Why Wordpress?

While I have listed other easy and inexpensive ways for artists to create online portfolios, I urge you to consider using Wordpress with a theme. Wordpress uses open-source technologies, is open-source itself, and is backed up by a generous, enthusiastic, and active community of developers, designers and users. Unlike blogs and paid web services you will have total control over the content and design. Websites grow and develop over time. To remain affordable, many of the other alternatives are inevitably standardized and limit what can be done with them. While WPFolio is also limited and standardized, you can alter its template or change themes as your artwork changes and develops. Once you have entered your content (text, images, video, etc.) in a Wordpress site, it is easy to change the layout, design, structure and navigation of the site, without having to enter the content again. Because it is so flexible and extensible, ultimately a Wordpress site could better reflect the creativity and do-it-yourself spirit of your artwork.

Student Examples using WPFolio

Nathanael S. Absher
Amanda Stohl Hendershot
Chrissie Carlson
John Emmerich
Jennifer Cheek

Other Wordpress Templates

With Wordpress it is easy to experiment. Download a theme and activate the new theme by going to Appearance->Themes in the Wordpress Admin. Try out different themes with the same content. See how they look. It is easy to change back to WPFolio if the new one does not work out.

Some of the following themes cost money and they are all created for photography but could easily be tweaked to be used for any form of art.

Viso
Aperture
Photo Blog
Flashlike Photographer
Modularity
FolioBlogger
AutoFocus
Photocrati Themes
PhotoMinimal (using Flickr)

Now, onto the tutorial, in earnest. But remember to come back to this page and try out some other themes.

Plant Body, Animal Body

Review at RomanovGrave.com

Cavin Morris Gallery

December 3, 2009- January 16, 2010

Opening: Thursday, December 3rd, 6:00 – 8:00

Hyungsub Shin	Daniel Wiener

Artists include:

Jose Bedia, Mort Golub, Keith Goodhart, Yuko Oda, Lubos Plny, Tim Rowan, Christine Sefolosha, Hyungshib Shin, Ignacio Carles-Tolra, Ryo Tohonaga, Daniel Wiener and Gregory Van Maanen

210 Eleventh Avenue, Suite 201, New York, NY, 10001

T 212.226.3769 | F 212.226.0155 | info@cavinmorris.com

In the Case Study | Eye / World

Curated by: Emily Cheng and Michelle Loh

Opening: Sunday, November 22nd, from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Triple Candie (map)

An antique museum case. 72 glass-topped drawers. 72 ways of visualizing the world. Big picture / tiny space. Artists, musicians, mathematicians, curators, writers, philosophers, others.

November 22, 2009 through January 17, 2010

Including:
Thomas Allsopp, Pau Atela, Gudjon Bjarnason, Mathieu Borysevicz, Alison Bradley, Helen Brough, Johnson Chang, Alexandra Chang and Matthew Hocknos, Long-Bin Chen, Margaret Cogswell, Lois Conner, Lisa Corrine Davis, Santiago Cucullu, Robin Dash, Julie Evans, Mary Evans, Solange Fabiao, Jane Fine, Richard Gien, Richard Gluckman, Deborah Grant, Joanne Greenbaum, Alex Grey, Wenda Gu, Ingo Gunther, Jane Hammond, Julie Hefernan, Betti-Sue Hertz, Jene Highstein, Satch Hoyt, Peter Hristoff, Tom Huhn, David Henry Hwang, Soojung Hyun and Robert Morgan, Richard Jochum, David Judelson, Hoon Jung, Elaine King, Ellen Lanyon, Bing Lee, Nichole Lin and Joe Hill, Sarat Maharaj, Katy Martin, Iris Moon, John Moore, Robert Oxnam, Gary Peterson, Steven Rand, Renee Riccardo and Paul Laster, Lordy Rodriguez, Diane Samuels, Joachim Schmid, Barbara Segal, Varvara Shavrova, Ward Shelly, Eric Shiner, Francesco Siqueiros, Franklin Sirmans, Alan Sondheim, Gary Stephan, Wash SyCip, Elaine Tin Nyo, Jaret Vadera, Richard Vine, Ken Wahl, Sarah Walker, Ryszard Wasko, Lilly Wei, Daniel Weiner, Elga Wimmer, Sally Wu and Christopher Phillips, O Zhang

Location & Hours

Triple Candie is located at 500 West 148th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam) in Harlem
Open Thursday – Sunday, 1:00 – 6:00 p.m.

