The Jetpack plug-in adds to the available list of blocks. I already tried the Instagram block in the Formatting post. Apparent there are a few more goodies:
Creating slideshows
Using Jetpack’s Slideshow block:
Adding Animated GIFs
Using the GIF block:
Building Forms
Use the Form block . . . not very useful; the custom option does not seem to be operative. But look! checkboxes!
Hm. Just filled out the form but have not yet received the e-mail notification. Maybe it went to the junk folder?
Using Jetpack widgets
Reportedly there are about 20 of them. You have to turn them on first in settings, though. BRB.
Will explore these in Chapter 12 of the MM book . . .
Adding sharing buttons to all your posts
Did this via Jetpack and then through admin on WordPress.com. Note: You can tell wordpress.com to add the social-media buttons to items such as lessons, courses, assignments, etc.!
The missing manual book mentions adding a print button as well, but I cannot find that option . . . Nevermind, found it. Eager to test it out.
Changing where share buttons appear.
Can we bring them further up? Limit the posts on whence they appear? Ah, no, that means we can only change the types of content upon which they appear. (Posts, pages, archives, etc.)
Oh, but you can turn off sharing on a post by post basis. Could be tedious. The controls are revealed by clicking the Jetpack icon in the top-right corner of the page/post editor. I’ll remove the likes for this page only.
Letting people like your site
Actually, don’t do this unless you also already have a Facebook presence and the like.
Keeping readers in the loop
Encourage repeat visits. Let readers subscribe for notifications of new posts, etc. Probably not relevant right now. Maybe just a “nice to have”
Emailing subscribers
But don’t harass them by sending out too many e-mails. Get the e-mail addresses of subscribers through Jetpack. For broader power, consider a service like Mailchimp or something. ($$$$). Or the Subscribe2 plugin. But really, this conversation isn’t all that relevant to the capstone project.
Publicizing your posts on social media
Again, irrelevant for now? Sharing = readers do the posting on social media. Publicizing = YOU do the posting.
SEO, site statistics, etc.
Again, later!!!!!! Mostly Google-related stuff.
This was an awesome post! I cannot wait to read more of them.
Me again. Just want to test the HTML think.
But why, you ask?
Well:
(Edited by the moderator to include unordered list formatting.)
This is a comment I am leaving AFTER the social logins feature of Jetpack was turned on. I’ll use my Facebook ID.
Actually, that didn’t seem to work. I just logged into Facebook in this browser and am trying again . . . Nope, it does not seem to be allowing me to use my FB credentials.