Adding Posts and Posted Links

The WP-Drudge theme uses WordPress Posts as the main source of content throughout the site. In this theme, posts are split into two types: Posts (aka “regular posts”), which is content meant to be created and read on the site and Posted Links, which is content located on another site and linked to directly. The difference between these two is simple: Posted Links have an “Outbound URL” saved to them and regular Posts don’t. Saving a Post with an Outbound URL creates a Posted Link; saving it without creates a Post.

There are different ways to post links and several different formats that can be created. There are also a number of settings you can use to change how the listing pages (like categories and date archives) and individual Post pages look. Here, we’ll concentrate on common tasks for posting links and cover the settings in another section.

Note for those just getting started: Depending on how you set up your categories, I’d recommend having at least 5 links for each category before you start playing with the settings. You can add dummy links here to practice and remove them later if you’d like.

Video: Adding Posts and Posted Links

Note: The video above is for version 2.6 and higher. If you have an older version, see the video here.


Create a New Posted Link

Screenshot 2014-10-19 08.28.18As mentioned above, a Posted Link is created by adding a new Post, entering an Outbound URL, adding to a particular category, and publishing. As of version 2.6, the interface for creating and editing Posted Links has been improved and focused. The steps below cover the basic way to add links to your site. For more ways to add Posted Links, see the “Tips & Tricks” section at the bottom of this section.

  1. In your wp-admin, go to Posts > Add Posted Link
  2. When this page loads, you’ll see a stripped-down version of the basic Add Post page. The fields here are controlled the the Post UI settings, explained here. The only required fields here are the Link Text and Outbound URL field, though categories are needed to make the Posted Link appear in widgets (explained below)
  3. In the text field at the top, add a title for this link. This will be the text that will link to the Outbound URL entered below. This is also used on the post page if you activate an interruption page
  4. Paste or enter the link of the article you want to point to in the Outbound URL field. This needs to be a valid, direct URL to a web property and will typically  start with “http://” or “https://”
  5. In order for the Post to be seen in the homepage widgets and on category archive pages  it needs to be added to a category. On the right side, look for the “Categories” box and select the ones that describe this link. Links can be added to multiple categories to appear in multiple widgets or archive sections
  6. Walk through the sub-headings below to format the link as you’d like it to be seen
  7. To post the link on your site, just click the blue Publish button in the “Publish” box on the top right. To keep it around and finish later, click Save Draft. You can also publish a link in the future by clicking the Edit link next to “Publish immediately” and selecting a date and time.

Posted Links appear, appropriately enough, in the Posted Link widgets under the category you added and in order from newest to oldest. There are many more options for Posted Links, all of which are covered below.

Get Link Details

Starting with version 2.8, there is now a group of checkboxes and a Get Link Details button just below the Outbound Link field. This button takes the link you’ve entered and, using the Embed library, reaches out to that site to pull information. Please note: you’ll need PHP 5.4 or later and the Curl library installed on your host. The vast majority of hosts support this (included our recommended one, Fused) but if you’re just getting started, ask the host before you sign up.

To use this feature:

  1. Create a new Post or Posted Link; the Get Link Details button should in inactive
  2. Add a URL to the “Outbound URL” field
  3. Now the Get Link Details button should be active
  4. The checkboxes above the button tell WordPress what details to get and place in your new Post fields; if something is checked here but there is already text there (for example: if you check “Title” but you’ve already written a title) then the existing text there will be replaced. If you don’t click the Get Link Details button then these checkboxes will not have an effect
  5. Click the Get Link Details button and wait, after a few seconds the data should appear in the correct fields; if you selected a particular checkbox and nothing came back (“Tags” and “Embed” are only possible for certain sites), then that data is not published for that site
  6. If you selected “Image” and one was returned, either check or uncheck the “Try to save image to your site?” checkbox (see “Using a hot-linked image” below for more information)
  7. Make changes and publish as usual

Make the link featured

By checking the “Featured link” box in the WP-Drudge Fields box, the link will appear at the top of the content section with a larger image and text size. Only the most recent featured item will show so no need to go back and remove this box from previous postings. Links that are featured and displayed on the page will not appear in the link lists below.

Add an image to the link

There are two ways of adding an image: using a hot-linked image from the article you’re posting or uploading an image right to your site. Images are automatically linked to the “Outbound URL” added above.

Uploading an image to your site

This is the recommended way to add images to your site.

  1. First, you’ll need the image on your computer. On the image you’d like to use, right-click or control click and select “Save Image As”
  2. Now, follow these steps to upload and set a featured image
  3. New: When uploading a featured image, you can now use the “Caption” field to add image credits on any page. Just enter a caption in that field and it will show up everywhere.

Using a hot-linked image

As of version 2.8, there is a “Try to save image to your site?” checkbox under this field. When you add an image via URL or use the Get Link Details button, checking this box then saving the Post will attempt to save that image to your media library and attach it to the Post as a featured image.

A quick disclaimer: this is often discouraged and adding many of these will make your site slower. Also, some sites disable this by replacing the image you’re linking to with a different one telling you not to do this. Still, it’s an easy way to use an existing image and, as long as you’re linking to the source, you shouldn’t be in any hot water.

  1. On the image you’d like to use, right-click or command-click and select “Copy Image URL” on Chrome or “Copy Image Location” on Firefox, or “Copy Image Address” on Safari. If you’re using Internet Explorer, select “Properties,” then copy the “Address (URL)” that is listed.
  2. Back on the Posted Link edit page, paste this URL into the “Link image” field in the WP-Drudge Fields box.
  3. Publish as usual or Update if it’s already live

A quick note on using images from Google Images: if you copy images straight from the main search page, you might get a URL that some browsers can’t see. Make sure to click on the image and use it from the next page. You can also make sure to use the right attribution, if necessary.

