- Note the name of the site, or domain name at the top. We'll be changing this soon in our setup, as this is also how it displays on the site, not what we want in this case.
- The tabs across just under the name are where we will normally be going for all of our maintenance and content tasks.
Write - We write posts and page content from this location.
Manage - There are a great many sub-options available from this tab, but all are related to managing already existing posts, pages, links and categories.
Design - Our basic theme, colors, layout and other design options are managed here.
Comments - When visitors comment on your posts, there are various ways you can treat and manage comments, all accessed from here.
Settings - There will be a large number of sub-selections here, from how posts will appear to settings having to do with specific plugins. We'll go into a great deal of detail on this section later.
Plugins - Plugins add special functionality to our site. They are found all over the web, written by third parties, uploaded to our site, and used to enhance our visitors' experience or to improve management.
Users - Once you start getting subscribers and guest authors, you'll manage their access and permissions here.
Other than the large buttons on the right for adding a new post or page, the rest of the Dashboard is a status snapshot of your blog. You'll see recent comments from visitors, any new links sites have added back to your site and a lot of WordPress specific announcements about new versions or new features and plugins that are available.
This was a quick overview of your Dashboard. Now we'll take each tab or link, and go to that area for a more detailed look at taking our blog through its paces.