How to get more features on user profile WITHOUT gravatar
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I want to create a website where 1 of the pages will be a blog. I want artists to be able to post info (as contributors) on that page.
I checked out the users profile they would get, but I need more options for the users profile, NOT with Gravatar.
The users profile needs to get: formatted text, links and more photos. How can I do this?And if not possible, can they post without having to create the gravatar thing?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there Yvonne,
Would it be appropriate to your site to have links on the sidebar that linked to each of the artists’ bios? You could create a single page with all artists on it, or each artist could create their own page.
Then, you’d add a simple list that could be clicked through by your visitors.
If you’re interested in this, I’ll provide instructions for set up.
And if not possible, can they post without having to create the gravatar thing?
It’s possible, yes! They can set up their user profiles at WordPress.com without going to Gravatar. However, if the author page(s) suits you, I would still suggest allowing them to create a Gravatar, as it does help with their presence online as they can link all their sites and work. And the better their visibility, the more traffic it can drive to your site.
I hope this helps! If you have any other concerns, drop me a note. Thanks much!
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Thank you Robyn!
Glad to hear that they can avoid gravatar if they want to.
Re sidebar: The list consists of 150 artists, so I would rather not have them there.
I was thinking a separate artists page that lists all of them, with each of their names linked to a page about them: short bio, 3 photos of artworks, website URL and contact info.This is what I am trying to do though:
the nice thing about the author page is that when they post something on the blog, it automatically also posts on their author page. That way their page updates itself.
Q: How can I recreate that on another page, not an author page?Thanks in advance!
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Hi there Yvonne,
Wow, 150 artists! You’re right, that would certainly make the sidebar too crowded.
I was thinking a separate artists page that lists all of them, with each of their names linked to a page about them: short bio, 3 photos of artworks, website URL and contact info.
Great plan. If you wanted, you could even create 3-4 pages that broke the artists down alphabetically. So, page 1 would be Artists A-G, page 2 would be Artists H-Q, and so on. The reason I recommend this is that will 3 images per artist, it could make the page incredibly slow to load. Splitting up the artists in a manner appropriate to your site would keep your readers from getting impatient while 450 images load.
the nice thing about the author page is that when they post something on the blog, it automatically also posts on their author page. That way their page updates itself.
Q: How can I recreate that on another page, not an author page?My suggestion would be to create a Category for each artist. When they create a post, they can assign their Category to it. Then, back on the artist page, you can create a link for each artist that goes to their Category page and displays their posts.
Here is some information about to use Categories:
en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/The nice thing about using this method, is that you could still have a main blog page that would display ALL the posts, regardless of who wrote them.
Let me know what you think, and if I can help further. Thanks a lot!
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Hi Robyn,
Thanks for all your great advice so far.
Another question:
Is there a way that I can set up the blog so that each post automatically creates a “break” after a certain amount of words?If not possible, can I hire a WP designer to customize this?
Thank you.
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Hi Yvonne,
Robyn is out for a few days enjoying the wonders of this mythical thing that she calls “vacation.” I don’t know what that is, but it sounds delightful. In any case, I’m going to see if I can help out instead.
To answer your question, by “break” do you mean have your site only display an excerpt of the post; a few lines of it and then a link to view more? If so then we have a bit of code which you can enter in at any point called the More tag that will allow you to specify where you want to entice your readers to click through to read more:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/
Let me know if this is what you had in mind!
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Thank you!
(that mythical thing that Robyn calls “vacation”, I too am to aware of it :-) )I do know how to split the contents when I post something, but my issue is that there will be many people posting, and they will not split their content.
I am looking for a way that the blog does this automatically, if that even exists…I will not have the time to go back into each post and split the content for each. Is there an automated version somehow?
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There are some themes which do this automatically just as a built-in function of the theme, but it can’t be customized in any way (just so you know).
