How to manage user accounts in your WordPress Blog

The software is installed and running, and you've logged in to WordPress as an administrator. I bet that you think it's time to blog about something, right? Not so fast, Sparky. First things first: You need to change the password for the admin user and create a user account for yourself. Why not just use the default admin user account that was created during the installation? Many people do, because it requires the least effort, but best practice is to use that admin account for administrative tasks only. That way, you don't have to do any tricks to get posts attributed to your name instead of the admin user name; all the user roles are clear from the get-go.

Managing User Profiles

The first time you log in to WordPress, you see the Control Panel. The Control Panel is the control center for your blog-the place where you access all sorts of options, statistics, and settings. Resist the urge to click all over this feature with wild abandon, and focus your attention on the options in the top-right corner: Settings, Plugins, and Users. Your first order of business is to check out the default user profile, so click Users to open the Manage Users panel. When you open this panel, it lists only one user, called admin, but all the users of your WordPress Blog will be listed here eventually. You'll use this panel to add new users and to change the profiles of existing users.

Changing a user profile

You can change a user's profile in either of two ways:

• Editing yourself. If you want to edit the account under which you're currently logged in, click the Your Profile hyperlink at the top of the page.
• Editing someone else. To edit another user's information, click that person's user name.

Either way, you end up on the Your Profile and Personal Options page, which has a bevy of options for you to set.

Setting profile options

The profile options are grouped together, though I think the order of the options is a little odd. I'd rather have the password options closer to the top of the page, for example. Something tells me that you're more likely to change your password than your user name.

Visual Editor and Admin Color Scheme

You can set two visual aspects of the blog in your user profile: the Visual Editor and the Admin Color Scheme.

Visual Editor. WordPress posts are written in HTML, which is the tag-based language that Web pages are written in. Web browsers know how to interpret this code into the lovely words and images you read on people's blogs and Web sites. The only problem is that not everyone knows HTML; in fact, some people aren't interested in learning about HTML. They want to blog, not code. That's where the WordPress Visual Editor comes in. The Visual Editor option turns the WordPress blog posting form into a WYSIWYG editor. A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor allows you to do things like insert hyperlinks, format text, and create lists, using controls that are familiar to anyone who's ever edited a document in a word processor. Visual Editor generates all the HTML code for you, so that you can concentrate on writing that great blog post about your weekend.

Why even have an option to turn off Visual Editor? Before this feature was introduced in WordPress version 2, users had to handcode their posts, and some people still like handcrafting their HTML. If you agree with them, simply clear this check box.

Admin Color Scheme. You have two color-scheme choices for the WordPress admin interface. The Classic option will be familiar to anyone who's used previous versions of WordPress; the Fresh option is a relatively new color scheme that's a bit lighter. WordPress doesn't give you an easy way to create your own color schemes, which is a shame, but free add-ons to WordPress called plug-ins let you color to your heart's content.

The color schemes, as well as everything else listed in the Your Profile and Personal Options page, are applied on a per-user basis. That means that I can choose to use the Classic color scheme, and another user of the same WordPress Blog can pick Fresh. Everybody wins.

Name. WordPress is very flexible in the way it displays a user name; you just have to be sure to fill in as much information as possible to gain maximum flexibility. WordPress can't display any information you haven't entered. You can set these options:

• Username. You can't change this setting for the admin user. This user name is the one you'll use to log in to WordPress. Like your password, it's case sensitive.
• First Name. The user's first name goes in this text box. This setting is optional, though filling in the text box gives you more name-display options, because WordPress won't be able to display your first name if it doesn't know what your first name is.
• Last Name. The user's last name is also optional.
• Nickname. We're all familiar with the concept of nicknames. The WordPress nickname option is just a name, other than user name or first name/last name, that you want to go by on your WordPress Blog. You can have comments or blog posts credited to your nickname instead of your user name or real name.
• Display Name Publicly As. This setting is where that Nickname option pays off. You can choose to have your name displayed on blog posts and comments in a few ways: username, nickname, first name only, first name last, or last name first.

The Contact Info part is straightforward, so I don't need to walk you through each option. Note, however, that an e-mail address is required so WordPress can send you notifications. A variety of theme tweaks and plug-ins can help you take advantage of contact information later-perhaps by displaying instant-messaging user names on comments or user pages-so fill in as much or as little of this information as you're comfortable with.

About Yourself. Providing biographical info is optional, but as the Web becomes more of a social place, it's nice to share a little bit about yourself with your readers. The New Password part, however, is required. Changing your WordPress password is simple: Enter your new password twice, and click Update Profile. Clicking this button also saves the rest of the changes you made to your profile. If you want to change something in your profile but don't want to alter your password just leave both password boxes empty. The changes to your profile will be saved, and your password will remain the same. Notice the Password Strength indicator below the password text boxes. This feature helps you pick a strong password but won't stop you from setting a weak password.

The best passwords are long, complicated, and hard to guess. Don't use something common like password or your birthday. Do use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.