site


This is extremely important, and you should do this once a month, or at least once every
few months. There are two parts to backing up your site: (1) backing up the database via
your WordPress dashboard, and (2) backing up the site files and folders via an FTP client
like Filezilla.

Back up your database


To back up the database, do the following:
From the left menu bar, go to Tools > Backup
In the top section called Tables, check the first item in the right column; hold down
your shift key, then check the last item in the right column all of the items should
now be checked.
Scroll down to the section called Backup options
Make sure that Download to your computer is checked
Click the Backup now! button

After clicking the button, youll see a progress bar at the top of the page showing the
progress of your download. It might take a few minutes.

Your sites database will download as a zip file wherever you have your computer set to
store downloads. Unzip and youll have a file with a .sql extension this is your database.
Create a new folder, call it bu-todaysdate, and place the .sql file inside. Then place the new
folder on your desktop.

Back up your site files and folders


Open up Filezilla, or whatever FTP client you choose to use, and sign-in.

Host: xxxx
Username: xxxx
Password: xxxx

Once youre signed in, go to the left side of the screen and drive to the new folder on your
desktop, making sure to open the window to the contents of the folder you will see the
.sql file.

Next, go to the right side of the screen where youll see the files and folders of your site on
fatcow.coms server. Select everything, right-click, and click download. The files and
folders will begin to download to your new folder on the desktop. Dont worry, the files
arent being deleted, theyre just being copied (be very careful when you right-click that
you do in fact choose download). This can take 10 or minutes to complete.

Once everything has downloaded, youre done the site is backed up. Now just zip the new
folder and store it somewhere safe (be extra safe and store it in two different drives).

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