(This contains some updates to my first progress report.)
Theme
The installed theme is now Blocksy. It is not all that different from Astra, but to me its customization screens are significantly more intuitive.
Menus
I have added a secondary menu (Blocksy has by default two header menus.) The main menu is the beginning of a real menu for the public. The second menu, in the bar below, is for us, the Developers’ Menu. It includes a link to my Workshop site (under Q&A), where I have a lot of information (including, incidentally, a comparison of the Blocksy and Astra themes.) I have been building that page both as a resource for the Spring 2022 LIR workshop and to help myself learn more about WordPress. It also includes a sign-in button that will take you to the sign-in screen (which, of course, will be of no use if you don’t have an account of this site.)
Reorganization of existing material
I decided to start with LIR’s public programs. It seemed like a quick job. It wasn’t, but it was useful. It helped me begin to create complementary categories and tags. I turned a lot of pages into posts (they should always have been posts, as they contain material that goes out of date.) There is a convenient plugin for this, Post Type Switcher. The final version of this site will have far fewer pages and many more posts.
Other plugins installed
A very useful plugin is ShortCodes Ultimate, which produces many useful block types, not as blocks but as customizable shortcodes. It is very well documented too, a rarity in the WordPress world.
I have also installed Pods. WordPress page here. WordPress.org opines that “Pods is arguably the best of the custom post plugins. It’s amazing that it’s free. Content forms, relationships, it’s got the lot.” The documentation of this plugin is, unfortunately, still catching up with the current version of WordPress (5.8.x; x is up to 3 already, in just a few months.) My intention is to use it to create a custom post type for individual seminars, along with a couple of custom taxonomies to organize all the information that is on the web site about past seminars and make it easy to keep it up to date. This is a long term project and I will do everything else first (by which time maybe their documentation will be up to date.)