View Map

About Triple Candie

Founded in 2001, Triple Candie is a nonprofit exhibition space in Harlem. By and large, it presents exhibitions about art that are devoid of art – Eye / World being a possible recent exception. For more information visit www.triplecandie.org or call 212.368.3333

For more emphatic guidelines for publicists, which also may be helpful for artists, read Dear Publicists.

In-depth Articles and Tips on creating email campaigns. (Probably overkill for most artists). And 24 Ways has posted a tutorial for producing html emails.

Do Create a Descriptive Subject Line

It is important to have a clear and inclusive subject line. At the least, include your name, the venue name and date in the subject line.

Emails get lost in overly-filled inboxes. Invitees should be able to easily spot your invitation in their long list of emails.

Don’t Use a Vague Subject Line

Don’t use vague or general Subject Lines like "exhibition", "group show" or "hello".

Don’t FWD: or RE: your gallery’s invite. Make a new email and copy and paste the information into it.

Do Include All Information as Text.

Even if information about the show is in an image, also include it as text. Text is easier to use and store on a computer. Users can copy and paste text into their calendar. Text is easier to see on mobile devices.

For example in Apple’s email client, Mail, it is easy and convenient to save text to iCal. Place the cursor over the date and when the dashed border appears, right-click or control-click the arrow and choose "Create New iCal Event…" and add/modify information.

Be sure to include the name of the show, the gallery, location, duration, date and time of the reception and the url of the gallery. As you probably know if you write out the full url with http:// the url will become a link in most email programs. This will make it easy for invitees to quickly retreive more information about your show.

Do format the text.

Do format the text so that it is easy to read and use white space generously to improve legibility.

Each item should be separated by a line return or line space.

For example:

Name of Show

October 24 – December 5, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24th, 5-7pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 6pm

GALLERY NAME
16 E. Name of Street, ground floor
City State 10075
t 212 111.2222

http://www.galleryname.com

Some more tips on formatting plain text.

Don’t Add Unnecessary Text

Don’t add unnecessary text, such as apologies. Email invitations are now the norm. Don’t include lengthy press releases for your friends and colleagues. Make a separate mailing list for the press.

Do Attach an Image (or Two)

Include an image of your work or an image of the invitation. Images should not be more than 600 pixels wide or high. Some email clients have very limited horizontal space and there is nothing worse than the horizontal scrolling of an image. Generally images should be jpegs and 72dpi. And the file size should be no more than 300kb. Less would be better.

Please be aware that the default for most email programs for the desktop or online do not show images by default. This is another reason you should always include text of the important information.

If you are using Mac Mail, when adding an attachment be sure to check "Send Windows-Friendly Attachment".

Other email programs and online services will have an equivalent option.

Don’t include too many images, big files or unusual file types.

Be kind to your email list and don’t weight them down with dozens of large files that take up disk space and take a long time to download.

The entire email, including images and text, should not exceed 500kb (.5MB) (the smaller the better). Don’t send print-ready images. Don’t send .psd, .tif, .pdf, video files, word files, illustrator files, etc. To be safe only send jpegs. All email programs and on all platforms will render jpegs but may not read other file formats.

Optional: Do Use an Email Service Provider

This tutorial is meant for artists using their own email program, but there are services which will help manage your email list and offer html templates for creating more designed emails. Naturally they do this for a fee. They offer many features and can make batch emails easier and prettier and also include tracking and statistics. It could be a good idea for a group of artists to get together and purchase one of these services and combine their mailing lists.

