Here’s a recap of what was talked about in the February 2017 brown bag, in case you missed it:
New WiscWeb Sites
We currently have over 70 projects created under our new WordPress service. Three of which have already launched:
Mailing Lists
We started the brown bag with a question of how to best manage our user mailing list. We struggle with keeping that information up-to-date as folks are constantly leaving positions or adding new users to their projects. It was decided that we will add the primary contact for the project to the mailing list when we create a new site for them but then it will be up to that person to add/remove others from the list. As a reminder, if you would like to join our mailing list, please send a blank email to join-wiscweb-users@lists.wisc.edu. To remove yourself from our mailing list, please send a blank email to leave-wiscweb-users@lists.wisc.edu. More info can be found on our Mailing Lists page.
Getting Started in WordPress
We gave a brief overview of what the WordPress interface will look like the first time you log in. More information on what to do the first time you log in can be found on our Getting Started page.
Hero Carousels
The “hero” area of a page is a full-width section of the screen – just below the top navigation – meant to display large scale, high resolution photos. We provided a brief tutorial on what this new content area includes and a little about it’s benefits and limitations. Primarily, we talked about the image size recommendations for this region and how the theme will portray/crop images in this area. Users have the option of either adding a static image in this space (with or without a featured content inset) or a rotating image carousel.
Question: Can we add links and text to hero images?
Currently, users can add a featured content inset to a static image and link out to a specific page on the site (or externally). This is a feature that our developers are hoping to incorporate into the hero carousel soon.
Question: Is there any limit to how many images you can add to a hero carousel?
Yes, we would recommend limiting to 3-4 images. This is mostly due to users accessing the site from various mobile networks. On campus, this likely won’t be a problem but page load times will differ depending on the network. With the potential for those images to be quite large, it is not recommended you use too many in the hero carousel as it can make your pages load a lot slower. This also uses up more of your users’ mobile data plan. It is recommended that you test out your site in mobile both on and off campus and adjust the content as needed.
Question: How does the image carousel look in mobile?
Great question! The static hero image will resize to fit the screen and generally does not take up too much room on the mobile page. If you are using a static hero image with the inset, the banner graphic will go away in mobile and will be replaced by the inset content (image, text and “Read More” link). The hero carousel will function similarly to the static image – appearing at the top of the page in mobile but just in a smaller format. You can preview a mobile version of your site at any time by narrowing your browser screen to its smallest width.
Question: With OpenText, we were allowed to upload different versions of images (one for desktop, one for tablet, one for mobile) and could also turn off the images in different views. Is this feature available with WordPress?
Somewhat. With WordPress, several versions of your photos get saved out and the most appropriate version of your image will get displayed based on the screen size being used. There is no longer a need to designate certain images for specific screen sizes. If you require something to be turned off for mobile or tablet views, please let us know and we can set that customization in your child theme.
Campus Resources
We took a few minutes to remind folks of the campus resources listed on our informational site. Specifically, we pointed to the links for the new campus Photo Library and various Accessibility testing tools like AMP.
Question: What score do you need in AMP in order to be deemed “Accessible?”
Typically, the highest accessibility score you can receive in AMP is around 70-80%. Just because you are scoring in this range does not necessarily mean you are providing an accessible site. The AMP tool will, however, help guide you in making modifications that are helpful for folks visiting your site with a screen reader.