When you select an existing piece or composer entry from your directory listings (or create a new one using the New > Listing option at the top), WordPress will put you into the edit screen. I won’t attempt to describe all the details of WordPress’ block editor. You’ll have to do some research yourself. But I will describe the basic layout of the information.
A quick note about WordPress’ publishing cycle. When you create a listing, you can either save it as a draft, which stays private for the moment, or click Publish to make it public. Remember to take this step each time you make changes. As described below, the Publish button may be greyed out if certain validation steps fail.
Title and Description
At the top of the page, in the middle, are the title and description of the entry. You use the standard WordPress block editor to enter information. Since you want people to know as much as possible, feel free to include a large amount of detail in the description.
One unfortunate side effect of the plugin that we are using to manage the listing is that you cannot use normal WordPress embeds to put video and audio on the page. It will look like it’s working on the editor screen, but when you view the entry in the catalog, you won’t see the media. Instead, you must use old-fashioned WordPress short codes, like so (but in square brackets, to turn it into a short code):
video src=”https://youtu.be/taa6o6QC058″
This is not as flexible as normal embeds, but it gets the job done.
Right Sidebar
To the right of the description area is a sidebar with several panes. Normally, Listing and Block. The Block pane has information about the selected block in the description. The Listing pane has information about the listing as a whole.
One of the things in the listing pane is the area where listing categories and tags are entered. Don’t use this! I have implemented various logic and error checking that automatically intuits the correct categories and tags from the listing information. Leave the categories and tags alone, and let the website do its work. As a side effect of this code, the Listing pane must be showing in order to save changes. This is very strange, I know. If you dismiss the side pane, you can bring it back using the gear icon at the top right.
One thing you do need to do on the right sidebar is OK the pricing plan. Currently, all the plans are free, but for some reason it appears that the software needs a confirmation. Scroll down to the Listing Information section and, under Plan Details, click any OK button you see there to set the pricing plan. If it already says that the plan is “Piece Listing,” with an option to change it, you should be good.
Yoast SEO Area
Scrolling down below the description, you will find the Yoast SEO area, which displays information generated and used by the Yoast plugin. I know nothing about this. Jamie Klenetsky Fay installed it, and Business Directory Plugin has integration with it, so the information shows up. Ask her for more information if you are interested.
Images
Finally, scrolling past the Yoast area, you will see the fields and images associated with the listing. You choose between the two by clicking on Fields or Images at the top of the area. I won’t cover much information about images here. You have the option to upload an image that will be displayed next to the entry in the catalog. If you browse the catalog, you should see some examples of this. A small thumbnail, 400×400 or so, should be sufficient. No need for a huge, high-quality image.
Fields
The fields area, also at the bottom of the page, is where the magic happens. You enter information about long the piece is, how difficult it is, who the composer is, and so on. The system automatically turns that into the searchable categories and tags in the catalog.
There is error detection in some fields. For instance, if you enter an invalid number of minutes, the field will turn red. If you enter an unknown language, the field will turn yellow, indicating that we’ll let you save the listing, but we don’t recognize the language, and will treat it as “other”. Hovering over a red or yellow field will bring up an error or warning message.
If the Update button in the upper right is disabled, it means there’s an error somewhere, or else the right-side pane is set to Block instead of Listing or the right-side pane is minimized (as described earlier, use the gear icon to display the pane if you dismissed it for some reason).
See our separate pages about the fields appropriate to pieces and composers: