Quinn beginning wordpress_2012

SARA QUINN / THE POYNTER INSTITUTE FOR MEDIA STUDIES

Getting startedwith WordPress

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Wordpress is not just a place to post updates.

… and pictures of your cat.

It can be an amazing content managment system.

You can develop it into a complex website.

And it’s one of the most well-documented pieces of software around.

There are tons of well-known sites powered by Wordpress.

h"p://en.wordpress.com/notable‐users/

And it takes just about 30 seconds to start up.

It’s theme-based.

You can change your design whenever you want.

And your content stays.

There are lots of themes to choose from.

Choosing your theme

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/tag-filter/

Choosing your theme

http://themeforest.net/

Self-hosted:Not self-hosted:

Self-hosted:WordPress.org Offers lots of design options, customization.

You set this up on your own server.

You pay for the domain and hosting.

Not self-hosted:WordPress.com

Not self-hosted:WordPress.com A free blogging service.

Less control over design and customization.

But it’s FREE! Easy to use and back-endadministration is very similar to Wordpress.org.

Sign up!WordPress.com

http://wordpress.com/#my-blogs

Go to the dashboard

The back-end of your site.Where you publish content, manage commentsand change your settings.

This is where you set up everythingthat the outside world sees on your blog.

Take a quick peek at your blogby clicking on the title of your blog.

You will see a default template that youcan use or decide to alter.

Choosing your theme

Here’s where you turn away from WordPress!Get out a notebook.

I suggest you determine what you need to put on your site, before youactually select a theme.

Do you need a calendar?

Do you want a Twitter feed?

Do you want a list of your most recent posts in the right rail?

Will students be posting assignments?

What sort of commenting do you want?

Will you want a slide carousel?

Use video?

Display your Twitter Feed?

Portfolio samples of your own work?

Choosing your theme

You can preview your site with different themes.

Not all sites make use of the same widgets.Here, there’s no default calendar.

You’ll notice that your content jumps around,depending on the template you choose.

You’ll want to examine the type to determine how legible it is.

How’s the nav?

Can people easily find your pages?

Is there room for you to grow on the nav bar?

Do you need a dropdown menu?

Widgets: What are they?

Tools or content that you can add, arrange and remove from your blog.

Many themes that you might choose will already be “widgetized.”

In other words, they have code that sets up the areas that will accept widgets. (right rail, etc.)

Tools or content that you can add, arrange and remove from your blog.

Shop around for widgets that might be useful.

Many themes that you might choose will already be “widgetized.”

In other words, they have code that sets up the areas that will accept widgets. (right rail, etc.)

What are some sidebarwidgets that you mightwant to use?

Choosing your themeIt’s important to determine the features you want, in advance. “Measure twice, cut once.”

Choosing your themeThat way, you’ll cut the amount of customcoding you’ll have to do later.

So, if I choose this theme, and it doesn’t include areas that will accept widgets ... what to I have to do?

Let’s see what some of the code would look like if you wanted to add widget areas to your site.

Code alert!

Declare your widget-ized area.

The most common place for widgets is in the sidebar. So, in the sidebar.php file:

<?php if (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Sidebar Widgets')) : ?> Content in here will ONLY show if there are no widgets active, or if the version of WordPress running doesn't support widgets. Otherwise, this area is where the widgets go, set via the Admin <?php endif; ?>

Activate your widget-ized area.This code would appear in yourfunctions.php file:

// activate widget area if (function_exists('register_sidebar')) { register_sidebar(array( 'name'=>'Sidebar Widgets', 'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">', 'after_widget' => '</div>', 'before_title' => '<h4 class="widgettitle">', 'after_title' => '</h4>', )); }

What’s html?What’s css?

What’s html? structureWhat’s css?

What’s html? structureWhat’s css? style

Super duper functionality?There’s a beauty to WordPress, in thatthere are lots of WP developers.

And they take things pretty far.

Super duper functionality?Some themes integrate a photo-sharingservice such as Flickr; a statistical applicationlike Google Analytics or even a databaseinterface such as phpMyAdmin.

There’s an easy new feature that allows you toadd sharing to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and more!

Where to find great themes?FREE! theme resources • WordPress.org Theme Library - http://digwp.com/u/20

• The Mighty Google - http://digwp.com/u/21

• Digging Into WordPress - can you guess the URL?

• Smashing Magazine - http://digwp.com/u/22

Where to find great themes?Places to buy premium themes • ThemeForest - http://digwp.com/u/385

• WooThemes - http://digwp.com/u/386

• ElegantThemes - http://digwp.com/u/387

• UpThemes - http://digwp.com/u/561

What are Plugins?Pieces of software that extend thefunctionality of WordPress.

Usually written by those lovable WordPress fanatics.

What are some of the best plugins?Art Direction http://digwp.com/u/24

This allows you to insert extra code (typically CSS or JavaScript) into specific pages or posts.

Art Direction http://digwp.com/u/24

It gives you complete stylistic and functionalcontrol over every post and page of your site.

All in One SEO Pack http://digwp.com/u/29

It automatically generates an appropriate metadescription tag for each post and page, based on their content.

Creating child themes

A child theme is based on a theme that you choose.

ADVANTAGE: This allows you to override the style theme (color, typefaces, etc) without overriding the base theme (widgets, header style, elements, etc).

Creating a child theme is simple.

Just create a folder (named as you wish) in your wp-content/themes directory.

Within that folder, place a simple style.css file.

Here’s an example:Theme Name: My Cool Child Theme Theme URI: http://digwp.com/ Description: Child Theme for Digging Into WordPress Author: Chris Coyier Author URI: http://chriscoyier.net/ Template: DigWP Version: 2.0 */ @import url("../digWP/style.css");

The most important line there is the “Template: DigWP” line, which references the folder of the parent theme. The last line imports the stylesheet from that parent theme.

That is optional, but very common, as the whole point is to start with the parent theme as a base and overwrite/add to it. Anything you write in the CSS file below this will overwrite anything from the parent theme.

For example, if the link color is red in the parent (i.e., a { color: red; }), but you declare it green (i.e., a { color: green; }), your declaration in the child theme will be applied even though it uses the exact same selector, because it is declared after the parent style. No need for any fancy !important rules or more specific selectors.

Styling your theme

In any WordPress theme, the style.css is required.

WordPress won’t even recognize a folder in your themes folder unless it includes this file.

To reset or not?

When you pick up code, you might get unpredictable defaults that you’ll want to reset.

For example: Firefox and Explorer have a different default padding amount around <body>. This can cause problems later.

We suggest that you put a reset at the beginning of your child theme code css.

You will probably be changing the typefaces and colors, etc. But this will catch a lot of little things that you might not be thinking of.

Popular CSS Resets:

• Eric Meyer’s Reset Reloaded From the man himself: http://digwp.com/u/142

• YUI (Yahoo User Interface) Reset CSS http://digwp.com/u/143

• Star Selector Reset Looks like this: * { margin: 0; padding: 0; }

Remember that you will put this at the top of your css file, so it will clear out the mess.

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. …”

– RICHARD BUCKMINSTER FULLER

“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution isn’t beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

– RICHARD BUCKMINSTER FULLER

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