On the WordPress platform, there are two types of content: Pages and Post Types. This article will run over the nature of both and help distinguish between the two in later tutorials.
In WordPress, when you talk about Pages, it’s not the same as with other platforms, such as ASP.NET or straight HTML. On those platforms, pages are individually crafted things which can usually only be built by a developer. WordPress allows the user to simply and easily create as many pages as you want at the click of a button.
Pages, in their most raw nature, are each page you see on a website that has a template applied to it. The Home Page has it’s Home Template, the Contact Page has it’s Contact Template. Each template governs what appears on each page aside from the header and footer allowing the creation of custom content for the user. This does not include areas such as News or Products, which we’ll get into later.
The Home or Content pages obviously have unique content, such as a large slideshow, a Google Map, forms or Jump Points, which are separate to the page itself (but created within the template) and as such as set in stone in a regular website. The kind of Page you, as a client, will be dealing with is the Typical.
By default, creating a page creates a Typical Page. These pages are pre-formatted to show the information typed into the WYSIWIG box. There are a few other features, but these will be discussed in further tutorials. The primary function of the Typical page is raw information. Most of the time, they allow the attaching of Galleries and Slideshows, but essentially it all boils down to what you type in that box.
Pages themselves are differentiated by the fact that they are what we call Abstract Objects. These Abstract Objects are things within the website that – when created – simply exist on their own (unless attached to another page as a child). This means that when pages are created, they cannot be accessed by a visitor to the site unless they are placed in a menu through the Menu Manager. They have no date, tag, category or author applied to them.
A Post Type may appear the same as a Page in terms of editing in the CMS (Content Management System), but the difference comes from the way they appear on the website.
Posts allow the creation of content that fits in a certain section, which can have parameters applied to it for various reasons; such as time and date, category, tag or author. Normally, creating a Post in a Post Type (eg and Article [post] for the News Section [post type]) simply displays those posts on the Post Type Template (which is in this case, the news page.
This means that unlike Pages, Posts are Physical Objects in that their creation is instantly applied to a pre-determined section of the website. A Post Type is simply the section of the website that each post is applied to, such as News, Portfolio, Staff, Products or Jump Points. Each of these Post Types have their own set of Categories, which can be used to narrow down the list of Posts when the User clicks on one.
These Categories are like holders of Posts, but can only be seen naturally on a website through the Post itself (such as when a news article lists the Category it is in). As such, Categories also need to be placed in the Website’s meny through the Meny Manager, which we will follow up in another article.
Some Post Types don’t even need categories, such as Jump Points. These are the easiest to manage, as much of the time they are three or four fields to fill out and they simply appear in the order they are created (with the ability to rearrange them).
So there you have it, a summary of Post Types and Pages! It may seem confusing now, but through use of the website and subsequent tutorials (which will be listed below as they are completed), things will become clear.