Mail Chimp (recommended)
Constant Contact
iContact
MyEmma
SendLoop
Vertical Response

Don’t Use Html

Don’t use html in your email unless you really know what you are doing, in which case you won’t be reading this. If you want to use html use one of the services listed above.

Do Send Email Announcements

Don’t be reticent about sending out announcements by email. Feel free to send one reminder or a closing announcement.

Don’t Send Too Many Email Announcements.

As a rule of thumb don’t send more than 2 email announcements per show. It is very annoying to receive 6 reminders in a few weeks. You don’t want recipients to place your email address in their spam filter.

In Summary

Be specific. Be precise. Be brief.
Include details in text.
Optionally include a properly sized and compressed image.

Alternatives to GoDaddy

Below are some alternatives to GoDaddy, along with links to tutorials for installing Wordpress. While these hosts may be easier to use than GoDaddy, I have never used them and cannot help students and others troubleshoot the set-up process.

HostIcan
One-Click Self-Installation of WordPress with HostICan

Media Temple
1-Click Self-Installation of WordPress with Media Temple

DreamHost
One-Click Self-Installation of WordPress with DreamHost

BlueHost
One-Click Self-Installation of WordPress with Blue Host

Purchasing a Domain Name and a Web Site Hosting Plan:

Before you start you should choose your desired domain name, plus some alternatives if you your first choice is not available. And you should have your credit card and a little patience to deal with Go Daddy’s relentless marketing.

NOTE: Be careful when signing up with Go Daddy.

Be careful when signing up with Go Daddy. They will constantly ask you if you want extra stuff. Just keep saying NO and continue. !!!

NOTE: If you already own a domain name, only purchase the Hosting Plan.

If you already own a domain name, only purchase the Hosting Plan. Or if you are planning on using a paid portfolio service like iCompendium or ArtCat. only purchase the domain name. If you buy both domain name and hosting plan together there is a discount for the purchase of the domain name. My total cost for both was $17.14.

NOTE: Be patient and flexible

There may be variations to the signup process, described below. Be patient and flexible and you will figure it out.

NOTE: Be prepared for 4 username/passwords

By the time you finish with GoDaddy you will have 4 (yes that’s right FOUR!) different logons. Please have your usernames and passwords prepared beforehand and record them in a safe and secure place, in case you forget them.

You will have a username and a password for:
Logging onto Godaddy Account
Logging onto your hosting service (you will need this for FTP’ing files to your site)
Your MySql Database (you will rarely need this, but keep it, just the same)
Logging into Wordpress

Choose the Economy Unix Plan:

Choose the Unix Plan. Most of the underlying server software for Unix is open source (and we like that). And I won’t be able to help you if you choose the Windows plan, having never used a server on Windows.

Choose your hosting plan. The Economy plan will be fine for your needs. Click "Add".

Add Domain Name to your order

The next screen will be the Shopping Cart. Add your desired domain name and click "Go".

If your domain name is available click "Add and Proceed to Checkout". If it is not available choose one of their suggestions or try another domain name. Frequently you can add a dash or underscore between your first and last name to find an available domain name or add a descriptive word to your name, e.g. firstlast_art.com.

Just say NO.

The next screen will try to sell you stuff. It will look something like this:

Ignore this screen and click "Continue" towards the bottom of the screen.

Shopping Cart

Your shopping cart should look something like this: (be sure to choose the number of years, otherwise Go Daddy will charge you for 5 years.)

Scroll down this screen to the bottom. Check the form of payment and the 3 terms of service agreements and click "Continue with Checkout".

Fill in Name and Address, Payment Info and Username and Password.

The next screens are the typical ecommerce forms. Fill in your name and address and credit card info, etc. You will also be asked to create a username and password. These will be used to access your Go Daddy account. Later you will be asked to create another username and password. The second set will be used to access your the files on your website. Please don’t confuse the them.

