Slides from the 3rd Class of the January 2012 Session

1. Plugins, Widgets and Themes

2. Today's Plan
● Review
● Plugins
● Widgets
● Themes and extension - "child themes"
Goals
● You will understand what widgets are and how to use them
● You will know the 'definition' of a plugin
● You'll have the basics of child themes down, and might have one
of your own!

3. Review Exercise
● Name the two ways we can add a theme to our site
● What's a permalink?
● How do you get to the WordPress backend?

4. Review Exercise (Answers)
● Name the two ways we can add a theme to our site
Searching for it within the backend & file transfer
● What's a permalink?
The 'permanent' location of something on our site; ex /about
● How do you get to the WordPress backend?
MYSITE/wp-admin

5. Plugins extend the
functionality of
WordPress.

7. Exercise: Plugins
Complete/Answer the following:
● Toggle the activation of the Hello Dolly plugin. What does it
do?
● Delete the Hello Dolly plugin. What are the two components
of deletion you're warned about?
● Go to Featured plugins and install and activate the Stop SOPA
Ribbon plugin.
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● Add the Hello Dolly plugin back. You miss it.
● How can you find the lines that Hello Dolly
choses from?
● Search and add the WP PHP widget to your site.
Activate. [You'll have more to play with in the
Widgets exercise!]

8. Widgets are a form of plugin that
can add functionality to different
areas of your site, without needing
to code.

9. Exercise: Widgets
Complete/Answer the following:
● Use a widget in your site's theme
● How can you remove a widget but keep its settings?
● Can you use a widget more than once?
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● If you installed the PHP widget, play with running
"Hello World" PHP code in a widget area
● Does the PHP widget support HTML?
● Change themes - did widget support change?
Widgets.

10. Child Themes: The What
● A Child Theme is a theme based on another theme (the
parent)
● It uses all components of the parent theme unless you
specify otherwise

11. Child Themes: The How
A folder and a style.css file

12. Exercise: Child Themes
Make a Child Theme.
Gold Star! [Extra Credit]
● PLAY
(start customizing the theme!)

13. Lessons Learned
Can you ...
● Define what plugins (and widgets) do?
Are you ...
● Able to install and activate plugins?
Are you ...
● Able to customize your site with widgets?
Do you ...
● Understand the concept of child themes?
Are you ...
● Able to make and activate a child theme?

14. Homework!
● Search for and implement plugins
and widgets on your site
● Make a child theme of a theme you'd like to modify (if you
haven't already)
● If you have hosting, download FileZilla and install it on
your machine