How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

HOW-TO GUIDE FOR Media Temple WordPress Blogs ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

Welcome! This guide will show you how to install and use your Altos widgets on your Media Temple WordPress blog. By following the instructions in this guide, your website visitors will be able to view the latest market data and even subscribe to your personalized Altos Reports.

An example blog page, using Altos Wordpress Plugins

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

Contents

WHAT ARE THE ALTOS WORDPRESS PLUGINS? .............................................................4 INSTALL PHP 5: ..............................................................................................................5 INSTALL THE WORDPRESS PLUGINS:..............................................................................7 ADD A SIDEBAR STAT TABLE: .......................................................................................10 ADD A STAT TABLE TO A BLOG POST: ..........................................................................12 ADD A CITY/ZIP CHART TO YOUR SIDEBAR: .................................................................14 ADD A CITY/ZIP CHART TO A BLOG POST:....................................................................16 ADD A FLASH CHART TO A BLOG POST: .......................................................................18 ADD A COUNTY/REGIONAL CHART TO YOUR SIDEBAR: ...............................................20 ADD COUNTY/REGIONAL CHART TO A BLOG POST:.....................................................22 ADD THE ALTOS CONNECT FORM TO YOUR SIDEBAR: .................................................24

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

WHAT ARE THE ALTOS WORDPRESS PLUGINS?

Our WordPress plugins enhance your real-estate weblog with realtime charts and statistics for your real estate market. In just a few steps, these plugins enable you to embed Stat Tables, an Altos Connect registration form, and Altos Charts onto your blog. The three WordPress plugins are: Altos Toolbar The Altos Toolbar plugin is used to insert charts and stats tables directly into a blog post. You get to choose from your list of subscribed locations and with a single click - insert the info right into your blog post. The Altos Toolbar plugin is our most popular plugin, and is a great way to get started blogging about your real estate market trends. Fig. A Altos Widgets The Altos Widgets plugin is designed to simplify the process of putting a city or regional chart into the sidebar of your weblog. These charts are visible on every page and every post of your blog.

Fig. B Altos Connect The Altos Connect plugin is used to display a registration form in the sidebar area of your blog. Using the registration form your blog readers can subscribe to your personalized market reports, which are then automatically emailed to your contacts on a schedule you control.

Fig. C

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

INSTALL PHP 5:

By default, your Media Temple website will be configured to use an older version of the PHP scripting language (version 4). However, the Altos WordPress plugins require v5.0 or later. So the first thing you’ll need to do is to configure your Media Temple website to use PHP v5.

STEP 1:

Fig. 1.1 From your Media Temple Control Panel, click on PHP Settings.

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STEP 2:

Fig. 1.2 Select PHP 5 for your domain(s) registered to your WordPress account (#1). Then press Save (#2). This will configure your site to use PHP5 and will allow you to use the Altos WordPress plugins. Now that you have PHP 5 installed, we’re ready to proceed to the next steps.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

INSTALL THE WORDPRESS PLUGINS: STEP 1:

Fig.2.1

Sign into your Wordpress Admin page, then click on ‘Plugins > Add New’.

STEP 2:

Fig. 2.2 Enter the term “altos” in the search text field, as shown above. Then press the ‘Search Plugins’ button.

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STEP 3:

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Fig. 2.3

Three Altos plugins will appear in the results: “Altos Connect Widget”, “Altos Toolbar”, and “Altos Widgets”. Each plugin shows an Install link in the right-most column. Let’s start off by clicking on ‘Install’ for the Altos Connect Widget.

STEP 4:

Fig. 2.4

A popup window will appear. Click the ’Install Now‘ button. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

STEP 5:

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Fig. 2.5

Once the plugin is installed, click ’Activate Plugin‘.

STEP 6:

Fig. 2.6

Now click on ‘Altos Connect > General Options’. On the General Options page, enter your username and password, then press ‘Save Changes’.

STEP 7: Repeat STEP 4 through STEP 6 for the Altos Toolbar and Altos Widgets plugins. You can find these two plugins on the Install Plugins page, as illustrated in Figure 1.3. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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ADD A SIDEBAR STAT TABLE: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Widgets Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

From your Wordpress dashboard, click on ‘Appearance (1) > Widgets’ (2).

Fig. 3.1

STEP 2:

Drag the Altos Stat Table item to the sidebar. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

Fig. 3.2

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STEP 3:

Fig. 3.3

Click the down-arrow beside Altos Connect. Enter a title for the Stat Chart. Define the location, Table Format, and residence Type. If you wish to make the Stat Chart clickable, enter the website to which you’d like the click delivered. Press ‘Save’.

STEP 4:

Fig. 3.4

POOF! The next time you load your public Wordpress page, you’ll see the Stat Chart displayed in your sidebar. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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ADD A STAT TABLE TO A BLOG POST: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Toolbar Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

Fig. 4.1

Create a new blog post (‘Posts -> Add New’). When the editor appears, make sure you’re in ‘Visual’ editor mode, as shown in #1. The from the toolbar, click on the Altos logo ( shown in #2, and select ‘Altos Stat Tables’ .

) as

STEP 2:

Fig. 4.2

Choose your location, Residence type, Stats State and Format from corresponding dropdown menus. Then click ‘Insert Stat Table’. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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STEP 3:

Fig. 4.3

A sample table will populate your screen. If the positioning of the stat table looks good, click on ‘Preview’ to review actual data in your Stat Chart. Keep in mind that the sample table will be displayed in black-and-white, while the final output will make use of the color styles defined by your blog theme.

