Advanced WordPress

Advanced WordPress

Saturday 19 Sep 09
Software Freedom Day
Melbourne

Kathy Reid
kathy@kathyreid.id.au
http://blog.kathyreid.id.au
http://slideshare.net/KathyReid
Kathy Reid
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid

This workshop is for YOU
Let me know
if there's something
you would like
covered in more depth
or in a different way

If it's too technical,
let me know

Kathy Reid If it's not technical enough,
kathy@kathyreid.id.au let me know

What does this workshop assume?
● You are comfortable with
creating posts and pages
● You are comfortable installing
and changing themes, widgets
and plugins
Slide 3
● Have used WordPress.com online
or have installed your own
WordPress on your server
● Installation page on Codex:
Kathy Reid http://codex.wordpress.org/Getting_S

Common installation issues - permissions
● wp-config.php has to be
writable by the web server.
This is the file that you enter
your DB username and
Slide 4 password details into
● Permissions can usually be
changed via FTP
● Is everyone familiar with
Kathy Reid Linux file system
kathy@kathyreid.id.au permissions?

Common installation issues - DB
● MySQL database has to be
created, and the MySQL user
has to be given permissions to
the database
Slide 5
● This is best done through
PhpMyAdmin (available
through most hosting control
panels)
● If MySQL is upgraded on your
Kathy Reid host, you may need to
recreate the user and
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid permissions

Common installation issues - upgrades
● Since WordPress 2.7, there are
tools that automate the
process of upgrading
● Disable all plugins before
Slide 6 upgrading
● Ensure you make a backup of
your database
● This can also be done in
Kathy Reid PhpMyAdmin
kathy@kathyreid.id.au ● Everyone familiar with
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid PhpMyAdmin?

Common installation issues - timeout
● By default, WordPress has a timeout
set to 30 seconds when downloading
from FTP to do an automatic update
● This can result in an error like;
Downloading update from
Slide 7 http://wordpress.org/wordpress2.7.1
Download failed.: Operation
timed out after 30000
milliseconds with 351500 bytes
received
Installation Failed
Kathy Reid

Timeout (cont'd)
● You need to do the following to fix
this error
● In the file system where WordPress
is installed, find the file called
'file.php'
Slide 8
● /wpadmin/includes/
● Find the line;
$response =
wp_remote_get($url,
array(’timeout’ => 30));
Kathy Reid
● Change the '30' to something like
http://blog.kathyreid.id.au '500' and try the upgrade again

Themes – modifying or building your own
● Easier to modify an existing
theme as the basic layout
will already have been done
for you
Slide 9 ● (check licensing of theme)
● Modifying or building your
own themes requires some
knowledge of HTML and CSS
Kathy Reid ● Themes intro page on Codex
http://blog.kathyreid.id.au http://codex.wordpress.org/Usin

Themes – File hierarchy
● When building themes, it is
important to have an
understanding of the file
hierarchy – ie which 'pieces'
Slide 10 of the theme get included
where. This page on the
WordPress codex covers
this;
● http://codex.wordpress.org/Step
Kathy Reid

Themes – styles.css
● This is the main file that
needs to be edited
● The first block is used by
WordPress to show style
Slide 11 information in the
Appearance menu in the
Dashboard
● You will need CSS skills to
Kathy Reid edit the Theme
● http://www.cssreference.com

Themes – Getting new ones
● There are literally tens of
thousands of themes. High
quality themes usually have;
– Widget support
Slide 12 – 'Fluid layouts' that fit to
screen
– Are standards compliant
– Well tested or many installs
Kathy Reid ● Good place to start is:
http://blog.kathyreid.id.au ● http://wordpress.org/extend/the

Exercise 1 –
Modifying an existing theme
● Create a copy of one of the
themes in the 'wp-
content/themes' directory
● Edit the styles.css file so
Slide 13 that the first block of
information is changed
● Make some changes to the
colours or CSS styling within
Kathy Reid the file

Exercise 1 - contd
● Navigate to 'Appearance' in
your Dashboard and change
the chosen theme to the one
you modified.
Slide 14 ● Can you see the differences?
● What else would you like to
change about your theme?

