Although we are in the middle of Easter, I continue with the “Basic WordPress Weekends”. Today we are going to see the desktop, the great unknown, and the first thing you find when accessing the WordPress control panel.
WordPress Dashboard
When we install WordPress and access the control panel for the first time, we find a page called “Desktop” with 5 widgets. We should not confuse them with , which are the ones that are displayed on the frontend (the web sees the users).
This is what those 5 widgets or boxes look like when we install WordPress:
These boxes can be minimized or hidden. To minimize them, we simply have to click on the little arrow at the top right. If we do, this is what it looks like:
But we can still go one step further. We can hide the ones we want by clicking on “Screen Options”. That will display a menu that will allow us to hide or show the ones we want at will:
And obviously, we will have a completely empty desktop:
Well, now that we have learned to minimize and show the widgets on the desktop, let’s see what these 5 widgets are, and what they are for:
1. “Welcome to WordPress” Widget
This widget welcomes us very politely, and gives us several options or shortcuts, quite useful for the newest in the WordPress world:
Among the shortcuts, we have:
- Button “Customize your site”: Access to the “Appearance / Personalize” menu
- Change your theme completely: Access to the “Appearance / Themes” menu
- Write your first blog post: Access to the “Entries / Add new” menu
- Write your first blog post: Access to the “Pages / Add new” menu
- See your site: Direct access to the backend (to the web)
- Manage widgets: Access to the “Appearance / Widgets” menu
- Manage menus: Access to the “Appearance / Menus” menu
- Turn comments on or off: “Settings / Comments”
- Learn more about how to get started: Direct access to an external WordPress.org page with a basic guide
So, we see that this full-width widget doesn’t add any functionality, just some useful shortcuts for those new to WordPress.
2. “Activity” widget
The activity widget shows us the latest entries published, the date and time they were published, and the latest comments, in which we can see the comment itself, the entry in which it was made, and the author of the comment. same.
This widget is especially interesting if we have a blog with multiple authors and many comments, since we can quickly see what’s new. But if we have a single-author blog, it’s not that useful.
3. “Fast Eraser” Widget
This widget offers us the possibility of writing a new draft in an easy and fast way. We simply have to put a title, a minimum text, and click on the “Save draft” button and that’s it.
Although the functionality is interesting, the reality is that this widget is rarely used, as people prefer to create their drafts from “Entries / Add new”, where there are more options.
4. “At a Glance” Widget
A purely informative widget that shows us the number of posts, pages, comments and any other custom post type (CPT) that we have created, such as products, portfolios or any other
In addition, it also shows us the version of WordPress that we have installed, the theme (theme, template)and if we have deterred search engines on “”.
5. “WordPress News” Widget
Finally we have a news widget. These are WordPress-related news from third-party websites, such as the official WordPress blog, Matt Mullenweg’s (co-founder of WordPress)WPTavern and many more, who have earned to appear in that location.
Although this widget is useful for WordPress programmers, designers and developers, the truth is that most users do not see it as very useful, since they are in English, and they are not of interest to most end users, they are usually hidden or disable.
conclusion
The WordPress dashboard dashboard is terribly underutilized, as those five plugins have little to no functionality and are purely informational. So, I recommend that you hide them and put something else in their place. How to do it? See you tomorrow! 🙂
And once again, remember that if you want to know more about WordPress, you have at your disposal the , in which in ten lessons you can see this and much more, through guided video tutorials. Also, if you subscribe to it, you will have access to . A bargain, come on 😉
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