Writing and publishing
Posts, pages and custom types all work the same way: a list, an editor, a workflow and a history.
Creating an item
- Open the type in the sidebar (e.g. Posts) and click New.
- Fill in the Title. The Slug (the last part of the web address) is made from the title if you leave it empty.
- Fill in the fields: the body text, an excerpt, a featured image chosen from the media library, and so on.
- Choose categories, tags, an author and, for pages, a parent page.
- Click Create draft. Nothing is public until it is published.
Formatting text
Rich text fields have a toolbar above them:
- Body (full toolbar): a style menu for Heading 2–5 or Normal text, then bold, italic, underline and
strikethrough, a link button, an image button that inserts a picture from the media library (upload it there first), a video button for a YouTube or Vimeo link, clear formatting, then view HTML code and full screen. There's no Heading 1: the website shows the item's title as the main heading. - Excerpt (basic toolbar): bold, italic, underline, strikethrough and clear formatting only, up to 500 characters (the count is under the box).
Links
Select some text and click the link button (or press Ctrl/⌘ + K). With nothing selected, you're also asked for the text to show. Enter a web address (https://…; example.com gets https:// added), a page on the website (/about), a section (#contact), mailto: or tel:. Tick Open in a new tab for links to other websites if you want visitors to keep your page open. To change or remove a link, put the cursor in it and click the link button again.
Full screen and HTML code
The full screen button (the four corners at the end of the toolbar) fills the window with the editor for longer pieces; click it again or press Esc to go back. The </> button shows the HTML behind the text, so you can check or tidy the markup; click it again to return to the editor. The other buttons are off while the code is showing, and it works in full screen too. Anything the editor doesn't allow (scripts, styles, other websites' embeds) is removed when you save.
Videos
Paste a YouTube or Vimeo link and choose Full width or Half width (50%). The optional CSS class lets the website style a particular video (for example video-featured); ask your developer which classes it supports. To change a video later, click Edit video on it: you can swap the link, change the width or class, or remove it. How wide a video looks on the website is up to the website's CSS (see Connecting a website).
Keyboard shortcuts work too: Ctrl/⌘ + B, I and U. Pasted text keeps only the formatting the toolbar offers. Videos play from YouTube or Vimeo, so upload them there and paste the link; YouTube videos use its privacy-enhanced mode. Images use the media library's alt text, so fill that in on the media page.
Publishing and scheduling
- Publish makes the item live straight away, if you have the publish permission.
- To schedule an item, set the Publish date in the future and then publish it. It appears on the website automatically at that time (allow up to 5 minutes for caches).
- Unpublish takes it off the website and back to draft. Archive hides it but keeps it.
The review workflow
Items move through Draft → Review → Approved → Published → Archived:
| Button | What it does | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Submit for review | Draft → Review | Anyone who can edit |
| Withdraw to draft | Review → Draft | Anyone who can edit |
| Approve / Send back to draft | Review → Approved, or back to Draft | Approvers |
| Publish / Unpublish / Archive / Restore to draft | Go live, come down, archive, bring back | Publishers |
Authors typically write and submit. Editors approve and publish. Editing something that's already approved or published needs the publish permission too.
SEO and social sharing
Each item has an SEO card for its search title, description, social image and indexing. Anything you leave empty is worked out from the content. See SEO, sitemaps and redirects.
Revisions: history, compare and restore
- Every save and every workflow step is recorded. Open an item and click Revisions.
- View shows what changed in that revision, and how it differs from the current version.
- To compare any two versions, pick a From and a To and click Compare selected.
- Restore this revision brings the old content back as a new revision, so nothing is lost. The status stays as it is.
- The newest 50 revisions of each item are kept.