Below is an absolutely unofficial list of the themes that have that feature. Some may have removed that feature, some others may have added it since this list was created:
http://asceticademo.wordpress.com/
http://aviddemo.wordpress.com/
http://autofocusdemo.wordpress.com/ – must hover over an image to see.
http://blogsimpledemo.wordpress.com/
http://boldnewsdemo.wordpress.com/
http://debutdemo.wordpress.com/
http://deliciousmagazinedemo.wordpress.com/
http://eightdemo.wordpress.com/ – also some posts with title only.
http://freshandcleandemo.wordpress.com/
http://freshnewsdemo.wordpress.com/
http://freshydemo.wordpress.com/
http://fusiondemo.wordpress.com/
http://grisailledemo.wordpress.com/
http://headlinesdemo.wordpress.com/
http://hemingwaydemo.wordpress.com/
http://imbalance2demo.wordpress.com/
http://inuittypesdemo.wordpress.com/
http://justdessertsdemo.wordpress.com/
http://lifestyledemo.wordpress.com/
http://magazinedemo.wordpress.com/
http://mimboprodemo.wordpress.com/
http://modernnewsdemo.wordpress.com/
http://nuntiusdemo.wordpress.com/ – via custom page template.
http://origindemo.wordpress.com/
http://oxygendemo.wordpress.com/ – via custom page template.
http://petitemelodiesdemo.wordpress.com/ – only on sticky posts. Other posts display title only.
http://pinboarddemo.wordpress.com/
http://portfoliothemedemo.wordpress.com/ – via custom page template.
http://prettyyoungthingdemo.wordpress.com/
http://sightdemo.wordpress.com/
http://skylarkdemo.wordpress.com/ – via custom page template.
http://structuredemo.wordpress.com/
http://suburbiademo.wordpress.com/
http://sunspotdemo.wordpress.com/
http://thecolumnistdemo.wordpress.com/
http://themorningafterdemo.wordpress.com/ – conditional via theme option.
http://tritonlitedemo.wordpress.com/
http://twentytwelvedemo.wordpress.com/Hope this helps!
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Is there a fast way to check if a theme can have a custom header image?
I can see some of them do but than some don’t exactly say yes or no and going through that list taking more than 10 min each would take forever.
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Yes, actually! If you go to any of those theme demo pages while you’re logged in, you’ll notice in the upper left hand corner you can open a menu where it says the theme name, like so:
Click on the theme name like I suggest in my screenshot, and it will take you to the theme info page. On the right hand side there is a list of features, which should include whether or not custom headers are supported! :)
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I finally got to check out the themes I wanted and your advice helped tremendously. Thank you again!
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Fantastic! I’m glad to hear you got a chance to take them for a whirl. I’ve got to ask: which one did you settle on?
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I still have to test them to see which one will really let me automatically, as a built-in function of the theme, split the blog post (you said some may or some may not) .
But I narrowed it down to http://boldnewsdemo.wordpress.com/
or
http://debutdemo.wordpress.com -
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Hello,
My question is in conjunction to a couple of questions back about having a page that has a list of the artists that link to a page about that artist. I have found a page that has what I’m looking to do but I’m not sure how to create it.
This is the website http://www.artiscontemporary.org/artists.php. Is there a way for me to create that? -
Hi Yvonne,
There isn’t really a way to set up artist profiles in the way which they did, I’m afraid. The site which you linked to isn’t a WordPress.com site (and site which is will say “WordPress.com” at the bottom in the footer).
The only thing I can suggest is that we have a widget that you can put in your sidebar for Authors, where it will show your gravatar and any articles which have been written by that person. I know it’s not quite what you intended but it might be close!
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Thank you amightywp!
I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.
I am setting up a blog where I would like the authors / artists to be not in the side bar but on a different page. Much earlier in this thread Robyn wrote I can do that. I have to figure out how exactly, but….
Question 1: is there a way I can set up these Author pages for these other artists? Or does each artist have to make their own Author page?
I would much prefer to do it for them…. but cannot find any info in the help section.Question 2: once these Authors have access to the blog, can I set it up so that they only have access to post on 1 particularly blog page?
I don’t want them messing with the other pages :-)Thank you.
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Hi Yvonne,
I spoke with Robyn and what she said she was going to suggest you do for your various artists was as follows:
Create a page for each of the artists which you would need to edit and maintain. I can have their photo, their artist’s statement, etc on it. It would also link to a category page for their work. A category page is a type of archive which pulls up any blog post which is labelled with a particular category. So if you create a category for each artist’s name and they make sure to mark all of their posts with that category, then when you go to http://yvstudio.com/category/%5BArtist’s Name], then all of their posts will appear.
Once you have all of these created, you can then use what is called the Archives shortcode to create a list of all of the Artists pages which you have created.
Here are some links which will help explain and walk you through what I’ve described.
Category Pages: http://en.support.wordpress.com/category-pages/
Archives Shortcode: http://en.support.wordpress.com/archives-shortcode/
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