This page is a collection of miscellanea that the person in charge of administering the LLIR website needs to know.

Overview of our Platform

The Web Master or another member of the LLIR Board must manage LLIR’s account with the following suppliers:

Warning About Installing Updates

The first item under Home in the WordPress dashboard is Updates. Click Updates to see what version of WordPress, the Kadence theme and plugins are installed and whether updates are available. Installing updates usually is a good practice but there is one important exception: do not install updates to the theme without first checking with Alex. Contact Alex by sending email to alex@oi-vei.com. The back-end code that Alex writes is stored in PHP files that customize the theme to connect the website user interface with our database of member information. Installing an update to the theme removes Alex’s files. Before you update, coordinate with Alex to decide whether the update is safe to install and to give him an opportunity to reinstate his files.

For an explanation, read the section Developing Forms on page About Forms and Website Architecture.

Notes

If you do update the Kadence theme, the settings made through the Customize section of the dashboard are not affected. Installing updates to WordPress itself, Guttenberg, Kadence Pro Blocks and other plugins is safe.
Never change from Kadence Pro to different WordPress-compatible theme.

About Pages and Posts

Many WordPress customers build social media websites such as blogs where users participate by posting content. Other WordPress customers are retail businesses that let customer pose questions or supply reviews related to the shopping experience. The concept of user contributions, generally called posts, does not apply to the LLIR website.

The LLIR website consists only of webpages, listed in the Pages section of the dashboard. The LLIR website does not support posts. The Posts section of the WordPress dashboard should always be empty. If the page editor looks a bit different when you adding a new page, check whether you selected to add a post by mistake. If you create and publish a page but then can’t find in in the All Pages view, check whether it is stored as a post.

User Roles

When you add a user in the Users section of the WordPress dashboard, you do not create a new member of LLIR. WordPress uses the term user to refer to anyone who has access to the website. The LLIR stores membership information for LLIR members in a separate database table from the WordPress user table. Only the LLIR Registrar can add new members.

All LLR members are WordPress users. Users who are not members typically are second identities that LLIR volunteers adopt to act as website administrators, reviewers or testers. WordPress can give users additional access based on the following roles :

• Subscriber
• Contributor
• Author
• Editor
• Administrator

The first four of these roles relate only to websites that let users post content to the website. A subscriber can open the dashboard to view and edit their profile. The other roles let users open the dashboard to create and modify posts. The only role that makes sense for the LLIR website is Administrator. Ordinary LLIR members should never see the WordPress dashboard and must not have a role.

The LLIR waitlist process creates new WordPress users that have no role when it invites waitlist applicants to become LLIR members.

Adding Users in the Dashboard

You may add WordPress users to give volunteers the ability to test, review and even administer the website. If you create a second user for a volunteer who is also a member, make sure the username and email address fields have different values from in their member profile. All WordPress users for the website can login, see the LLIR member-only area and update their profiles using the My Profile forms. But users created at the dashboard cannot:

LLIR processes depend upon Username and Email address being unique but WordPress does not. The dashboard does not check for duplicates.
Recommendation for before you add a user:
1. Open the Users panel and enter the Username you intend to give to a new user beside the Search User box on the upper right.
2. Make sure the results say No users found.
3. Repeat 1 and 2 to make sure the Email address is also unique.

How to Add a Website User

1. From the Users section of the dashboard, click Add New User.
2. Complete the form that opens.
   • Enter a unique Username. This field cannot be modified after the user is created.
   • Enter a unique Email address. The email address can be bogus provided it has a valid format.
   • Supply a First name and Last Name. The resulting name appears in the header when the user is logged in to the website.
   • Instead of clicking Generate Password, replace the suggested password with something simpler.
   • Skip the fields Website and Language.
   • Uncheck the box Send User Notification if you supplied a bogus email address.
   • Accept the default role of Subscriber.
   • Click Add New User.
3. Correct the new User’s role:
   • In the Users panel, search for the new user and open that user for editing.
   • Locate the Role box and select Administrator or No role for this website from the dropdown list.
   • Scroll down to the bottom of the edit panel and click the Update User button.

Opening the Dashboard