Quinn beginning wordpress_2012

Getting started
with WordPress

SARA QUINN / THE POYNTER INSTITUTE FOR MEDIA STUDIES

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.


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
A free blogging service.
Less control over design and customization.
But it’s FREE! Easy to use and back-end
administration is very similar to Wordpress.org.


Sign up! http://wordpress.com/#my-blogs

WordPress.com


Go to the dashboard


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


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


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


You will see a default template that you
can 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 you
actually 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?


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.)


Shop around for widgets that might be useful.


What are some sidebar
widgets that you might
want to use?


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


Choosing your theme
That way, you’ll cut the amount of custom
coding 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?


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


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 your
functions.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? structure
What’s css?


What’s html? structure
What’s css? style


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

And they take things pretty far.


Some themes integrate a photo-sharing
service such as Flickr; a statistical application
like Google Analytics or even a database
interface such as phpMyAdmin.


Some themes integrate a photo-sharing
service such as Flickr; a statistical application
like Google Analytics or even a database
interface such as phpMyAdmin.

There’s an easy new feature that allows you to
add 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 the
functionality 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 functional
control over every post and page of your site.


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

It automatically generates an appropriate meta
description 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");


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.


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


Quinn beginning wordpress_2012

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