OSU Authentic is the preferred theme for administrative departments, programs and academic units and will be available only for the Faculty, Staff and Department blogs. This theme contains features that allow it to function as a small website, a blog or an online newsletter.

Accessing the administrative features

As with any WordPress blog, reach the administrative page by typing “/wp-admin” at the end of your blog’s URL. For blogs.oregonstate.edu users, that would be: blogs.oregonstate.edu/YOURBLOGNAME/wp-admin.

Widgets and regions

The Authentic theme contains a number of custom widgets and layout regions that can be accessed through the administrative panel. These widgets allow for customization of your blog. To access widgets, go to your blog’s administrative page and select Appearance > Widgets from the right-hand menu.

Through using widgets and regions, you’ll be able to customize your layout to create a distinct front page for your blog and to give it a newsletter feel.

Feature

The feature region can be used to create a front-page image or to highlight a feature blog post. You can add a feature region by dragging the Home Page Feature widget to the feature region in the widgets control panel.

You will be asked to input a link to an online image. This image should be exactly 620 pixels in width and roughly 250 pixels in height. The height can be variable, but the width is fixed.

You will also be able to input a link to a blog post or other page or site. Finally, you can input a caption to appear below the photo.

Sub-features

This area is for highlighting three separate pages of your site or within your program or department. You create this space by dragging the Home Page Sub Level Features widget into the sub-features region on the Widget panel.

You must choose 3 photos of exactly 200 pixels in width and 72 pixels in height. These photos can exist online in your blog’s media library or elsewhere on the web. You will also be required to input a link for each photo, and a caption. It provides a great opportunity to highlight different posts or pages within your blog on the home page of your site.

Sub-features can be used with the feature or separately.

Middle and right sidebars

You can customize the content of middle and right sidebars to suit your needs using all of the default widgets that WordPress provides.

Middle sidebars only appear on the blog’s home page and on blog post pages. It does not appear on blog pages.

Contact information

This widget allows you to customize the contact information appearing in the blog’s lower-left-hand corner.

This information comes from the OSU Brand Guidelines.  You can read more about this theme and see a video tutorial on the Brand Guidelines WordPress Themes page.