The Advanced Settings Plugin is a powerful plugin that adds several different configuration options to your blog for greater control over your site.
Once you have activated the Advanced Settings plugin in Plugins > All, go to Settings > Advanced Settings to configure.
Cool things you can control or add using the Advanced Settings Plugin include:
- Category filter
- Custom Post Order
- Force Content/Excerpt
- Featured Images
- Titles
- Comments
- Performance
- Pinch Zoom on mobile devices
- Exclude pages
- Additional code
CATEGORY FILTER
Used to include or exclude post categories from different pages.
For example, I might want only posts assigned the category Class News to appear on the front page of my class blog and then use a custom menu to send posts assigned the categories Homework and Assignments to different pages using a custom menu.
To do this I would:
1. Select the Front page from under the All Pages drop down menu
2. Select Include
3. Select the check box next to the category Class News
4. Click Save Changes.
5.Set up a custom menu to send posts assigned other categories to different pages
CUSTOM POST ORDER
Used to change order.
Options are:
- Published date – descending
- Published date – ascending
- Notification date – descending
- Notification date – ascending
- Title – descending
- Title – ascending
On the Edit Category page you’ll also see an option to change the order of a category. This allows you to order some categories by date and other category pages by alphabetical order.
You change the order a specific category is displayed as follows:
1. Go to Posts > Category.
2. Click Edit underneath the category you want to change the order displayed.
3. Select the order you want the category displayed and then click Update.
FORCE CONTENT/EXCERPT
Used to change between Excerpt or full content.
For example, the theme I’m using may show full content on all pages but I want to display full posts only on the post page and post excerpts on the search page, the category page, the tag page, the date page and the author page.
FEATURED IMAGES
Used to:
- Automatically add the first image attached to a post as a featured image if a featured image is not set. You might use this option if you’ve changed to a new theme and haven’t added featured images to your posts.
- Disable featured images on list view pages such as your blog post page and on single view (the post page). You would use this option if you’ve changed to a new theme and needed to disable featured images. For example, your previous theme required featured images to be used the blog post homepage while the new theme displays better when the featured images are disable.
TITLES
Used to remove the word ‘Protected’ or ‘Private’ from post titles.
Below is what a private post title normally looks like:
And here is what the post title looks like when this option is selected.
COMMENTS
Used to disable comments on all posts and pages.
PERFORMANCE
Used to disable Emoji scripts and styling in WordPress.
RESPONSIVENESS
Used to activate pinch zoom on mobile devices.
EXCLUDE PAGES
Adds a checkbox “exclude page from menus and lists” to page editor which you can use to exclude a page from your navigation menu.
PROTECTION
Designed to help prevent readers from downloading files from your site.
ADDITIONAL CODE
Allows you to add custom javascript code or css code in header section or footer section.
The Body Open section is visible, and can be used for adding Google Tag manager code, if you are using the theme Divi.
VERIFY SITE OWNERSHIP IN GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE
You are able to verify site ownership in Google Search Console using the Advanced Settings Plugin. Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Click on the HTML tag under verify ownership in Google Search Console (see image below).
- Copy the Meta tag code.
- Go to Settings > Advanced Settings in the dashboard of your site.
- Scroll down to Additional code.
- Paste the Meta tag code under Header Tag (high priority).
- Click Save Changes.
- Click Click on Verify under HTML Tag in Google Console.