Save your username and password, someplace secure. Do not forget them.

Skip Special Deals

The next screen will offer you Special Deals and has a tab for "Essential Next Steps". Please ignore both of these. See below:

Towards the top of this page you will see text saying "Thank you for your order". Click on the link "Login to Begin Using Your Products" to continue:

Log in to your Go Daddy account

Fill in username and password on the next screen.

Click the domain name you just purchased.

On the next page click "Hosting"

Add Hosting Account

Click "OK" in the dialog box. "Select Account" should show your the Hosting Account you just purchased.

Five Steps to set up Hosting Account

1) License. Check "I have read and agree to the Hosting Service Agreement" and then click "Next".

2) Login. Create username and password for your Hosting Account. (Don’t confuse it with your Go Daddy login). Follow the instructions for creating a strong password. Please save the username and password. You will need them to log in to save files to your website.Click "Next" in lower right hand corner.

3) Account Details. Summary of account details. Be sure to choose the domain name you just purchased. Click "Next".

4) Options. Leave as is. PHP.5 should be checked and Google Webmaster tools should be enabled. Click "Next".

5) Confirmation. A summary of your choices. If they are correct click "Finish".

You are done.

You should see a congratulations screen, which tells you that you will have to wait 24 hours for your site to be set up. Nothing more to do but wait.

Be sure to check for emails with pertinent information from Go Daddy. Please save them for future use. And please ignore emails with special offers.

Installing Wordpress

Go to http://www.godaddy.com
Sign in with your Go Daddy account username and password.

Click on "Hosting" in the left menu. (below the heading "My Products").

On the next screen, click on your domain name. This will take you to the main page of your hosting account.

On your hosting account page click on the "Your Applications" button, towards the top of the screen.

On the Your Applications page, click "Blogs" in the left hand menu and once it "Blogs" opens click "Wordpress".

On the Wordpress page, click "Install Now".

Follow the instructions on the 4 installations screens.

Select Hosting: Select the host for the correct domain name. You will probably only have one choice. Click Continue.

2. Setup New Hosting – use defaults

3. Configure installation: Follow the 3 steps – Set up Database, Choose Installation Directory, Configuration.

3a. Set up Database: GoDaddy will choose a username for your database and you will add a description and password for the database. You will rarely have to use this username/password combo, but because you are conscientious you will keep them somewhere safe. (If you followed my tutorial for signing up with GoDaddy this will be your third username/password pair). Click "Next".

3b) Choose install directory: I like to install Wordpress in a folder, rather than the root directory. If Wordpress is installed in a folder you will have more freedom creating a home page and can easily install other pages or applications in the root or other folders. It is also a good idea to give this folder a name appropriate to the content of your website. In this instance I use "art". Go Daddy creates this folder for you. (If you want to install Wordpress in the root folder, leave this field blank.) Click "Next".

NOTE: Installing Wordpress in its own folder, as recommended above, can cause a problem. If a user goes to http://www.yoursitename.com they will see a generic "Site Coming Soon" screen while the content of your site is located at http://www.yoursitename.com/folder-name/. There are 2 ways to solve this that are explained in the comment section below.

3c) Configuration: Configure WordPress. Create yet another username and password pair. (Your 4th if you have been following both tutorials). This username and password will be used to log into Wordpress. You will use them frequently. Save them and keep them in a safe place. Fill in an email address. The Wordpress application application frequently emails you information about your account – comments, lost passwords, etc. And give your site a title. In most instances that will be your name, but you can also add other information. e.g. John Doe- Paintings and Sculpture. The title will appear at the top of each page. You can change it later, if you wish. Click "Finish".

4) You are done. But you have to wait for GoDaddy to install Wordpress. It will take from one hour or more. Check "My Applications" to see if the installation is complete.

Check Wordpress:

Once GoDaddy has installed Wordpress for you, you can check the front page. If you created an install directory be sure to include that in your url. It should look something like
http://www.yourdomainname.com/wordpress_folder/ And you should see something like this:

Don’t worry, once you have installed WPFolio and images of your work, it will look much different.

