1. Welcome to WordPress

2. Course Outline
● Session 1:
○ Understanding WordPress
○ Setting up your site
○ Administration & management
● Session 2:
○ Plugins
○ Widgets
○ Themes
○ Customizing themes
○ Review

3. Team Rules
You are already winning by being here.
Everyone finishes.
Advanced exercises will be offered.
If you don't do the advanced exercises, that's fine.

4. Introductions!
This class:
● 8 of you said you have never used WordPress
● Many of you said you have a site or an idea, and want to
do more with it
● 4 of you are very interested mastering site management
● 6 of you said you are particularly interested in setup, or
how we start from scratch in WP
● One of you is interested in building a site for your family
pictures, which is adorable!

5. Introductions!
Tell us about yourself
● Name
● What you hope to get out of class
● Random fact (or, the name of your yacht)

6. What is WordPress?
● Open Source
● Often used as a Content Management System
(CMS)
○ Organize data in a database rather than
updating individual files
○ Allows many users
○ Allows users to communicate with one
another (ex. have different roles in the
project)

7. What is WordPress?
Translation:
Wordpress is free, open source, community-
developed platform that helps people make
websites quickly and cheaply, and manage
them easily: even without knowing how to
code.

8. WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
Hosting Customization
Your host
Domains Branding

9. Working 'Locally' -- huh?
Working 'locally' means working on your own machine rather
than anywhere else - namely not on a remote server.
What you need:
● XAMPP - a way to run a free web server on your machine -
and include Apache and MySQL, both of which we need for
WordPress
● The latest release of WordPress (probably a .zip folder)
● A Text Editor
○ I recommend Komodo Edit for Mac/Windows/Linux

10. Open XAMPP and start your services
find where your files
need to go

11. Setup your database
From XAMPP home, find phpMyAdmin
Create Your Database

12. SUCCESS!!!!!!

13. Setup your database
Create a user with all privileges on that database
Write down that info!

14. SUCCESS!!!!!!

15. Installing WordPress
If you haven't yet, un-zip your WordPress download (the .zip).
Copy files from the WordPress folder the documents
folder
(note, the documents folder as defined by XAMPP)

16. Installing WordPress

17. Installing WordPress
Visit BASEURL/wp-admin/install.php in your browser
likely localhost/wp-admin/install.php

20. If you got this error ... it's okay! We just copy the
text
and make the file ourselves.

22. Installing WordPress
Copy that file into your XAMPP documents folder
... then go back to your browser and click Run the Install

23. SUCCESS!!!!!! (fill in your information)

24. MORE SUCCESS!!!!!!

25. THERE IS NO SUCH THING
AS TOO MUCH SUCCESS!!!!!!

26. Lessons Learned
Do you ...
● Understand what WordPress is?
Are you ...
● Able to articulate the differences between .com and .org?
Do you ...
● Have a local WordPress install?

27. Administration and
Management

28. Administration & Management Plan
● Resources for WordPress online ... and in Philly
● The WordPress "Backend"
○ Changing your site's settings
○ Content types in WordPress
○ Writing in WordPress
○ Changing the theme
Goals
● You will have added some resources to your toolbelt (or
bookmarks bar)
● You can update your site's settings
● You can update your site's content and themes in the
backend

29. Resources Online ... and in Philly
● WordPress Codex: http://codex.wordpress.org
● GDI Philly's WordPress Group: http://www.facebook.
com/groups/gdiphillywordpress/
● Philly WordPress Meetup: http://www.meetup.
com/Philadelphia-WordPress-Meetup-Group/
● Philadelphia WordPress website: http://phillywp.org/
● WordCamp Philly: http://2012.philly.wordcamp.org/

30. More resources ...
● PANMA list: http://www.panma.org/community/listserv
● Girl Geek Dinners (social): http://www.ggdphl.com
● WordPress mailing lists: http://codex.wordpress.
org/Mailing_Lists
● WordPress Development Updates: http://wpdevel.
wordpress.com/
● wptavern.com
● wpcandy.com

31. We have a website - now what?
What's your site's story?
Hooray.com is a site that posts awesome things. They also
consult on being awesome.
Now let's walk through setting up Hooray.com on the
admin side.

32. Exercise: Changing your site's settings
Complete/Answer the following:
● Change your site's "tagline"
● Update your permalink structure
● What tab would you go to to change the default image
sizes?
● What version of WordPress are you using? Where did
you find out?
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● Disable comments by default
● Turn off pingbacks from your site
● Change your RSS feed to show 20 items.
What was the default number?

33. Activity: Content Types
Here are some examples of content that could appear on
your site. Should they be Posts or Pages?
● Contact us
● 10 reasons you should get a kitten
● An item for sale on an e-commerce site
● Privacy policy
● A job listing
● Meet my cat Luna
● Bio of an artist for a gallery with many artists

34. Exercise: Writing and Updating
Complete/Answer the following:
● Write a Post and a Page on edit screens in two different
windows. Note the differences.
● Make a category and add your post to it. Can you add
pages to categories?
● Add tags to your post. What are the benefits of tags?
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● Go to your Post edit screen and choose
"Screen Options." Add/remove areas and
drag and drop for your preferred layout
● Trash a post and restore it
● Schedule a post for 2 minutes in the future
● Add a "Featured Image" to a post. What
happens?

35. Media, Links, Comments
● Links can help you organize links
outside your menu
● Approve and manage
comments in the Comments area

36. Exercises: Media, Links, Comments
Complete/Answer the following:
● Upload a picture to the Media area (from your
computer or the Web)
● Unapprove the default comment added by WordPress
● Add a link to the Links area
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● Crop the image you uploaded to a new size
and save it
● Write a comment on a post on your site and
see what happens
● Make a new link category and organize the
links in a new way

37. Lessons Learned
Do you ...
● Remember what our main resources are?
Are you ...
● Able to update the name of your site and other settings?
Can you ...
● Write and update content on your site?
Are you ...
● Able to change your theme?

38. Homework!
● Join the Facebook group!
● Work on your site - updating the
settings, writing sample content ...
● Research themes and find one that relatively fits
your site's goals
Tomorrow: Plugins, Widgets, Themes,
Customization, and Publishing!