Can’t edit homepage

  • Unknown's avatar
    meganhamiltonwriter · Member ·

    I’m trying to create a blog with a static homepage for a blog, and I’m having all kinds of problems.

    1. When I try to follow instructions to go to the homepage settings, there is no homepage settings button anywhere in the customizer for any of the themes I’ve tried. (So far I’ve tried Meraki, Hever, and Arbutus.)

    2. There is no option to add a featured image or to change the pre-existing featured image on any of the themes I’ve tried.

    3. My homepage doesn’t appear in the list of pages on my website.

    4. I can’t add navigation. Every time I try to add a menu, it won’t let me select any of pages. It says I have no pages, which isn’t true. (I have home, about, and contact so far. I haven’t made any posts yet, because I can’t get the website set up properly to be able to make it public.)

    5. The Meraki theme, which is the one I’d most like to use, insists on showing my username at the top of the page, even though I don’t want it to.

    6. I’ve looked at the ‘Getting Started with WordPress’ blog repeatedly. Every time it tells me to click a particular button or go to the SiteEditor, I have no option to do so within the ‘Appearance > Customize’ interface.

    7. I tried resetting my site to the default settings and starting over, but the plugin to reset to default requires having premium WordPress and I’m using the free version.

    I’ve been trying to figure this out for three days using multiple themes (Hever, Arbutus, Meraki.) Nothing has worked. I’d appreciate your help/advice.

    Thank you,
    Megan Hamilton

    WP.com: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to moderators and staff)

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    1. When I try to follow instructions to go to the homepage settings, there is no homepage settings button anywhere in the customizer for any of the themes I’ve tried. (So far I’ve tried Meraki, Hever, and Arbutus.)

    I noticed when I visit your site that you have two pages, but they are both set to “private” when I look here: https://meganhamiltonwriter.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit.php?post_status=private&post_type=page

    Please note that it is not possible to set a private page as homepage, so the option is not shown. If you were to change the visiblity of either page to be “public” instead, you will see the option to set a homepage in your customizer as expected.

    There is no option to add a featured image or to change the pre-existing featured image on any of the themes I’ve tried.

    Featured images are set directly on the page or post you are trying to add the image to. For example, I see you were able to set a featured image here: https://meganhamiltonwriter.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1&action=edit

    Is there a specific page you are trying to set a featured image for but not able to?

    3. My homepage doesn’t appear in the list of pages on my website.

    That is correct, private pages would not be shown there. Please note that currently your entire site is set to “private” here: https://wordpress.com/settings/

    Because of this, no one can see pages on your site if you make them public. The fact that the entire site is private means that access to the site is blocked, even if you publish content.

    4. I can’t add navigation. Every time I try to add a menu, it won’t let me select any of pages. It says I have no pages, which isn’t true. (I have home, about, and contact so far. I haven’t made any posts yet, because I can’t get the website set up properly to be able to make it public.)

    As mentioned above, if the site is set to private (as it is now) that means you do not need to also set each page you create to private. If you set those to be public no one will be able to access them, but you will be able to see the pages in lists and set up the site.

    When you are ready to launch the entire site you can do that by following the steps here: https://wordpress.com/support/settings/privacy-settings/#launch-your-site

    5. The Meraki theme, which is the one I’d most like to use, insists on showing my username at the top of the page, even though I don’t want it to.

    I did not see this on your site (currently using the Meraki theme) were you able to get this sorted?

    6. I’ve looked at the ‘Getting Started with WordPress’ blog repeatedly. Every time it tells me to click a particular button or go to the SiteEditor, I have no option to do so within the ‘Appearance > Customize’ interface.

    The theme you are using is a newer one that has “Full Site Editing” features. This means it uses the Site Editor interface for customization, and has just a few options in the customizer that it sounds like you are more familiar with.

    More info about Full Site Editing here: https://wordpress.com/support/full-site-editing/

    I also recommend this recent webinar we had on using the Full Site Editor, which offers a nice visual overview of the tools as well: https://wordpress.com/webinars/sneak-peek-full-site-editing/#watch

    7. I tried resetting my site to the default settings and starting over, but the plugin to reset to default requires having premium WordPress and I’m using the free version.

    There is not a forward facing tool for site owners to reset their site, so we offer some recommendations here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/empty-site/

    If you would like to delete all existing content (which is permanent) and start with just the demo appearance, staff can help with that, just let us know!

  • Unknown's avatar
    meganhamiltonwriter · Member ·

    Hi,

    I want https://meganhamiltonwriter.wordpress.com to be my homepage. I would like to add a featured image to this page but am unable to. So I think that’s the only thing I’m still a little confused about.

    The other two pages I currently have are my about pages and contact form, which are displaying as I want them to. I also did go ahead and make my “About” page public, and it’s showing up as top nav on the homepage now. So thanks so much for that advice!

    I’ll give that full site editor tutorial a look, too. That seems really helpful! Thanks! I know I had a lot of questions; WordPress has changed a lot since the last time I blogged here haha.

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi again,

    I want https://meganhamiltonwriter.wordpress.com to be my homepage. I would like to add a featured image to this page but am unable to. So I think that’s the only thing I’m still a little confused about.

    The reason this page is empty is that by default WordPress is set to show your recent blog posts on the homepage, and you have no blog posts at this moment. You can see that setting here: https://meganhamiltonwriter.wordpress.com/wp-admin/options-reading.php

    Click to view image

    Since you do not have any blog posts, is it your intention to create a custom homepage instead of showing your recent posts, yes? If so then you can follow the steps here to set one up: https://wordpress.com/support/pages/front-page/

    As for the design of your homepage itself, you do not usually set up a “featured image” but instead just add the images directly to the page layout in the way you wish them to appear. If you are looking for some ideas we have a current webinar on this topic, you may want to attend an upcoming webinar here: https://wordpress.com/webinars/wordpress-webinars-compelling-homepages/

    Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.

  • The topic ‘Can’t edit homepage’ is closed to new replies.