And you can check the admin section of Wordpress as well. Go to:
http://www.yourdomainname.com/wordpress_folder/wp-admin/ Or to make it more explicit: for my test site I used the folder "art" to install Wordpress. So the admin section will be:

http://www.danielwiener.net/art/wp-admin/

Enter your Wordpress username and password and you should see a screen like this:

The next steps are explained in Configuring Wordpress, WPFolio and required plugins. Installing software will be finished soon, in one or 2 more steps, and then you will be creating your site and adding images and other content which will be more fun.

We are going to be learning about ftp and will install some more files necessary for WPFolio. The folks who created WPFolio also have instructions, if you would like to check them out.

Create root folder on your computer

Create a folder on your computer. This will be the root folder for the local mirror of your online site. Name the folder whatever you wish. If you are on a Mac, I recommend creating this folder in the Sites folder, for the sake of consistency.

Setting up Remote/Local Sites and FTP on Dreamweaver:

NOTE: If you understand FTP and already have an FTP client you can skip this step and just download the required files (WPFolio, Gallery Plus, etc.) and drag and drop them in the appropriate folders. See below.

Open Dreamweaver and choose Sites->New Sites from the top menu.

In the dialog box, choose the "Basic" option. Editing Files Step 1. Enter your site name and the url to your site. Click "Next".

In Editing Files Step 2 choose the radio button that says "No, I don’t want to use server technology." Click "Next".

Editing Files Step 3, choose to Edit Local Copies. Click the folder on the right of the text box to find the folder you created at the beginning of the tutorial. It will look something like this on a Mac. The path will look different on a PC. Click "Next".

Testing files. Use default. Don’t change. Click "Next".

Sharing Files. Enter information for connecting to your site with FTP. If your site ends with .org or another extension use that instead of .com. Enter you username and password. These should be the username/password pair for your GoDaddy hosting account – not your database, wordpress or goDaddy account username and password. I know this is a bit confusing but… Click "Test Connection" to check you have entered the correct information. Troubleshoot if it does not work right away.

Sharing Files Part 2 – Choose "No, do not enable check in and check out." Click "Next".

Check the Summary, then click "Done".

NOTE: Some hosts require “Passive FTP”. In Dreamweaver go to Sites->Manage Sites. Select your site, click “Edit”. In the dialog box choose “Advanced” and choose “Remote Info” from the drop-down list on the left. Then check “Passive FTP” and save and close dialog box.

Downloading remote files to mirrored local site.

Open the file browser. Go to "Files" from the Windows menu:

When the file browser is opened make sure that both the remote site and local site panels are open. It should look something like this:

With the file browser open click the Connect button:

When the remote files appear select the your WordPress folder or if you have uploaded the WordPress files to the root folder, select the files. You don’t need to select the folders/files that come with the GoDaddy install, e.g "cgi-bin", "php.ini", "stats", etc. Then click the green "Get Files" arrow to transfer the Wordpress files to your computer.

To "get" files means that you send them from the remote site (hosted by GoDaddy, in this instance) to your own computer, better known as "downloading". "Putting" files means to send them from your computer to the remote site, better known as "uploading". These terms are good to know, you don’t want to confuse them.

To download your WordPress files will take at least 5 minutes. (more if you are on dial-up) Dreamweaver gives you feedback about the progress of the download.

When the remote files are completely downloaded your file browser will look something like this:

Downloading WPFolio and required plugins.

Download the WPFolio template for Wordpress.
Go to:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes/wpfolio/ and click "Download". Save the wpfolio zip file in you local site folder in wp-content/themes, see below. Unzip the file.

Download the following to the "plugins" folder in "wp-content"
Gallery Plus – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/gallery-plus/
Contact Form 7 – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/
On the Eyebeam page of instructions that recommend Form something. I like and am familiar with Contact Form 7.
Lightbox 2 – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lightbox-2-wordpress-plugin/

Optional:
PHP Markdown – http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/
The Eyebeam site recommends using PHP Markdown. I am not going to cover it. If it looks promising to you download and install it.

