- WordPress Basics: Creating a Dynamic Hub with the WordPress Twenty Eleven Showcase Template
- Applying the Showcase Template
- Setting Up the Showcase Template Sidebar
- Populating the Twenty Eleven Ephemera Widget
- That's It, You're Done!
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Populating the Twenty Eleven Ephemera Widget
The Twenty Eleven Ephemera widget displays posts that have been published under the Aside, Status, Quote, or Link format. All of these formats are best suited to short posts with a specific purpose.
When posts using the specified formats are displayed in the Showcase sidebar, the post's title will show along with a link to the post's comments. (If you don't want viewers to be able to comment on a specific post, be sure to disable comments in the Edit Post screen.) For links, the post's title will be followed by an arrow, as shown in Figure 6; clicking the title takes the viewer directly to the linked content.
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Figure 6 This post is a link; clicking it will bring the viewer to the linked page.
Ephemera posts will appear in the Showcase sidebar; they won't be displayed in the Recent Posts section of the Showcase template.
Adding Ephemera Posts
Create a new post. Make sure that your title is descriptive, since it will be shown in the Ephemera sidebar. Choose a category and tags as you normally would. Under Format, select one of the following: Aside, Status, Quote, or Link (see Figure 7).
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Figure 7 Choose a format for your Ephemera post.
Featured Section
Featured posts appear in the Featured section of the Showcase template. These posts are given star treatment, spanning the entire width of the page and displaying above the rest of your recent posts and sidebar content (see Figure 8). You can specify up to 10 featured posts at once. When you have more than one featured post, circular links will appear at the upper right of the Featured section, allowing your viewers to scroll through each one.
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Figure 8 Featured posts are created by making posts "sticky"; that is, sticking them to the front page. A sticky post always appears at the top of a post list (as if it's stuck there), rather than appearing in reverse chronological order like other posts.
Adding Featured Posts
Choose an existing post or create a new post (Posts > New). Enter the title and body of the post as usual and choose categories and tags. Add a Featured Image for your post by clicking the Set Featured Image link at the bottom of the right sidebar (see Figure 9).
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Figure 9 Click the "Set featured image" link to add a Featured Image to your post.
If you choose an image that's the same width as or larger than your site's header image, it will display full-width, with your post's title overlaid on a black background (refer to Figure 8 in the preceding section). If your post's image is smaller than your header image, it will display right-aligned, with your post excerpt at the left, as shown in Figure 10.
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Figure 10 A Featured Post with an image that's narrower than the full body width will automatically float the image to the right of the post excerpt.
Next, you'll make the post sticky. Find the Publish box at the upper right of the Edit screen. Next to the Visibility: Public section, click the Edit link. The section will expand to show additional visibility options. Check the box next to "Stick this post to the front page" (see Figure 11), and click OK.
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Figure 11 Click the "Stick this post to the front page" box to make your post sticky, and then publish your post.