Frequently Asked Questions

1. We are happy with our current website, will we be forced to move?
    
   Absolutely not.  The WordPress sites are meant to be another tool in the toolbox for our class, chapter, and parent club leaders.  If your organization already has an effective, up-to-date website with which you are quite satisfied, stay with what you want to stay with.

   On the other hand, if your site is HTML based, requires proprietary (often no longer supported) software for your webmaster to maintain, and none of the org leadership can make small updates or changes AND you webmaster tells you that your site should stay where it is, there is an appearance that you webmaster is concerned about control than effective communications to your constituents.

    

2. Are all chapter, class and parent club website names now ending in .net vice .com?
    
    No, only classes, chapters and parents clubs which have completed setting up a site on the WordPress networks have changed their domain names to one of the .net sites.  Otherwise, they are where they have been.  Classes, chapters and parent clubs may also elect to keep their legacy .com site alive for historical purposes.

   If you try to find a chapter, class or parent club on the new .net site before it exists, you will land on the network home page with the network directory.

    

3. We want the ease of WordPress, but it is missing a key feature of our current site (perhaps such as an interactive membership directory or extensive photo galleries), how do we migrate the feature into the WordPress site?
    
    The WordPress network sites are not intended to replace membership directories nor photo galleries, but you can very easily integrate those features of an existing site right into your menu structure of your wordpress site. Direct links can be added to any of the menus (top tabs, or left side) or in page text.
    

4. Can we try out a WordPress site first to see if it suits our needs without committing to a change?
    
    Certainly.  And once your site is set up for a test drive, you can take all the time you need to learn your way around (not much needed) and to get enough information onto your site to know whether or not you want to stay with what you already have.
    

5. We currently have our own domain, can we continue to use it with a site on the network?
    
    No, but you can forward from that domain to the WordPress network. Technically, this is because we use wildcard DNS to route to the subdomain on the networks (learn more about subdomains on our getting started page).  There is a complex work around for other URLs using our hosting Domain Name Servers which require domain remapping, but we don’t want to go there.

   Domain forwarding is a function that you would need to setup with your current provider.  Or if you are really good at this stuff, and your current site is hosted on an apache server, your can forward with an .htaccess file.

    

6. We like the look of the USNA.com templates, can we get them to host our site at our own h hosting service?
    
    Yes, but only if your site CMS is WordPress will they work.  The USNAAA-cccg theme files in .zip format are available on this site, however they are not constantly updated with minor changes.  If you want to download the .zip file, please contact the chapters superadmin to ensure the latest revision of the theme files is available for download.  Because there is some manual manipulation required to compress the theme files into a downloadable .zip file, this may take a few days.
    

7. Do we have to use the USNAAA cccg Theme?
    
    No.  Although new sites default to this theme, there are several other themes installed in each network that can also be used.  Note that the menus on the pre-built website templates match the ccg3 theme, so if you switch themes, you will need to reassign and most likely rebuild your menus. That’s not a technically difficult nor lengthy process, but be prepared to be on your own.

   If you do chose to use a different theme, the one requirement for hosting your site on the network is that branding colors and graphics show it to clearly appear as a site about USNA alumni or parents.
   

    

8. We just got the keys to our website, but it doesn't look quite right and doesn't look like the out-of-box template. What's wrong?
    
    Your new site should look exactly like the template with possibly the exception of right hand column. If not, it’s possible that one of the steps to create a new site was inadvertently skipped over when your site was set up. Please check to ensure that steps 6, 7 and 8 were completed. To get the third column, you will need to add widgets to the right side widget area.
   
    

9. Our new website appears to be in Latin. How do we change it into English?
    
    The Latin text in the pre-built site templates is placeholder text randomly generated by an Lorem Ipsum generator.  To change out the text, log in as a site admin and edit away.
   
    

10. To ftp to the site, how do we get ftp log-in credentials?
     
    If you need to upload files to your site, the media handler will do the file uploads for you.  The following types of files are allowed: jpg jpeg png gif mov avi mpg 3gp 3g2 midi mid pdf doc ppt odt pptx docx pps ppsx xls xlsx key mp3 ogg wma m4a wav mp4 m4v webm ogv wmv flv

    If there is a need to upload other types of files, (not executable files) contact your superadmin.

     

11. How can we make small changes to the templates?
     
     The networks (usnaclasses.net, usnachapters.net & usnaparents.net) use one WordPress installation for all sub-sites on the domains, including the theme files.  Any changes to the theme files affect all subdomains in that network.  If there are recommended changes to the templates that would be beneficial to all the subdomains on the network, please let the superadmins know.
    
     

12. How can we add PlugIns?
     
     How to deal with plugins is an evolving territory, 85 asked for Jetpack. The USNAAA WordPress development team members are not fans of plugins when the theme or core functions can do the same thing. We’ve got the usnagroups.net site to test out proposed additional plugins to ensure they don’t mess things up. As you can image, with ~60 classes or ~80 chapters or ~80 parent clubs in each site, if each had a few must-have plugins, the plugin administration would become cumbersome. We need to be smart about this and ensure the plugsin that are installed are universally useful.

    That said, we need to hear what plugins would useful that are needed to supplement the leadership tools at USNA.com.
    

     

13. How do we delete unwanted pages from the menu and add others?
     
     This is the dream come true about WordPress.  You can easily add new pages (or links) to the menu and remove unused ones.
     

14. Will the WordPress site help us organize our photo galleries?
     
     WordPress can manage some of your graphics needs, but there are other platforms out there that are far better to handle large galleries of photos, such as Picasa, Shutterfly, Flickr, Snapfish and even Facebook.  WordPress will easily let you manage individual photos and graphics used in your pages and in posts.