Add a blurb of content on the homepage

Posted Links can have a blurb of content associated with them on the link listing pages, like the home page. This blurb can also be shown on the comments or interrupt page on your site, depending on how things are set up.

In short, there are two fields that can be used for the blurb content: the main Post editor (the one with the formatting buttons) and the “Headline blurb” field in the WP-Drudge fields section. On the settings page, you can choose which one appears where and you can override that setting for each Post. Right out of the box, the “Headline blurb” is used on the link listing pages and the editor content is used on the comment and interrupt pages. This is covered in more detail on the settings page.

All that is to say, it depends on your settings as to where to input your blurb. If you’re just getting started, add your blurb content to the “Headline blurb” field before you publish (or, if after, add it and click the blue Update button).

Add a video or other media

Videos are added to the site depending on the version of WP-Drudge you’re using. For either version, to make the video to expand to fit the column width, try this.

Version 2.5 and higher

Adding videos in version 2.5 and above is very simple. Just pasted the URL to a valid embeddable media source like YouTube or Vimeo (full list of sites is here) into the “Posted Link video” field and the theme will take care of the rest.

Version 2.4.1 and below

WP-Drudge has a setting called “Blurb and body field usage” on the Other tab of the options page that lets you change how change what is shown on the Post listing and what is shown on the Post page. If you’re using the default, “blurb on list and body on post pages,” then you should use the “Headline blurb” field to post a video:

  1. Get your embed code from the video site (instructions). If you can set a width, you’ll want to set one small enough to that the video fits in the link column (around 300 pixels)
  2. Back on the Posted Link edit page, click the Text tab on the headline blurb and paste the embed code there. You can add text above and/or below the video if needed.

If you’re not using the body content anywhere  (meaning that you’re not linking to the Post page or have the setting on “blurb text everywhere”) or are using it everywhere (setting on “body text everywhere”), you can use WordPress’s build-in video embedding:

  1. On the Posted Link edit page, scroll to the “Blurb override” setting and change it to “Use the body copy on all pages”
  2. Paste the YouTube URL right in the post content editor below the title at the top; you can add text above and/or below but keep the URL on its own line
  3. Make any other changes needed, then publish the post. The video will be embedded automatically on the listing page and the post page.
  4. Use the plugin at the link below to auto-size videos

Modify the link style

Even after all that, there’s more!

  • Use the “Link color” field and color selector to pick a color for this one Posted Link; if you’re typing in a color, make sure to use a valid hex code prepended with a hash ‘#’ sign
  • The “Link text in italics” will do exactly that, italicize the link text for this link only
  • The “Show border” checkbox will add a border beneath this Posted Link; you can add borders to all the Posted Links on the Borders and Colors tab on the WP-Drudge options page. The darkness of this border is controlled on this same options page.
  • Check the “Hide link text” box to suppress the headline text. This is useful if you just want a linked image or video embed.

Add additional links [added in v2.7]

Some stories develop over time and need supportive or additional information added. You can add more links to an individual Posted Link that will follow it throughout the site. Additional links added will be output directly below the main headline in the normal link style for the site.

additional_links

To add additional links at any time, either before or after publishing:

  1. Scroll down past the Posted Link fields and look for the WP-Drudge Additional Links box. If you don’t see this and you’re on version 2.7 or above, click the Screen Options tab on the top right and look for a checkbox there.
  2. Enter the text you’d like to use in the “Link Text” field on the left
  3. Enter the URL you’d like to use in the “URL” field on the right
  4. Do add more links, just click the Add Another button and a new field will appear
  5. Remove links with the X button next to the fields or move them up or down using the arrows
  6. When everything looks good, just Update the post as usual and your links will appear in the order you saved them in

Supported core WordPress Post features

WordPress has lots of built in functionality that you can take advantage of, like, post scheduling, multiple authors, and commenting. These options are more are outlined here.

One thing that’s a little tricky to get the hang of with Posted Links is the individual pages are created on your site for these links. WordPress creates a post page for each piece of content that’s created, including Posted Links. You can see these pages by clicking on the View link when hovering over a row in Posts > All Posts. These pages are listed in sitemaps, core RSS feeds, and other locations. This is also the page that’s used for social network auto-posting plugins, on-site comments, and the interruption page (if this setting is activated). You can output the featured image and blurb on these pages by using the settings under the Images and Other tab on the options page.

Posted Links Tips & Tricks

  • New: The Post list at Posts > All Posts now indicates whether links are featured or not and shows the Outbound URL, if one is present. The Quick Edit link can now change the post’s featured status.
  • Posted Links can be added directly from the article you’re viewing by using our modified Press This Reloaded plugin, explained here.
  • Posted Links can be added automatically using RSS feeds. Full instructions for this are here.

Create a Post

Posts are used as on-site content and will appear in the same widgets and archive pages as Posted Links. Posts have the same controls as Posted Links but they are located in a different place (as of version 2.6), below the post editor.

Other than their appearance in Posted Link widgets, their functionality is the same as any other Post in any other theme with a few exceptions:

  • Use the WP-Drudge fields below the editor to control the widget blurb, link style, and featured status like you do with Posted Links
  • If you want to change a Post to a Posted Link, just add an Outbound URL and the edit page will change accordingly (after updating)
  • The category will control which widgets the post will appear under
  • Posts go straight to an on-site page instead of to an Outbound URL (since there is none to use)
Previous page Posted Links widget