For basic content publishing needs, the ease-of-use of WordPress shines. Unfortunately, once a project exceeds 500 pages, using WordPress is much less straightforward. How has Boston University made it work? From a technical standpoint, building relationships between content objects and creating simple to use UIs for managing the relationships is key. Once established, the semantic relationships can be coupled with bits of meta data to construct menus, indexes, facets, filters, and so much more. Using code examples, this talk will highlight essential parts of the WordPress API and demonstrate various techniques used in BU plugins and themes that help us build better large websites.

1. WordPress:
Building
Better
Relationships
Text

2. ordPress @ BU

3. 636 sites
581 sites
342 sites
141 sites
136 sites
0 sites
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

4. Total:
+ 270 In-progress
+ 2,323 Blogs
= 3,229 Sites
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

5. A range of offerings:
1. Fully custom
2. Quick setup
3. DIY tools

13. Big sites are hard

14. What makes them hard?
Lack of vision Inadequate Politics
search
Lack of capabilities
consistency
Performance
Lack of clear
accountability Complex
work lows
Team dynamics
and skill Focusing on
technology before
understanding the
problem

15. content design
site
tools

16. How many plugins does it take?
Main Main Integrated
Third-Party BU-speci ic w/ BU apps
Gravity Forms BU Navigation BU Calendar
WP SuperCache Access Control List BU Maps
(w/ Single Sign-on)
Akismet Google Search
User Management Appliance
Networks for (w/ Single Sign-on)
WordPress Course Feeds
Content Banner
Training Manager
Post Details
Emergency Alert
Advanced Tiny MCE
Site Manager
....

17. the magic number
seven +/- two
*George A. Miller. "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our
Capacity for Processing Information". The Psychological Review, 1956, vol. 63, pp.
81 97.

24. Custom
Post Types

26. Bene its Risks
• Admin menu w/label • Not supported by all
plugins
• Separate templates
(automatic) • More difficult to move
• Separate namespace • No XML-RPC support
• Easy to add • No mobile support
metaboxes
• No cross-relationship
• Good performance support built-in

27. Post type registration
$supports
=
array(
'title',
'bu-­‐content-­‐banner',
'bu-­‐post-­‐details',
'comments'
);
$taxonomies
=
array(
'category'
);
$labels
=
array(
'name'
=>
_x('Close-­‐ups',
'post
type
general
name'),
'singular_name'
=>
_x('Close-­‐ups',
'post
type
singular
name'));

28. $args
=
array(
'labels'
=>
$labels,
'description'
=>
'',
'publicly_queryable'
=>
true,
'exclude_from_search'
=>
false,
'capability_type'
=>
'post',
'capabilities'
=>
array(),
'map_meta_cap'
=>
null,
'hierarchical'
=>
false,
'rewrite'
=>
array('slug'
=>
'closeup'),
'has_archive'
=>
false,
'query_var'
=>
true,
'supports'
=>
array(),
'taxonomies'
=>
$taxonomies,
'show_ui'
=>
true,
'menu_position'
=>
null,
'menu_icon'
=>
null,
'permalink_epmask'
=>
EP_PERMALINK,
'can_export'
=>
true,
'show_in_nav_menus'
=>
false,
'show_in_menu'
=>
true,
'supports'
=>
$supports
);
register_post_type('closeup',
$args);

29. Consistency vs.
Freedom

30. man
+ machine

31. Curation

35. Demo + Code
Code available at https://github.com/gcorne/featured-posts

36. Discovery
+ little surprises

38. Keyword Analysis +
Relevance Algorithm
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
(by) @mitcho

39. Semantic value
meaningful
cohesive clear
substantial logical

40. Classi ication +
Taxonomy

41. Taxonomy registration
$args
=
array(
'hierarchical'
=>
false,
'show_ui'
=>
true,
'labels'
=>
array(
'name'
=>
'Media
Types',
'singular_name',
'Media
Type'
),
'query_var'
=>
true,
'rewrite'
=>
true,
);
register_taxonomy('media-­‐type',
array('post'),
$args);

42. Simple taxonomy query
$tax_q
=
array(
'taxonomy'
=>
'media-­‐type',
'field'
=>
'id',
'terms'
=>
$term_id)
);
$q_args
=
array(
'post_type'
=>
'any',
'post_status'
=>
'publish',
'tax_query'
=>
$tax_q
);
$custom_q
=
WP_Query($q_args);
while($custom_q-­‐>has_posts())
{
$custom_q-­‐>the_post();
//
render
post
list
using
template
tags
//
}

43. taxonomy usage: standard
list of posts in a
list of terms speci ic post
term

46. taxonomy usage: ilter
post list
term-based
ilter
shorter
post list

48. Up next» + mobile
+ work low
plugin
+ libraries
+ infrastructure

49. (by)
Gregory Cornelius
design by Scott Dasse

50. Image credits
"Holding Hands" —Elizabeth Buie
http://www. lickr.com/photos/ebuie/3626180065