Connect a WordPress site

Before you start

• Your site runs WordPress 5.6 or later. Application passwords are built in from that version.
• The site address starts with https://. WordPress only offers application passwords on https sites.
• The WordPress user ContentPilot posts as has at least the Author role. A Contributor cannot publish, so ContentPilot refuses it.
• The same user should be allowed to upload files, which an Author can. Without that right the article still goes, without its featured picture, and the check warns you.

Make an application password

1. Sign in to your WordPress admin as the user ContentPilot will post as.
2. Open Users, then Profile.
3. Scroll down to Application Passwords.
4. Type a name such as ContentPilot and press Add New Application Password.
5. WordPress shows the password once, in groups of four letters. Copy it now. You can paste it with the spaces in.

This is not your login password. It works only for sending articles, and you can revoke it later without changing anything else.

Connect it in ContentPilot

1. In ContentPilot, open the client and press Connections.
2. On the Website card, make sure website publishing is switched on.
3. On the WordPress card, type the site address, the WordPress user name and the application password.
4. Press Connect. ContentPilot asks the site whether that user can publish and upload, and saves the connection if it can. If something is wrong it says what it found, in plain words, and saves nothing.
5. If the site says its own address is different from the one you typed, ContentPilot stops and offers that address as a choice. Tick it if you want links to your articles to use it. It is never used unless you tick it. Then press Connect again.

A client has one website connection. If the client already has an Ellipse Edit website connected, disconnect it first.

Draft or live

A new connection starts as Save as draft. Each article is saved in WordPress as a draft. Read it there and publish it yourself. Nothing is public until you do.

Switch the card to Publish live and articles are published on the site as soon as they are sent. You can switch back at any time.

Pick a Category on the card and new articles go under it. With none chosen, WordPress uses its default category.

Connecting again always starts as a draft with no category, so check both after you reconnect.

Checking and disconnecting

Press Check again to test the saved connection. If WordPress stops accepting the password, the card says Needs reconnecting. Make a new application password and connect again.

It says the same if the site's address starts redirecting somewhere else, for example after a move to a new domain or when www or https is switched on. Open the site in a browser to see the address it ends up at, then connect again with that address.

To disconnect, press Disconnect. Scheduled articles are marked as not sent, and articles already on your site stay there. Then delete the application password in WordPress, under Users, then Profile, so it stops working there too.