Kathy Reid

Installing plugins
● A plugin is a piece of code
written in PHP by a developer
which can be added to
WordPress to provide
additional functionality
Slide 15
● The quality of plugins and
their maturity varies – some
are excellent, some are
rubbish
Kathy Reid ● Most are usually free, some
are not.

Finding plugins
● The best place to start is:
● http://wordpress.org/extend/plu
● Each plugin has information
on
Slide 16
– Version
– Compatibility
– Author
– Home page
Kathy Reid
kathy@kathyreid.id.au – Screenshots
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid – Documentation

Assessing a plugin
● What rating does it have?
● How comprehensive is the
documentation or website?
● What version is the plugin
Slide 17 (usually higher version, more
mature)
● How active is the development
(last version date)
Kathy Reid ● How many other people have
kathy@kathyreid.id.au it installed (a good indicator of
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid quality)

Exercise 2:
Assessing and installing a plugin
● In your Dashboard, navigate to
Plugins -> Add New
● You will be presented with a
field where you can search for
Slide 18 plugins. Try the keyword for a
plugin you're interested in. In
this example, we'll use 'twitter'
(it's not case sensitive)
● WordPress will go and search
Kathy Reid all the plugins that match this
keyword and present them to
http://www.slideshare.net/KathyReid you in a table

Exercise 2:
Assessing and installing a plugin
● Identify the plugin you wish to
install (refer to 'assessing a
plugin' earlier in this
presentation)
Slide 20
● Click the 'install' link next to
the plugin
● The plugin will install
automatically

Kathy Reid
● You may have to configure
kathy@kathyreid.id.au options for the plugin

Plugins – you MUST have
● Akismet is an anti-spam
plugin; it is packaged by
default with WordPress. It
will identify which comments
Slide 21 are spam and which are
legitimate with a high rate of
accuracy.
● http://wordpress.org/extend/plu
Kathy Reid

Plugins - Forms
● Cforms is a plugin which
provides a very robust and
complete method to create
forms for your website.
Slide 22 ● It is overkill for basic contact
forms, but has a lot of
functionality such as
captcha control and auto
replies
Kathy Reid
kathy@kathyreid.id.au ● http://www.deliciousdays.com/c

Other plugins you might like
● Sociable: Allows people to
read your posts and flag them
with tools such as Delicious,
Digg, Twitter etc
Slide 23
● Similar posts: Automatically
suggest posts your readers
may also like from keywords
and categories
● WordPress mobile edition:
Kathy Reid Make sure your blog is
readable on mobile devices

Keeping plugins updated
● It's important that you keep
an eye out for plugins that
need to be updated – for
bugs and vulnerabilities but
Slide 24 also for enhancements.
● WordPress automatically
notifies you of plugins that
have updates available;
Kathy Reid

Keeping plugins updated
● It's important that you keep
an eye out for plugins that
need to be updated – for
bugs and vulnerabilities but
Slide 25 also for enhancements.
● WordPress automatically
notifies you of plugins that
have updates available;
Kathy Reid

Writing your own plugin
● You will need to know PHP
reasonably well
● Helps to have a knowledge of
the WordPress code and
Slide 26 components – and 'hooks' that
are built in for plugin
developers
● Has someone else already
written the plugin
Kathy Reid
● How will you support it?
● http://codex.wordpress.org/Writing

Roles
● Roles and permissions in
WordPress are basic; it is
designed to be a blog used by
a single person
Slide 27
● Blog owner can assign a role
to a user which restricts what
abilities that user has on the
site – each role has different
capabilities
Kathy Reid ● http://codex.wordpress.org/Roles_

WordPress Multi User (WPMU)
● WPMU is a different form of
WordPress that is designed to
be installed in a multi-blogging
environment
Slide 28
● For instance, you can run
hundreds of blogs from one
installation
● The administrator can set
privilege levels and plugins site
Kathy Reid wide or on certain sites only
● http://mu.wordpress.org

Social networking: BuddyPress
● BuddyPress aims to add
social networking
functionality to WordPress to
make it more suitable for
Slide 29 community sites
● Still in its infancy; is quite
immature – but one to watch
● http://buddypress.org
Kathy Reid

Additional resources

FLOSS Manual
(Free/Libre and Open Source
Software)
Slide 30
http://en.flossmanuals.net/wordpress

WordPress – downloads, docs,
themes
http://www.wordpress.org

Kathy Reid

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