Interactive Llama

In WordPress Administration under Options->Reading, there is an option to set a “Front page” and “Posts page.” The front page setting is fairly straightforward. If you do not want your latest blog posts (index.php) as your homepage, you can set a static page and its template as the root page (http://www.example.com/). This is great for an under construction page, too.

Posts Page

What is a post page? If you have disabled the default homepage (explained above) and made it a static template page, then where are your latest posts? They are on this page.

1) Create a page (Write>Write Page) and make the “Page Slug” on the sidebar whatever URL slug you want to be the location of your posts. I recommend making it be the same as your custom structure (Options>Permalinks, e.g. – “blog” as in “/blog/%postname%/”).

2) Go to this Options->Reading and in the drop down box for “Posts Page” you can now choose your newly created page (e.g.- “Blog”).

The contents of this page (i.e.- “Blog”) will never really be accessible. Now if the user goes to “http://www.example.com/blog” then they will see the latest posts instead of an error.

I upgraded the poetry knook today from WordPress 2.1.3 to 2.3. Including backing up the database and user files, the process took about an hour. Be sure to follow the upgrade steps (in order!). I have heard that logging into administration during an upgrade can cause problems.

WordPress 2.3, which was released back in September, includes among other things: a native tag system, plug-in and platform upgrade notification, post management interface improvements, roll your own dashboard, and roll your own RSS libraries. Many of these items have been addressed by plug-ins. Tagging especially comes to mind. I love Ultimate Tag Warrior and use it on all my blogs. (more…)