1. Part 1:
WORDPRESS FOR
Learn
GENEALOGISTS the Lingo
June 18, 2012
taneya@gmail.com
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2. WEBINAR SERIES
Part 1: Learn the Lingo
Basic familiarity with WordPress, how it works, the terminology
used, WordPress.com
Part 2: Dissecting the Dashboard – June 25th
Delve further into the WordPress Dashboard - all the parts are and
what they do; begin to understand the self-hosted version of
WordPress.
Part 3: Features, Features & More Features – July 9th
plugins & themes - how to find them, how to choose them; DOs
and DON’Ts; commonly seen in genealogy.
Part 4: Polishing to Perfection – July 16th
more advanced - how to tweak themes, maintenance issues, site
analytics
5. WORDPRESS & ME
My Journey
1999 - basic HTML; created my first website
2003 - transitioned to TypePad -- early
blogging software; the appeal for me was that
I could make frequent updates and not have
to code HTML to do it. Paid a monthly fee.
2004 - Blogger - free Google product
2007 - WordPress; made the switch because
WordPress of fered more functionality than
blogger; ability to choose more designs for
my site.
6. WORDPRESS & ME (CONT’D)
2009 – My first GenWeb county site with WordPress;
NCGenWeb site migrated to WordPress
2011 - Became TNGenWeb State Coordinator – migrated site
to WordPress + several county sites
70+
sites and counting!
7. WORDPRESS BACKGROUND
May 2003 – WordPress ver sion 0.7
New releases ever y year – latest is version 3.4
released June 13 th , 201 2
Initially a blogging platform; as new releases
Matt Mullenweg circa 2008 were developed, transitioned into more than
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Mullenweg just a blogging sof tware, but rather, a content
management system.
8. JAZZY WORDPRESS
Many of the
WordPress
developers share
a love of jazz
music
Every major
release named
after a jazz
musician
9. WORDPRESS IS OPEN SOURCE
Open Source:
a philosophy that promotes distribution
source code is available to the public free -of-charge
license allows anyone to use the software
logo of the
Open Source Initiative
WordPress as an Open Source initiative means:
source code is developed by the community
hundreds of people work on the code and create additional code to
make WordPress do even more
you can use it for anything and not pay license fees
―…free software‖ is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think
of ―free‖ as in ―free speech,‖ not as in ―free beer‖. -- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
10. CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
Software system that lets you "Content management systems (CMS)
create and manage website place the responsibility of content
content easily with little creation and maintenance squarely in
knowledge of web the hands of non-technical users.“ –
programming and/or markup cmswire.com
languages (e.g. HTML)
Most use a database to store
information
Content is presented to
website visitors using a
template
11. DATABASE-DRIVEN
Traditional Model Database-Driven Model
These files have instructions to go
get your content and show it back
these files have your content to you all ―dressed up‖
26. WORDPRESS.COM
Advantages Disadvantages
free and super easy to set up 190+ themes available which
all of the technical maintenance you can customize (for a fee),
work is taken care of — setup,
upgrades, spam, backups, but you cannot upload a custom
security, etc. theme
your blog is on hundreds of you can’t modify the PHP code
ser ver s, so it’ll always remain
available, even under high traf fic behind your blog
your content is backed up you can’t upload plugins
automatically
limitations on size
you’ll get extra traf fic from being
a par t of the WordPress.com limitations on file upload types
community
you can find like -minded blogger s
using search and the reader
your dashboard is secure (SSL)
making it even safer to log in on
shared networks
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
28. WORDPRESS.ORG
Advantages Disadvantages
Ability to upload custom You need a web host (generally
themes costs $7-12 a month)
Ability to upload plugins Requires more knowledge &
Complete control to personal time to run
change & customize You’re responsible for
stopping spam
creating and maintaining
backups of your site
updating the WordPress
software when new versions
are released
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/
31. BUT FIRST……A WORD OF CAUTION
Before you create a site, it is
helpful to have an understanding
of what you want and how you
want it organized.
Make a list of desired features
Browse similar sites for ideas
Draw it on paper
34. POSTS VS. PAGES
POSTS PAGES
entries that show up are stand-alone content
listed in reverse are not listed by date
chronological order are not displayed in the
posts are also displayed RSS feed
in the RSS feed of the
do not use categories &
site
tags
use categories & tags
can be made hierarchical
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/
35. CATEGORIES VS. TAGS
CATEGORIES TAGS
Allow for broad grouping Allow for finer
of topics details/description of
Required: each post must topics
be assigned to at least Optional
one
Can be hierarchical Are not hierarchical
Used on Wordpress.com Used on Wordpress.com
to help others find your to help others find your
content content
39. WIDGETS
Snippets of
code/function that can
be placed in the page
Can be placed in
sidebars and/or footers
WordPress.com
provides MANY widgets
automatically
Types of widgets vary
40. LET’S CREATE A SITE!
Objectives
Write new pages
Write new posts
Make front page static
Change the theme
Apply a header graphic
Menu navigation
Widgets
Working with comments
Users & their roles
Reminder: Back to Live Dashboard
41. WORDPRESS.COM IS A COMMUNIT Y
Social Features with other WordPress Blogs
42. WORDPRESS RESOURCES
Wordpress Codex – the help documentation
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons
WordPress Forums – when you have questions
http://wordpress.org/support/
WordPress-focused websites & blogs
Lorelle on WordPres - http://lorelle.wordpress.com/
WPBeginner - http://www.wpbeginner.com
WPTuts - http://wp.tutsplus.com/
Misc.
State of the Word 2011 - http://wordpress.tv/2011/08/14/matt -
mullenweg-state-of-the-word-2011/
Denise Barrett Olsen (Moultrie Creek) – WP 101 Blog posts
http://moultriecreek.us/gazette/?series=wordpress-101
Genealogy Society Webmasters Facebook Group -
https://www.facebook.com/groups/GenSocWebmasters/
43. UNTIL NEXT TIME
Part 2: Dissecting the Dashboard – June 25th
Delve further into the WordPress Dashboard
Switch to WordPress.org and compare features
Email: taneya@gmail.com
www.twitter.com/taneya
www.taneya-kalonji.com
Notas del editor
CNN blogs – this is just one example – their Political Ticker blog