If they are zip files, unzip them.

Uploading WPFolio

Back to Dreamweaver.

In the file browser, select "wpfolio" in "wp-content/themes" and click the blue arrow to "put" or upload "wpfolio" to the remote site.

Select "contact-form-7", "lightbox-2", "php-markup" and "gallery-plus" in "wp-content/plugins" and click the blue arrow to "put" or upload them to the remote site.

Ok. Now everything is downloaded. It is time to go to wordpress and configure WPFolio and the plugins.

NOTE: You can also take a look at Eyebeam.org’s instructions for WPFolio:
WPFolio Instructions

“http://dev.eyebeam.org/projects/wpfolio/wiki/WPFolio

Go to the admin section of your wordpress website.
the url will be something like:

http://www.yoursite.com/art/wp-admin

http://www.yoursite.com/wp-admin

Fill in your username and password for Wordpress. You will see the WordPress "dashboard".

Click "Appearance" in the left hand menu.

In the themes section click Activate beneath the WPFolio screenshot.

After you have activated WPFolio it will be highlighted as the Current Theme. You may return to the Appearance settings later for further configuration.

Enable Plugins.

Click Plugins on the left hand menu.

You will see a list of plugins. Click "Activate" for Gallery Plus, Lightbox and Contact Form 7 and PHP Markup if you have chosen to install it. You will not need to activate Askimet or Hello Dolly.

WordPress Configuration

General Settings

Click Settings in the left hand menu.

Enter a blog title, usually your name. The tagline is optional. Leave it empty if you wish. Change the timezone to UTC -5.

Don’t forget to click "Save Changes"

Writing, Reading, Discussion Settings

We will skip Writing, Reading, Discussion for now.

Media Settings

Click on "Media" in the "Settings" menu.

Change Large Size to 900 width and 600 height. The other settings should remain as the default.

Don’t forget to click "Save Changes"

Permalink Settings

Click Permalink in the Settings menu. Enter the following in "Custom Structure":
/%category%/%postname%


This will make the url more "friendly" and will be in everyday language.

Click "Save Changes".

For more information see Wordpress Docs on Permalinks. Technical problems can develop when creating friendly urls. This is probably caused by an .htaccess file that is not writable or does not exist. Read the Wordpess Docs on Permalinks to solve the problem. Most of the information you need will be in the section titled "Using ‘Pretty’ permalinks".

Miscellaneous Settings

Leave the Miscellaneous Setting as is.

Configuring Widgets

Now we will add a couple of widgets to the “navbar” to create an easy-to-update menu. The names of Categories and Pages will be the items in the your navigation. Aside from my instructions you can also read the instructions on the WPFolio Site

Click "Widgets" in the "Appearance" in the leftside menu.

In "Available Widgets" drag the "WPFolio Categories" banner to the "navbar".

Open WPFolio Categories Widget by clicking the triangle at the top right. To customize the order of the categories fill in the catgory slug names in the order you wish. Be sure to separate them with a comma. If you are unsure of the category slug name go to Posts->Categories to check them. A slug name will be the category name written in all lower case letters with an underscore replacing white space. Don’t forget to click "Save".

Note: A category will not appear on your website until it includes posts.

In "Available Widgets" drag the "Pages" banner to the "navbar". I recommend that you place "Pages" beneath the "WPFolio Categories" widget. Pages will then appear after Categories in your site navigation.

Ordering Pages – Pages can be ordered alphabetically by title, by their ID or you can customize their order by choosing "Page order" from the drop down list.

You can also exclude pages by adding their ID number.

Skip this step if you are not customizing the page order. To customize "Page" order, navigate to Pages->Edit Pages and click on a Page. Add the order number to "order" in the "Attributes" subpanel. Remember that Wordpress, like many digital products, starts with 0 and not with 1. Then "Update" your page.

