WordPress.com

1. jailenegambaro
   Member
   Nov 9, 2012, 1:24 AM

   I am beyond flustered. Every single time I try making any reasonable adjustment to my WordPress a beautiful $$$ comes up! Is there no way to actually personalize your WordPress without paying? This is simply a test run for me. I don't want to pay then realize I actually don't want a blog. Also it's difficult to understand what some of the appearance changes do because the changes don't preview. I've also googled this for what has felt like hours...what does the menu do? I thought it was what created another page like the About Me, but I'm mistaken but I still don't see any changes when I add a menu.

   The blog I need help with is jailenegambaro.wordpress.com.

2. auxclass
   Member
   Nov 9, 2012, 1:36 AM

   Here is some help getting started - the second link should help you with menus - others are better with the guides for you to get started than I am - but the links below should get you started -

   http://learn.wordpress.com/

   the support documents main page: http://en.support.wordpress.com/

   Menus: http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/

   The blog I need help with is jailenegambaro.wordpress.com.

3. 1tess
   Moderator
   Nov 9, 2012, 2:04 AM

   As a two hour old blogger on WordPress, I'd recommend that it is well worth your time to work your way through this tutorial. It will help you understand some of the very basics of this platform.
   http://learn.wordpress.com/

   Another thing I would suggest is to just jump in and start. I've changed my themes many times over the years, and not a single one is perfect! If you are reluctant to put on a public display, then make yourself a test blog which you keep private to you can experiment with various features.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/
   choose this option:

   I would like my blog to be visible only to users I choose – Select this option to create a private blog.

   You asked:

   Is there no way to actually personalize your WordPress without paying?

   There certainly is. In fact unless you are familiar with CSS (cascading style sheets) that "design upgrade" (or others) will only cause you frustration. Many themes allow you to have custom headers, custom background colors, custom background images…

4. 1tess
   Moderator
   Nov 9, 2012, 2:12 AM

   You asked:

   what does the menu do?

   The menu for your blog allows you to show published pages. The wordpress.com platform allows you to add pages which will automatically appear in the navigation bar of the theme you choose.

   I've also googled this for what has felt like hours

   You are most likely not aware that there are different flavors of wordpress, and most of the google info refers to wp.ORG rather than this free wp.COM.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

   If you are searching for answers about wp.COM you can ask specific technical questions here in these forums. The other great resource is the Support documentation linked at the top of these forums:
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/
   They are searchable, to a degree. If you don't find what you need, then ask here in these forums. We volunteers are happy to help. For that matter, just reading the forums is useful to give you ideas and solutions for things you never even considered.

5. 1tess
   Moderator
   Nov 9, 2012, 2:21 AM

   And with regard to your question about menus, one of them most important things to understand is that you cannot "post to a page." Posts and pages are fundamentally different.
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/
   This well-written article has helps lots of new bloggers to understand:
   http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/posts-on-pages/

   Use categories to organize your posts. Then make a custom menu. There are links in that article about using categories and making custom menus, but read that article first.
   More info here:
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/
   http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/

6. auxclass
   Member
   Nov 9, 2012, 2:21 AM

   Good point Tess

   When I started with a WordPress.ORG install - one way that I learned was to read the forums - most questions come around every few days - some questions are so common that some of us that help in the forum on a regular basis have a file of answers and copy and past them - when I moved my site here I had been reading the forum for some time to get hints - saved me a lot of problems

7. 1tess
   Moderator
   Nov 9, 2012, 2:23 AM

   Perhaps the most important question is
   what do you want in your blog?

   It's ultimately up to you, but if you have something specific, then please post here and someone will be sure to help.

8. jailenegambaro
   Member
   Nov 10, 2012, 11:34 PM

   Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I expected to somehow be notified that this forum had a reply but didn't get one (unless it's in my email).

   I have been playing around with the blog and figured out a theme that I liked, but I still don't really get how to work the pages and post.

   I was looking through other blogs cause I thought maybe it was my theme not allowing me the option. I want to have a page that is kind of like an organizer for certain topics on my blog. I would only have two pages and in those pages all the post would be organized.

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