WordPress -Going Beyond The Basics - Seattle WordCamp 2012

WordPress – Going Beyond The
Basics
An Adventure Behind the Scenes of
Your WordPress Site!

Lucy Beer
@webtw
WebTrainingWheels.com

Who The Hell Am I?
Been using WordPress since 2004

I train people in using WordPress, and do online marketing
consulting

I have taught myself about CSS, PHP etc because I wanted to
make WordPress do more and more

If I can do it, YOU sure as hell can!!!

Find me : www.WebTrainingWheels.com | @webtw

Lucy Beer | WebTrainingWheels.com | lucy@webtrainingwheels.com | @webtw

Why Go Beyond The Basics
•You’ve mastered the dashboard and plugins and are
ready for more!
•If you break something, you want to fix it
•You want to understand what you're looking at on
the server
• You want to change something in your theme that it
doesn’t give you an admin option for
•Sometimes plugins require you to add a code
snippet to your theme files
•It’s fun & rewarding…..once you get past scary…


Tools of the Trade
FTP Program (preferable to using cpanel file manager)
Filezilla (free)
Coda (not free)

Code editing program:
MAC - Textwrangler (free), Smultron (free)
PC – Notepad ++ (free)

Desktop Server for local installations:
ServerPress.com – free + premium versions

Chrome Developer Tools, or Firefox


Cover Your Ass AKA Build A Safety
Net
Remove fear by building a safety net:

Back everything up files + db (e.g. before
upgrade)
Duplicator (free)
BackupBuddy (not free)
WP-DB-Backup + FTP files

Practice locally first

Practice on your own server with test
sites.

Things will break – it’s ok, this is how you
learn!


Best Practices For Code
Tweaking
• Retain original copy of any file you work on

• Use a text editor + ftp, not WordPress dashboard

• Comment your code if you make a lot of changes

• NEVER EVER touch core WP files

• Use child themes or duplicate and rename your theme to
prevent future upgrades overwriting your changes


Server Access
• FTP credentials:
• Host name
• Username
• Password


What’s All This Stuff On The
Server


What’s All This Stuff On The
Server
• Core files
• wp-config.php
• .htaccess
• Your stuff is in wp-content :


WP-Config


What’s NOT On The Server?
• Database
– Stores post/page content
– Theme options/settings
– Plugin settings
– User info, dashboard Settings
• Access via control panel, PHPMyAdmin
• Or WordPressplugin
– Adminer


Anatomy of a WordPress
Theme Twenty Eleven theme files


Anatomy of a WordPress theme

Via
Yoast.com


Anatomy of a WordPress theme
PHP files generate HTML
CSS styles the HTML
Typical theme files include:
Index.php
Style.css
Single.php
Page.php
Header.php
Functions.php


CSS Tweaks
• Style.css
• Use Developer Tools to test the change you
want to make and isolate the part of the code
you need to change
• [live demo]


What To Do If Something
Breaks
• Generally it’s a plugin conflict
– Deactivate all, re-activate one by one

• If that doesn’t work, test with the default
theme

• What if you install a bad plugin and you
can no longer access your dashboard at
all?
– Manual deactivation

Manual Plugin Deactivation


Resources
Awesome blogs and resources:

• CSS-Tricks.com

• Bill Erickson.net

• PerishablePress.com

• WP Tuts: http://wp.tutsplus.com/

• Codex: http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page

• Template hierarchy:
http://codex.wordpress.org/images/1/18/Template_Hierarchy.png

• Yoast “Anatomy of A WordPress Theme”
http://yoast.com/wordpress-theme-anatomy/


WordPress -Going Beyond The Basics - Seattle WordCamp 2012

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WordPress -Going Beyond The Basics - Seattle WordCamp 2012