Note: You may notice some comments regarding ordering categories in the menu. The instructions above should minimize those problems. If you need to customize your menu more than this I suggest you use the Menus Plus+ plugin. Read my tutorial on how to use Menus Plus+ with WPFolio for installation and usage instructions.

Gallery Plus Settings.

Click Gallery Plus in Settngs menu.

You may wish to change "Gallery Columns" from 3 to 4, depending on how you want the layout of your "galleries".
Check "Show Title in Link"

Check "Image overly package" and add "lightbox" in the text box.
Check "Only show gallery when single post"
Leave the rest as is.

There are 2 different kinds of entries in Wordpress – Posts and Pages.

Posts are organized in Categories and are meant for multiple entries of a similar kind. All artwork should be entered as Posts and included in a Category. For example a group of paintings completed between 2006 and 2007, would be uploaded to a post named “2006-2007″ and included in the category “Painting”. Later you might add another post, “2008-2009″, of recent paintings to the “Painting” category.

Pages are meant for single entry items, usually complete in themselves. Your bio, artist statement and contact info should probably be entered as Pages.

Creating Categories for the Navigation of your site.

Choosing category names and how they are used in WPFolio.

Categories organize your site and become menu items in the top menu.

Choose short words that are general and inclusive.

Choose categories that will work as your site expands and grows.

Do not create too many catgeories.

WPFolio navigation examples:

Category Suggestions:

Painting
Sculpture
Installations
Editions
Projects
Artwork,
etc.

Unless a series is large and includes many groups of work, don’t create Categories for series. Include them in posts (galleries) within the most appropriate Category.

Special WPFolio Categories that are formatted for text with inlines images, appropriate fore news and blogs:

News
Latest
Updates
Blog
Notable

I recommend creating at lease one category with one of those names as an all-purpose category to notify people about upcoming shows and reviews and the like.

Create Categories

Once you have decided which categories to use.

Click on “Categories” in the “Posts” menu.

On the Categories page enter your category and enter a category slug. The “slug” is what will appear in the url for that category. The slug should be lower case only without spaces. Use a dash “-” or an underscore “_” instead of a space. If you have a category “Recent Work” the slug will be “recent_work”. Add a description. And Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Also you should change “Uncategorized” to one of your navigation categories.

Change Setting for Default Category

One final change in regards to Categories. Return to Settings in the left hand menu and click “Writing”.

Change “Default Post Category” to your most commonly used category.

Click “Save Changes”.

Reminder: Make sure you choose a category when creating a Post.

Julian, A WPFolio User Wrote to Ask About Formatting The Category and Gallery Pages:

Thank you so much for your post. Its much easier to follow than the ‘official’ guide.

I have one question I hope you might know the answer too.

In the text at the bottom of my gallery pages is the permalink. How can I remove this? Or change it to the post title?

I Answered:

I am glad you found my tutorial useful.

In the admin section of Wordpress go to Appearance->Editor.

Click on Main Index Template, index.php in the right hand menu.

Find the section that looks like this:

 <div class="posted">
   <b><?php the_title(); ?></b>  | <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="Permalink"><?php the_time('Y') ?></a> | <?php the_category(', '); ?>
    <?php the_tags('| Tags: ',', ',''); ?>  <?php comments_popup_link(__('| Comments (0)'), __('| Comments (1)'), __('| Comments (%)'), __(''), __('')); ?>
    <?php edit_post_link('edit this entry', '<br /><span class="adminuser">', '</span>'); ?> <!--USER EDIT LINK-->
    </div>

To delete it I usually “comment” it out rather than delete, in case you change your mind at a later date. To comment it out add <!– at the beginning and –> at the end. So that it looks like this.

 <!-- <div class="posted"> 

    <b><?php the_title(); ?></b>  | <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="Permalink"><?php the_time('Y') ?></a> | <?php the_category(', '); ?>
     <?php the_tags('| Tags: ',', ',''); ?>  <?php comments_popup_link(__('| Comments (0)'), __('| Comments (1)'), __('| Comments (%)'), __(''), __('')); ?>
    <?php edit_post_link('edit this entry', '<br /><span class="adminuser">', '</span>'); ?> <!--USER EDIT LINK-->

    </div>
    <br /><br /> -->

If you want to rearrange it a bit. You could do something like the following. I made the title a link, commented out the archive page (2009) and kept comments the same. I think if you look at the php you will be able to figure out what it refers to e.g. <?php the_title(); ?> is the title, etc. Wordpress has a good list of all the template tags if you want to go deeper.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags

 <div class="posted">
    <b><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="
    <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></b>>
    <!-- | <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="Permalink"><?php the_time('Y') ?></a> | <?php the_category(', '); ?> <?php the_tags('| Tags: ',', ',''); ?> -->
  <?php comments_popup_link(__('| Comments (0)'), __('| Comments (1)'), __('| Comments (%)'), __(''), __('')); ?>

  <?php edit_post_link('edit this entry', '<br /><span class="adminuser">', '</span>'); ?> <!--USER EDIT LINK-->
  </div>
  <br /><br />

I hope this helps.

You can view his finished site at http://mariancarow.com/.

Before you upload images to your site they need to be sized, color-corrected and exported as jpegs. Color correct you image for the screen. In order to fit on most screens using "lightbox" images should have a maximum width of 900px and a maximum height of 600px. Images should be 72dpi and exported as a medium high quality jpeg. Don’t export them at 99% quality. The final image will be between 50KB and 100KB. Wordpress with Gallery-Plus will create thumbnails for you.

Both Photoshop and Fireworks offer batch processing, which can automate some of this tedious work.

I recommend that you organize your image files in folders as you want them to appear online so it will be easy to access them as you upload them.

NOTE: You will have better luck if your file names, include the proper extension, jpg, etc and have no white space or unusual characters, e.g. $#^,"" . It is best if the names include only letters, numbers, underscore and dashes.

Adding Images to a Post and Creating a "Gallery"

Click on "Posts" in the left hand menu of Wordpress.
Click "New Post"
Make sure you choose the category for the post, in the right hand sidebar.

Add a title for the the group of images being uploaded, e.g. "Recent Sculpture",
"River Series", etc.
Click the small image icon above the "post" text box, shown below:

An overlay dialog box appears. Click Select Files

Navigate to the images you wish to upload and select them.
You can select multiple files.

Watch the images as they upload. It will be quick if you have broadband.
Click "Save All Changes" and the screen will refresh in the Gallery tab.

NOTE: I have noticed a glitch. If you are uploading large files or many files at the same time, the gallery tab does not appear. Try uploading one image first. Then repeat the process selecting multiple files from your computer. This method seems to force the software to create a gallery.

Leave the other gallery options, as is.

You may want to change the number of Gallery Columns depending on the layout of your page.
You will return to this screen later to add more information like title, media, size to your images.

Click "Insert Gallery".

After returning to the post page Click "Publish" on the right side of the page.
Click "View Post" to check the page.
You should see a page with several rows of thumbnails cropped to 150 x 150 pixels.
Click the thumbnails and see the lightbox in action.

Adding the title, media, date and size of each artwork

In the admin sectio of Wordpress return to the post you just created.
In the text box, click the yellow gallery icon and then click the image icon to edit the gallery (see below).

In the overlay dialog box click "show" next to an image.

Add title, media, size and date to "Title". (As you get to know Wordpress, you may want to use the other options. For now, leave them as is.)

Repeat this process with all your images.
Once you have finished click "Save All Changes", at the bottom of the list of images.

Don’t forget to do this or your titles will be lost and you will have to enter them again.

Exit the dialog box and click "Update Post".

Check your page by clicking "View Post". The title, etc. only appears in the "lightbox", not below the thumbnails.

Repeat to create more "galleries".