The Control Panel.

Groups, areas and doors

The Control Panel bundles well over a hundred WordPress tasks into eight groups: Status, Content, Shop, Design, Extensions, Users, Tools and Settings. Groups and areas are listed on the left of the workbench under “Control Panel”, with the number of their functions; a click opens the area on the right, and the preview stays where it is.

Many areas have a door: a view that shows what currently applies on your site — the plugins with switches, the themes as cards, the comments as a list — with the usual tasks right on each row. To see every single function, switch to “All functions”; “Log” shows what was run last.

The Control Panel uses no AI credit and follows the “Live”/“Sandbox” switch above the preview.

Running a tool

Every tool is a button with a dot in front that says what it does: “only reads”, “changes something” or “serious”. When several tasks belong together, the button carries a ⌄ and unfolds them as a list. Tools that only read are started with “Take a look”, all others with “Run”. If a tool needs details, the fields come first, as a choice wherever there is one; the info icon explains exactly what it does.

Serious steps ask first: “Sure?”, with “Rather not” and “Yes, run it now”. On the live site the server creates a restore point before every serious step; if that fails, the step does not run at all. Afterwards it says “Done.” — or, in plain language, what happened, why, and what you can do now. If the cause is on our side — full storage, missing write permissions, a database that doesn’t answer — it says “That's on us, not on you.” below, and we already know: we are notified automatically, you don’t need to write to us.

At the very bottom, “Developer mode” makes the technology underneath visible (Switching on developer mode).

1. 1On the left under “Control Panel”, choose an area, for example “Maintenance and cache”.
2. 2Click “Take a look” or “Run” on a tool.
3. 3Confirm a serious step with “Yes, run it now”.
4. 4Read the result below the button.

Managing plugins and themes

The “Plugins” door shows every installed plugin with a switch and its version. “Auto” switches a plugin’s automatic updates on or off, “Install update” appears when a new version is ready, and “Delete” removes a plugin after “Yes, delete”. KENJTEC’s plugins are listed below as “built in”. “Upload your own plugin (.zip)” installs a plugin of your own, if you like with “Activate right away”.

The “Themes” door shows your themes as cards. “Activate” switches the whole site over and therefore asks first: “Yes, activate”. Only a theme that is not currently running can be deleted.

1. 1On the left, choose the “Extensions” group — the door shows your plugins.
2. 2Click “Install update” on a plugin with a new version.
3. 3Switch off a plugin you do not need right now with its switch.

Building menus

What the “Menus” door shows depends on your theme. A block theme — KENJTEC One, Twenty Twenty-Four or Twenty Twenty-Five — has no menu positions; its menus belong to your WordPress Site Editor. The door then shows each menu with a label saying where it appears: “In the header” (the main menu), “In the footer” (KENJTEC One’s footer menu) or “Not shown automatically”. “Choose page …” and “Add to menu” add a published page at the end. You move entries by the ⠿ handle with the mouse or the keyboard: space, arrows, space. “Remove” takes an entry out — the last one only from the footer menu, because WordPress doesn’t show an empty menu as empty, but shows a different menu or the list of all pages instead.

With a block theme, you create custom links, submenus and new menus in the Site Editor; they stay when you add or move pages here. If you put a different menu in the header there, your choice applies.

With a classic theme — such as Astra, Kadence, Blocksy or Neve — the door lists your site’s menus with their entries; “+ Create menu” adds a new one. A sub-item stays with its parent when you drag there, and “+ Add your own link (e.g. Instagram)” adds a link to an address starting with https://. Under “Appears at” you choose one of the menu positions your theme offers — which ones exist is up to the theme. “Delete menu” removes a menu after “Yes, delete menu”; the pages in it remain.

1. 1Open the “Design” group and in it “Menus”.
2. 2Under “Choose page …”, choose the “Catering” page and click “Add to menu”.
3. 3Drag the entry by its ⠿ handle to the right place.

Comments and users

The “Comments” door shows your site’s comments with their status, “pending” or “approved”. On each row you approve a comment with “Approve”, hold it back with “Unapprove” or mark it as “Spam”. How many are waiting also shows in the status line above the preview.

