Starting Point

[admin_nd 0]

Can you recommend a "best practice" series of steps for a new user? E.g., Settings menus then add pages then menu? There are SO many ways to do the same thing In PlatformPro that I feel like I'm constantly undoing something I thought was finished. I'm new to PlatformPro (switching from Blogger). So far I love it.

[cmunns 16]

I think the best way to explore is to download the demo content and default settings from the documentation page http://pagelines.com/docs and start playing with it. We will be adding more tutorials very shortly too

[renderinnovations 0]

Nancy, what are something that you would like to have cleared up?

[bryan-hadaway 3]

Hmm, this one is a bit open ended. I'd love to hear some of the things you're trying to so I could guide, but I'll try and give you some pointers: - Create a custom menu instead of letting one be auto-created for you, many people regret this, in your WordPress admin: Appearance > Menus - Whenever you want to add some sort of feature, search for a plugin that might do it first, there are 11K of them. In your WordPress admin: Plugins > Add New > Search Keywords - Some plugins I recommend: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/ - Activate Akismet for spam protection, you'll need an API Key: http://akismet.com/wordpress/ - Update WordPress permalink structure to custom: `/%postname%/` in: Settings > Permalinks - Be sure to let us know when you have a specific support request. Thanks, Bryan

[admin_nd 0]

Brian, Thanks for tackling my question. This info is great. The part about using a custom menu and looking for plugins is exactly the kind of direction I'm looking for. I've spent a week experimenting and resetting the settings. I know that's necessary but frustrating when it's your only entry-point. Here's what I've decided to do: 1. Install recommended plugins. 2. Setup templates (experimenting with templates changes the demo content - confusing!) 3. Create pages (turn off all "hides" on pages so you know what's really there) 4. Create custom menu (ignore everything else now). Getting ready to ... 5. Define second layer pages 6. Experiment with content management (e.g., import posts from Blogger and make sure links, thumbs, etc are working) 7. Style I know there's not one right way to do things, but it would be great to have a suggested strategy/path for novices like me. I'm on a temporary WP installation (http://shematters.me.previewdns.com/) while I figure this out. Thanks, again!

[catrina 103]

That sounds like a good strategy so far. Here's one pointer: When setting up the templates, it's good practice to check every template and make sure the features you want are enabled and the features you don't want are disabled. It's possible to have, for example, Boxes enabled in the Header template, so if they're showing up on every page if you don't want them to, that's because the Header is visible on every page. Also, WordPress Codex might come handy for more customization.