Creating a Post

This section will quickly go over the basics of post creation before diving into how to set your post up with a working “outline” and “figures” section that will allow website visitors to easily jump to important content within your post.

1) Follow the standard procedure for setting up a post

To start, set up your post formatting as you normally would with headings, images, etc. Feel free to “publish” your post and check that it looks the way you want it to.

What the post looks like on the front end once published: all content in place except outline/figures.

Now, all the content of your post should be in place. The only thing missing is the “outline” and “figure” links in the left column that will let readers of your post skim your content and jump to relevant information.

2) Pick out the headings and images that belong in your Outline/Figures column

Take a second to pick out which headings and figures you believe should belong in your Outline and Figures column.

Unsure about what to put in your outline and figures column? Take a look at Countering Racial Enthymemes: What We Can Learn About Race from Donald J. Trump – constellations: (constell8cr.com) for reference.

For our example post, I have picked out the following headings for the outline:

1) Introduction

2) About the Author

3) Works Cited

I have also picked out the following image for the figures:

William charging us for goods at the general store.

3) In the HTML tag, add a unique ID to each of the headings you picked out. 

For example, with my article the heading “About The Author” presently looks like:

<h3> About the Author </h3>

Now, after adding an ID that reflects the heading it looks like:

<h3 id = “about_the_author”> About the Author </h3>

A visualization of what this would look like in WP Editor: 

4) Add a unique ID to each of the figures you picked out. 

For figures, the same logic follows. Find the HTML line that displays your image, for example:

<img class=”wp-image-2049 size-large” src=”https://constell8cr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/William-charging-us-for-goods-at-the-General-Store-1200×675.jpg” alt=”William can be seen behind a vintage cash register standing in front of shelves of canned goods and boxes. ” width=”1080″ height=”608″ />

Then, add an ID to your tag. 

<img id = “figure1” class=”wp-image-2049 size-large” src=”https://constell8cr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/William-charging-us-for-goods-at-the-General-Store-1200×675.jpg” alt=”William can be seen behind a vintage cash register standing in front of shelves of canned goods and boxes. ” width=”1080″ height=”608″ />

A visualization of what this would look like in WP Editor:

5) Put your relevant headings and figure into HTML list format

This part is a bit tricky, so I am going to break it down into a couple of parts. 

First, take a look at the main parts of the items in the left column of a post:

We want to write out the HTML to have the Outlines and Figures reflect items in the image above. 

Let’s start with the outline, which is composed of: 1) an unordered list, 2) a reference links to the corresponding heading in the post.

We will do this by using <ul> and <a href = #id_name>.

<ul>
<li><a href = “#introduction”> Introduction </a></li>
<li><a href = “#abouttheauthor”> About the Author</a></li>
<li><a href = “#workscited”> Production Credits </a></li>
</ul>

Next, let’s write the HTML for our figures, which are composed of: 1) an unordered list, 2) an image below each list item , 3) reference link to the corresponding heading in the post attached to the text and image. 

We will do this by using <ul>, <a href = #id_name>, and < <img src= “link_of_image”>

<ul>
<li><a href = “#figure1”> Figure 1 </a> </li>
<a href = “#figure1″><img src=”https://constell8cr.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/William-charging-us-for-goods-at-the-General-Store-1200×675.jpg”> </a>
</ul>

6) Create a custom field for your Outline and Figures

This step is what will get your headings and figures to show up on your actual post, by putting the HTML you just wrote into the column. 

On the “Edit Post” page of your post, find the “Custom Fields” section. If you do not see “Custom Fields”, turn it on via “Screen Options” at the top of the page. 

If Custom Fields (shown in the left image) is not visible, it can be turned on by going to the top of your screen and selecting it from “Screen Options”

7) Add the “Outline” and “Figures” Custom field to your post 

For the outline: Select the name “outline” , and paste your HTML into “value”, then click ” add.

Then, do the same thing for figures by selecting the name “figures” and pasting your HTML into “value”, then click add. 

What the Figure custom field looks like.

8) Changing The Publisher To the Author of the Articles

This has two parts, Check if the Author already exists before making a new one.

First, take a look at the guest author list.

On the dashboard, go down until you find “Users”.

Hover over it until the user list pops up and you see “Guest Authors”.

Click into guest authors.

Once here, check if your author is in the system.

If they are there, you are done and can go to the post you want to publish.

If not, then you need to make a new author to use for the post you wish to publish.

To make a new author, click “Add New” at the top left corner, and fill out the details.

When you get to the email, make it the constellations email: constell8cr@gmail.com​

When Filling out the information, all you need to put in is the Display name, First Name, Last Name, and Email.

The Display name should just be the first and last name together.

When you have finished adding in the fields, go to the right side under the Save category and click “Add New Guest Author”. and once it is done, you can now go change the author on your post.

Changing The Author On your Posts

Once the author has been added, look for the “Authors” section and find the search bar for other authors.

Search your new authors you just made, and add them to the author list.

Once you have added the authors you want, remove any one you do not want by clicking the “remove” button to the right of their name.

You are now ready to publish your post!

9) And you’re done! View your post and double check that your links are working

If you notice any of your links are broken, double check that your IDs and hrefs match up.

If you are still struggling, feel free to reach out to TheCube for assistance.

Releasing a new issue

This section is intended to act as a guide for updating the homepage, issue page, and issue index whenever a new constellations issue is released.

1) Go to the page you need to update and “Enable Visual Builder”

For a new issue release, you will need to update the Home and Issues page – the steps to follow will be exactly the same.

2) Hover over the latest issue and “Duplicate Row” 

This will do most of the work for you by creating a copy of the modules already displayed for the latest issue. All you need to do is switch the content to reflect your new issue.

3) Update the issue number using the text box’s “module settings” 

A simple backspace, plus the new issue number is all that is required here.

4) Go to the post’s “module settings” and update which issue is being displayed

Scroll down to the checkboxes for the post category being displayed, and select your new issue’s category (if the category does not yet exist, create a category for it and make sure all posts of your issues are in the right category). 

5) Open the “edit module” for the Issue index in the left column, and add a link to your issue category. 

If you are unsure of what your issue category is, you can click on “Categories” in WordPress to check.

6) Return to the WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Divi>Theme Builder 

The theme builder is where the template for all archive and post pages exist. As well as templates for the custom footer on the website.  

7) Click on the edit button for the custom body of “All Archive Pages”

This will bring you to the template that formats the current issue archive pages for all existing issues.

8) Open the “edit module” for the Issue index in the left column, and add a link to your issue category. 

Adding key phrases for search engines

This section will walk through how to add key phrases to different posts and pages on constellations (note, this will involve the Yoast plugin – if you are unable to locate the items for these steps, check to make sure Yoast is activated). 

1) Go to the post or page you would like to optimize the SEO for

Search engines interact with the different posts and pages on constellations by crawling through the content of each webpage for relevant information – one way to optimize the searchability of constellations is through optimizing our key phrases.

2) Find the screen element panel named “Yoast SEO”

Likely, the Yoast SEO panel is located directly under the text box for the page or post. However, if you are unable to find it, check to see if it is enabled by viewing “Screen Options” at the top of the page. 

3) In the keyphrase box, put the relevant title and author (s)

Ideally, limit the keyphrase to a maximum of 10 words.

Be sure to target words that show up in the meta decription that you write as well.

ie: if you write “Editors from the constellations team have a conversation about their journey within cultural rhetorics and how to get published.” for the meta description.

Target keywords like “Constellations”, “Journey”, “cultural Rhetorics”, “Published” as well.

Example photos are Below: