Site setup

Latest updates

January 6, 2021: The first release of the Illinois Theme is available for publish.illinois.edu, for web.illinois.edu (cPanel/Softaculous), and via code download.

We recommend you choose your hosting platform based on your longer-term needs.

First: Choose PIE or cPanel

While both PIE (Publish.illinois.edu) and cPanel can provide WordPress content management systems for you to use, there are some key distinctions between them.

  • Publish.illinois.edu provides pre-installed WordPress with a limited number of plugins and themes available to use.

    It’s best suited for people who want to bring their content and images but don’t want to worry about system administration.

  • cPanel Web Hosting provides the ability to install a wide range of software, and WordPress is just one of many options.

    You can install different themes and plugins on a cPanel instance. However, you also take responsibility for ensuring your WordPress installation is kept up to date by installing patches and updates for WordPress, any plugins you’ve installed, and any themes you use.

Once you’ve decided which platform you wish to use, you’ll need to add the Illinois theme to your WordPress installation on that platform.

Setting up the Illinois Theme on cPanel

For a new install of WordPress on cPanel using Softaculous (an approach we strongly recommend) the University of Illinois 2020 theme will be automatically included in your installation, and initially set as your active theme. After logging in to your web.illinois.edu account, select the “WordPress” option under the “Softaculous Apps Installer” setting.

If you have already installed WordPress with Softaculous, or are managing your WordPress installation manually, you can download the code from U of I Box.

Note: Downloading this code from U of I Box requires you to log in to Box with your University of Illinois identity. If you are not an Illinois account holder, we’ll work out an alternative access method that works for you.

Setting up the Illinois Theme on PIE

In Publish.illinois.edu, the Illinois Theme is pre-installed and initially set as your active theme. If your PIE site is older, you may need to choose the Illinois theme following these steps:

  1. From the publish.illinois.edu home page, choose the Log In option (if you’re not logged in already.)
  2. From the My Sites menu at the top left, first choose the site you’d like to apply the Illinois Theme to, and then select the Dashboard option in the flyout menu.
  3. In your site’s dashboard, look in the left-hand menu for Appearances, then choose Themes.
The Appearance menu with the Themes item selected in the fly-out submenu.

Select the Illinois Theme item from the page of themes that appears.

In the footer area, the left-side column contains structured information about your team and your contact methods. The right-side columns are more freeform.

In your dashboard’s left hand column, the Theme Settings item contains the Footer content as well as the optional megamenu above.

You can use find-in-page (control-F) to jump to the Footer heading, where you’ll find a form that guides you through the elements used in the footer-left address block.

Theme Settings item selected; within the Footer area, the Address and Unit Name sections are displayed.

Next Steps

Set up your navigation using the WordPress default menu or Megamenu.