The “Users” door shows who may enter your WordPress. “+ Create user” asks for username, email and role; “Create” sets up the account. You change the role on the row. “Send password link” has WordPress itself send a link to the user’s email address — no password ever passes through our hands. The account marked “Administrator account” is the one “WP-Admin” signs you in with.

1. 1Open the “Users” group.
2. 2Click “+ Create user” and enter username, email and role.
3. 3Click “Create”.
4. 4Click “Send password link” on the new user.

A simplified dashboard for your clients

If you build the website for someone else, give them their own WordPress account with the role “Client (simplified dashboard)”. In WP-Admin they then see only what relates to their content: Dashboard, Posts, Media, Pages, Comments and their profile. Any other screen takes them back to the Dashboard, where the “Your website” box replaces the usual boxes and links to pages, posts, images and the website itself.

The role has the same permissions as an Editor, but without raw HTML: a client account cannot add a script to a page. Every other role, including your administrator account, sees WordPress as before.

1. 1Open the “Users” group.
2. 2Click “+ Create user”, enter the username and email, and choose the role “Client (simplified dashboard)”.
3. 3Click “Create”.
4. 4Click “Send password link” on the new user.

For an existing user, you change the role on their row.

Images from MediaStudio

Your images from MediaStudio reach your WordPress in two ways. In the Control Panel, the “Media” area shows the tile “Your images from MediaStudio”: “Insert” copies an image into the WordPress media library, so your site stays independent of it. “As logo” also sets it as your site’s logo, provided your theme has a place for a logo.

In WP-Admin you find the same library under “Media → MediaStudio”. There, „In Mediathek uebernehmen“ (add to media library) creates an entry that points to the image in MediaStudio instead of copying it; while it is used this way, it cannot be deleted in MediaStudio. More on this under Images in WordPress.

1. 1Open the “Content” group and in it “Media”.
2. 2Under “Your images from MediaStudio”, click “Insert” on an image.
3. 3If it should become the logo, click “As logo”.

Updating WordPress, maintenance mode and addresses

The “WordPress core” door shows which version is running and whether a newer one is available. “Update WordPress” installs it after “Yes, update now”, “Update database” then brings the database up to the new version, and “Check files” compares the core files with the original. If any differ, the door says so and names the way back: “Restore” under “Backups” — WordPress’s own files come back only with a backup marked “all”. If the check itself fails, only the reason is shown, not a suspicion. To update everything at once, use the worry-free update.

In the “Settings” door, the “Maintenance mode” switch closes your site to all visitors; they then see a maintenance page. Because it affects everyone, the switch asks first (“Yes, switch on”), and its state stays visible. Under “Addresses of your pages (permalinks)” you choose from a list what the addresses of your posts and pages look like.

Let Kenji operate it

Above the tabs on the right is the “Edit with Kenji” button. It opens the Kenji window at the bottom right, and at the top it shows WordPressBuilder, the name of your site and “Live”. You write what should happen, for example “Switch off comments on new posts and create a footer menu”. Kenji does not change the running site himself: he hands the job to the WordPress operator, which looks around your site and puts together a plan from Control Panel tools. The operator’s plan appears in the window below Kenji’s answer; each step says whether it “Only reads”, “Changes something” or is a “Major step”. Under “Looked up:” you see what it checked for it.

Nothing runs until you click “Run” below the plan, and then exactly what the plan shows. If it contains a major step, the window asks with “Yes, run it”; “Discard” throws the plan away. If a step fails, the plan stops there and says why; otherwise it ends with “All done.” The Control Panel then shows the new state of your site.

Planning uses AI credit, running does not — they are the same tasks you could click yourself. Above the plan you see whether it acts on the live site or the test copy. In the history you find these steps under “By Kenji”.

1. 1Click “Edit with Kenji” above the tabs.
2. 2Write in the Kenji window what should happen on your site and press Enter.
3. 3Read the plan below Kenji’s answer and click “Run” — for a major step, also “Yes, run it”.