Portfolio by Jetpack

Jetpack, the plugin which brings the features of wordpress.com to your self-hosted WordPress blog/site has launched the 3.1 update which has “Custom Content Type” which allows you to showcase your work of art or skill. This feature is a new content type called Portfolio.

Wikipedia defines Portfolio as either a sample of artists work or a showcase of talent. It can also be an organised presentation of either individual’s skill or work samples or a collection of projects handled by a company.

Pre-requisites

A WordPress theme which supports Portfolio feature. Now as per WordPress any theme will display the portfolio content, but some themes that are designed with portfolio in mind will display it better.

Either a wordpress.com website with a portfolio theme like Espied or Illustratr

OR

A self-hosted WordPress blog or website with Jetpack connected and a theme which supports portfolio (or any theme will do)

On the face of it, there appears little or no difference between a post or page and portfolio. In fact, it is designed to look all the same or mimic each other.

A post will have the address like http://soonev.com/the-emu

A page will have the address like http://soonev.com/about

A post is a content which moves with time, but can be placed right on top with the help of sticky. A page is static in nature but can act as a landing page for your website or can host a few of your posts.

A portfolio, on the other hand will have address like http://soonev.com/portfolio

No matter it looks like a post or a page, still it can be used to showcase content. Also, WordPress renowned for its flexibility, has enabled the use of shortcode {portfolio} which can be used anywhere in your website with the following attributes

display_types      :   display Project Types
display_tags         :   display Project Tags
display_content :   display project content

Enable Custom Content Type

To enable this feature, on a self-hosted WordPress site, go to Jetpack and check if Custom Content Type is enabled. If it is not visible, then check if the Jetpack is updated to version 3.1. Next, enable the Portfolio content type by moving to Settings—Writing—Your Custom Content Types and check ‘Enable Portfolio Projects for this site’.

Next, head over to Portfolio in the left side bar and start with adding Projects. The interface is familiar and easy to use.

With Projects you get your usual publish options, all formats, Project Types, Project Tags and a featured image.

Once you have added enough projects, use the URL http://something.com/portfolio

Check how the projects are displayed in the Espied theme at the following URL

http://portportal.wordpress.com/portfolio

(Note the above link is no longer functional)

 

and you can also view the individual project, on clicking on any one of the projects. Try it out at the following URL
http://portportal.wordpress.com/portfolio/photo-effector/

(Note the above link is no longer functional)

 

If your theme supports it, you can have the portfolio template provided by the theme itself as shown.

Similar effect can be achieved by use of a shortcode and using a static page as a landing page.

For an unsupported theme, it might not look that glamorous, but still can showcase content on a separate link.

 The content displayed will be permanent in nature and will be available in a separate link outside your main webpage as if its a new subdomain. If your theme supports it, it might be able to show itself in a new design altogether.

For more details, check out this link

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/portfolios-on-wordpress-com/

 

PS: Sorry for those hazy images. Will replace them soon.