Pages and Posts
Our website contains two main kinds of content: pages and posts (plus some others that are not discussed here). This article describes the similarities and differences between them.
Pages
Website pages are static information that are organized according to, and accessed via, the navigation bar at the top of each page:
Pages seldom change: they are intended for information that stays fairly constant over time. Examples are the “New Visitor’s Guide” page and the top section of all the Commission pages.
Some pages are designed to show both static information (at the top) and posts. Examples are the commission reports and the Church History page. These pages display the latest post in their category, under the static information. Below that, they have a list of all the older posts. Users can click on entries in the list to see the contents of the older posts.
Detailed instructions about how to work with pages are available on our website.
Posts
Posts are time-sensitive “articles” that frequently change. Examples are sermons, Chip’s Message, and commission reports. Often, these articles are published in The Disciple as well as on the website. These articles appear in various places on the website: in the “What’s Happening” and “What’s Happened” boxes, in the “Rotating Posts” section near the top of the home page, and within various other website pages.
Every post is associated with one or more categories that automatically determine where the posts appear on the website. For example, posts assigned to the “Home Page” category are automatically shown in that Rotating Posts area of the home page. You don’t have to know where the post is displayed — you just need to know the categories for the post. The website software makes sure the post is shown where it belongs according to the post category or categories.
A single post can be assigned to multiple categories so that the post is displayed in several parts of the web site. This is useful if you want a post to be displayed in multiple places. For example, perhaps an article about an upcoming concert should be displayed both under “What’s Happening” and on the Music page. Then it would be put in both those categories.
Posts stay on the website forever, unless explicitly removed. That’s no problem for many kinds of posts — those that appear on pages that have an “archive” section. As discussed above, these pages are configured to display all of the latest post for their category, and list all the older posts in the archive section.
Posts that go in the “Rotating Posts” section of the home page and in the “What’s Happening” box should be removed when they are no longer relevant. If such a post is in no other category, it should just be “trashed”. If the post is in multiple categories, just remove it from the “Home Page” or “What’s Happening” category.
Summary
Use pages for content that doesn’t change much, and posts for time-sensitive material such as articles about upcoming events and commission reports.