STEP 4:

Fig. 4.4

You’re ready to ‘Publish’ the Stat Table (using the blue button shown in Fig 3.3).

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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ADD A CITY/ZIP CHART TO YOUR SIDEBAR: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Widgets Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

From your Wordpress dashboard, click on ‘Appearance (1) > Widgets’ (2).

Fig. 5.1

STEP 2:

Drag Altos Charts to the sidebar.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

Fig. 5.2

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STEP 3:

How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

Fig. 5.3 Click the expand arrow to show the configuration fields of Altos Charts, as shown in #1. Enter a title for the City/Zip Chart. Define the location(s), Statistic, Chart Size, Residence Type, Rolling Average, Quartile, and Time Span. If you wish to make the Stat Chart clickable, enter the website to which you’d like the click delivered. Once you’re finished, click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the form, as shown in #2.

STEP 4:

Fig. 5.4 If the data looks clean and up-to-date, then you’re ready to ‘Publish’ the City/ZIP chart (using the blue button shown in Fig 4.3). Page 15 ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

2010

ADD A CITY/ZIP CHART TO A BLOG POST: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Toolbar Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

Fig.6.1

Create a new blog post (‘Posts -> Add New’). When the editor appears, make sure you’re in ‘Visual’ editor mode, as shown in #1. The from the toolbar, click on the Altos logo ( shown in #2, and select ‘Altos City/Zip Charts’.

) as

STEP 2:

Choose your Location, Statistic, Chart Size, Residence Type, Rolling Average, Quartile, Timespan, and Chart Date from the provided dropdown boxes. If you wish to make your chart clickable, insert a URL into the ‘Link Chart to URL’ field. Then click ‘Insert Chart’.

Fig 6.2 ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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STEP 3:

How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

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Fig. 6.3

The chart you configured will be displayed in the editor area. If the formatting looks good, click on ‘Preview’ to review changes, or press ‘Publish’ if you wish to create the blog entry right away.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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ADD A FLASH CHART TO A BLOG POST: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Toolbar Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page x for instructions)

STEP 1:

Fig. 7.1 Create a new blog post (‘Posts -> Add New’). When the editor appears, make sure you’re in ‘Visual’ editor mode, as shown in #1. The from the toolbar, click on the Altos logo ( select ‘Altos Flash Charts’ .

) as shown in #2, and

STEP 2:

Fig. 7.2

Choose your Location, Right Axis Statistics, Left Axis Statistics, Mini Axis Statistics, Chart Size, Residence Type, Rolling Average, and Quartile from the provided dropdown boxes. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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STEP 3:

Fig. 7.3

A sample placeholder chart will be displayed in the blog post editor area. Click on the ‘Preview’ button near the top righthand corner of your screen.

STEP 4:

Fig. 7.4

You’re ready to ‘Publish’ the Flash Chart (using the blue button shown in Fig 6.3).

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

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ADD A COUNTY/REGIONAL CHART TO YOUR SIDEBAR: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Widgets Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

From your Wordpress dashboard, click on ‘Appearance (1) > Widgets’ (2).

Fig. 8.1

STEP 2:

Drag Altos Regional Charts to the sidebar.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

Fig. 8.2

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STEP 3:

How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

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Fig. 8.3

Click the down-arrow beside Altos Connect. Enter a title for the Regional Chart, as shown in #1. Define the Location(s), Statistic, Chart Size, Residence Type, Rolling Average, Quartile, and Time Span. If you wish to make the Stat Chart clickable, enter the website to which you’d like the click delivered. Press ‘Save’, as shown in #2.

STEP 4:

Fig. 8.4

POOF! The next time you load your public Wordpress page, you’ll see the Regional Chart listed on the right sidebar.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

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ADD COUNTY/REGIONAL CHART TO A BLOG POST: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Widgets Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

Fig. 9.1 Create a new blog post (‘Posts -> Add New’). When the editor appears, make sure you’re in ‘Visual’ editor mode, as shown in #1. The from the toolbar, click on the Altos logo ( select ‘Altos Regional Charts’ .

) as shown in #2, and

STEP 2:

Fig. 9.2

Choose your Location, Statistic, Residence Type, Rolling Average, Quartile, Timespan, and Chart Date from the provided dropdown boxes. If you wish to make your chart clickable, insert a URL into the ‘Link Chart to URL’ field. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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STEP 3:

Fig. 9.3

A realtime chart will will be inserted into the blog edit area. Click on ‘Preview’ to review changes, or press Publish if you wish to create the blog entry right away.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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ADD THE ALTOS CONNECT FORM TO YOUR SIDEBAR: (If you haven't already, install the Altos Connect Plugin - see section “Install the WordPress plugins” on page 5 for instructions)

STEP 1:

From your Wordpress account, go to ‘Appearance > Widgets’.

Fig. 10.1

STEP 2:

Fig.10.2

Drag Altos Connect to the sidebar. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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STEP 3:

How-to Guide for Media Temple/WordPress

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Fig. 10.3

Click the down-arrow beside Altos Connect. Supply your username, password, then a Widget Title that will accompany your form on the Wordpress sidebar. Press Save.

STEP 4:

Fig. 10.4

POOF! The next time you load your public Wordpress page, you’ll see the contact form in the sidebar. ©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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That’s all! You’re now rockin’ your WordPress blog with Altos Charts and the Altos Connect form. For any additional questions, please refer to our video tutorials at http://www.altosresearch.com/altos/help/HelpCenter.page or contact us by email at [email protected] and by phone at 888-819-7775 with any support or sales questions.

©2010, Altos Research, LLC

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