Pages and Posts

Posted 04th Oktober, 2018

WordPress has two core types of content - pages and posts.

Generally, pages are used for constant information, such as an About page, or a Contact page. The content may change rarely, or not be tied to a specific time or date. These are the core of a website's structure.

Posts are tied to a date and time and provide updates, for example within a blog section, a news area, or for general site updates. Posts are often used to enhance social engagement. They include a comment section, can be easily shared on social media and by default are displayed in reverse chronological order.

How does WordPress store posts in the database.

All pages and posts are stored within the wp_posts table in the database. The main difference between the two in how they are saved within the database is the post_type field determining if the entry is a post or a page. Another difference we can see is that the posts are tied down with date and time while the pages are not.

Creating Posts and Pages

1. To create a post or page, first select either Posts or Pages from the left hand navigation menu.
2. Click Add New
3. Enter the content in the text area
4. Click Publish when ready

Draft posts/pages

Having your posts/pages saved as draft is very useful for when you wish to work on something that you do not want to publish immediately. So if you are writing a big article or something that you might need to work on for a long time having it saved as draft if very useful. To save a post/page as draft follow those steps:

1. Go to your wp-admin >> Posts/Pages>> Add new
2. After finishing writing on the menu on your right click on Save Draft

Visual vs text editor

Two editors can be used in Wordpress: a text editor and a visual editor. The editor can be toggled using the icon on the upper right hand corner of the text editing form.

The visual editor is an editor that compiles all of the modifications and displays the content of a post or page as it would be displayed on the live website.

The text editor shows the html tags and shortcodes used. HTML can be pasted into the editor, and then the output visualised in the visual editor view.

Scheduling posts

A very useful feature is the schedule option , this is used when you wish to plan on your posts , but write them in advance. It is often used when holiday campaigns are done. To schedule an article follow those steps:

1. Go to your wp-admin >> Posts>> Add new
2. On the menu on your right click edit on the Publish immediately option and choose the date and time you wish your article would go live.

Update your posts vie email

There are multiple of reasons for which you might not have access or maybe the ability or desire to create content the usual way, for this case you can always create your posts using posts by mail WordPress function.

To set it up follow these steps:

1. Create a POP3 email account - you can use gmail or an email account using your own domain name.
2. Make the email hard to guess, as any email send to it will result as a published post - a random string would be ideal.
3. Navigate to your Settings>>Writing options in your wp-admin and use your pop3 settings to connect your site with your email.

Please note that this function will be removed in one of the future versions of WordPress, so if you are unable to use it , you can use a plugin with the same functionality