Introduction: Pages, News Releases, and Resources
In WordPress, Content Types are special posts or pages that are used for specific purposes.
There are two built-in content types, Posts and Pages, and one custom content type, Resources. All can be found listed in the admin area sidebar menu.
- Pages – These are used for relatively static material, and are the basic building blocks of the site. You will typically be adding and editing Pages.
- Posts – These are being used for News Releases as well as other News items that may be created by the Communications Department.
- Resources – Resource are a content type that holds the documents and links that are part of the Resource Library. You can create a new Resource by clicking on the Resource Library link in the admin area sidebar menu.
- Staff Members – This content type is auto-generated based on the Staff Directory form. If you edit a staff member in the content type, the corresponding form entry will be updated. If you add add/edit a staff member entry on the form, a post will be created or updated in the Staff Member content type. This has allowed us to create custom contact blocks that pull data from this content type/form entry and keeps this info in sync.
Each content type is displayed in its own way:
- Pages – When you create a new page, you will select a parent page. (See Page Management for instructions). This determines where the new page will appear in the site menus. In addition to the menus, other ways to link to Pages include through the use of graphical tiles, and through links in sidebar widgets or in the page text.
- Posts – News Releases and other posts display automatically, in reverse chronological order, on the page that has been designated as the ‘blog’ page in the admin area sidebar menu under Settings > Reading. In addition to the page, posts can be easily displayed in a sidebar widget using the Ultimate Posts Widget, or on other pages of the site using the Display Posts shortcode. Both of these are ocumented below.
- Resources – Resources are often accessed from the Resource Library page. The Display Posts Shortcode is used to display lists of resources sorted by category and other attributes. This Shortcode can also be used to display other types of posts, including News Releases, if a list of news releases sorted by category or region is desired, for example.
Ultimate Posts Widget
The Ultimate Posts Widget is useful for displaying custom lists of posts such as News Releases and Resources in the sidebar of the site. It is documented here: Ultimate Posts Widget Docs.
Display Posts shortcode
The Display Posts shortcode is useful for displaying custom lists of posts such as News Releases and Resources in the pages of the site. This very flexible shortcode is documented here.
You can see it in use in the Resource Library, here.
Embed a News or Resources Item in a Page with the Display Posts shortcode
You can also embed a resource record or a news item into the text of a page. This can be a good way to feature content.
To embed a single post, use the following Display Posts Shortcode and include the Post ID, which is shown in the rightmost column of the list of all Posts or Resources in the admin area:
If the post has an Excerpt, the title linked to the post along with the Excerpt will be shown. In general it is a good idea to create an Excerpt, particularly for Resources, so you can control exactly what text displays.
Here is another example, showing multiple Resources:
