WordPress Complete - Sixth Edition

WordPress Complete - Sixth Edition

by Karol Król
Released August 2017
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781787285705

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Book description

Learn how to build a beautiful and feature-rich website or blog with WordPress all on your own.

About This Book

  • Learn how to build a WordPress site quickly and effectively, and how to create content that's optimized for publication on the web.
  • Learn the basics of working with WordPress themes and plugins, and even create your own.
  • Beginner-friendly layout and advice you can apply from day 1. Packed with screenshots and examples.

Who This Book Is For

This book is for anyone who wants to learn how to create a functional website, without having to hire a developer or a designer. The best thing about WordPress—the open source software that we're going to be using—is that it has a minimal learning curve and that everyone can master it quickly. No specific website building experience is required. Having said that, this book will also appeal to everyone who wants to get a bit more in-depth with WordPress development and start working on their own plugins and themes.

What You Will Learn

  • What WordPress is, where to get it, and how to launch your website quickly using it.
  • How to publish your first content (a blog post or article).
  • What the most important sub-pages of a quality website are, and how to create them in WordPress.
  • How to upload multimedia content such as images, audio, and video.
  • How to install and work with plugins and widgets.
  • Where to find quality themes and how to install them.
  • How to develop your own WordPress plugins and themes.

In Detail

WordPress Complete, Sixth Edition is a practical guide for everyone who wants to start their journey as an online publisher, website owner, or even a website developer. It takes you step-by-step through the process of planning out and building your site, and offers loads of screenshots and examples along the way. It's also a beginner's guide to theme and plugin development.

This book begins with the basics of WordPress, followed by the different components that you as a developer will need to use to work swiftly and efficiently.

The book starts by introducing WordPress to new readers in this field. You are then shown how to set it up, implement a blog, and use plug-ins and widgets. You'll use themes to make any website look and feel better and more original. You also learn how to create your own themes and perform testing to ensure your website is bug-free. You will also acquire some idea of how to use WordPress for non-blog-like websites.

By the end of the book, you will feel confident enough to design high-quality websites and will be familiar with the ins and outs of WordPress.

Style and approach

This is a step-by-step tutorial, where we show you how you build a professional-grade website from the ground up, adding more and more complex features as we move on.

Table of contents

  1. Preface
    1. What this book covers
    2. What you need for this book
    3. Who this book is for
    4. Conventions
    5. Reader feedback
    6. Customer support
      1. Downloading the example code
      2. Errata
      3. Piracy
      4. Questions
  2. Introducing WordPress
    1. Getting into WordPress
      1. What WordPress is good for
        1. Starting the journey – what is a blog?
    2. Understanding the common terms
      1. Post
      2. Categories and tags
      3. Comments
      4. Themes
      5. Plugins
      6. Widgets
      7. Menus
      8. Page
      9. Homepage
      10. Users
    3. Why choose WordPress?
      1. Who should use WordPress?
    4. Getting to know the WordPress family
    5. Digging into WordPress – the features
    6. Getting familiar with the new feature list since 4.1
      1. Learning more
    7. Learning more with online WordPress resources
    8. Staying updated with WordPress news
    9. Understanding the Codex
    10. Getting support from other users
    11. Using theme and plugin directories
    12. Summary
  3. Getting Started with WordPress
    1. Building your WordPress website – start here
    2. Using WordPress.com
      1. Publishing your first content on a WordPress.com blog
    3. Installing WordPress manually
      1. Preparing the environment
      2. Downloading WordPress
      3. Uploading the files
      4. Installing WordPress
      5. Installing WordPress through a hand-built configuration file
      6. Learning more
    4. Installing WordPress through an auto-installer script
    5. The wp-admin panel
      1. Changing general blog information
      2. Creating your first post
      3. Writing your first comment
      4. Retrieving a lost password
    6. Getting a Gravatar
    7. Summary
  4. Creating Blog Content
    1. WordPress admin conventions
      1. Lists of items
    2. Posting on your blog
      1. Adding a simple post
      2. Common post options
        1. Categories and tags
        2. Images in your posts
          1. Adding an image to a post
          2. Controlling default image sizes
        3. Editing an uploaded image
          1. Designating a featured image
        4. Videos and other media in your posts
          1. Adding videos to blog posts
          2. Adding audio to blog posts
          3. Limited editing possibilities
        5. Using the Visual editor versus the Text editor
        6. Lead and body
        7. Drafts, pending articles, and timestamps
          1. Drafts
          2. Pending articles
          3. Timestamps
      3. Advanced post options
        1. Excerpt
        2. Discussion
        3. Custom Fields
        4. Working with post revisions
        5. Changing the author of the post
        6. Protecting content
        7. Pretty post slug
        8. Custom post format settings
      4. Additional writing options
        1. Press This
        2. Calypso by WordPress.com
        3. Mobile apps for iOS and Android
    3. Discussion on your blog – comments
      1. Adding a comment
      2. Discussion settings
        1. Submission, notification, and moderation settings
        2. When to moderate or blacklist a comment
        3. Avatar display settings
      3. Moderating comments
      4. How to eliminate comment spam
        1. Working with Akismet
    4. Adding and managing categories
    5. Summary
  5. Pages, Media, and Importing/Exporting Content
    1. Pages
      1. Adding a page
        1. Parent
        2. Order
      2. Managing pages
    2. Media Library
      1. Media Manager
      2. Adding an image gallery
        1. Choosing a post or page
        2. Selecting or uploading images
    3. Importing/exporting your content
      1. Importing content
      2. Exporting content
    4. Summary
  6. Plugins - What They Are and Why You Need Them
    1. Breaking down plugins - what are they?
    2. Why use plugins
    3. Where to get plugins
    4. Finding new plugins
    5. Installing a plugin - the how-to
      1. Manual plugin installation
      2. Auto-installation
    6. The must-have pack of plugins
      1. Backing up
      2. Enabling Google Analytics
      3. Caching
      4. Search engine optimization
      5. Securing your site
      6. Social media integration
      7. Jetpack
    7. Summary
  7. Choosing and Installing Themes
    1. Finding themes
      1. WordPress Theme Directory
      2. Main types of themes
      3. Finding more themes
    2. Some not-design-related theme basics
      1. The structure of a theme
      2. Factors to consider when choosing a theme
        1. The purpose of the theme
        2. Theme licensing
        3. Up-to-date themes only
        4. Themes that are customizable
        5. Themes with a responsive structure
        6. Support, reviews, and documentation
    3. Installing and changing themes
      1. Adding a theme within the wp-admin
      2. Downloading, extracting, and uploading
    4. Summary
  8. Customizing Your Website Appearance/Design
    1. Menus
      1. Adding a menu
      2. Displaying a menu
    2. Widgets
    3. The WordPress Customizer
      1. Site identity
      2. Colors
      3. Header Media
      4. Background
      5. Widgets
      6. Static Front Page
      7. Additional CSS
    4. Summary
  9. Developing Your Own Theme
    1. Setting up your design
      1. Designing your theme to be WordPress-friendly
      2. Three paths of theme development
        1. Building a theme from the ground up
        2. Building a theme with a framework
        3. Building a theme with a starter theme
      3. Converting your design into code
        1. Examining the HTML structure
        2. Examining the CSS
    2. Converting your build into a theme
      1. Creating the theme folder
        1. Name your folder and create backup copies of your build files
        2. Prepare the essential files
        3. Add a screenshot
        4. file screenshot.png and save it in your build folder
        5. Upload your folder
        6. Activate your theme
      2. How to create basic WordPress content
        1. The functions.php file
        2. The <head> tag
        3. The header and footer
        4. The sidebar
      3. Main column – the loop
    3. Creating template files within your theme
      1. Understanding the WordPress theme structure
      2. Breaking it up
        1. The header.php file
        2. The footer.php file
        3. The sidebar.php file
        4. Your four template files
      3. Archive template
      4. Single template
      5. Page template
      6. Generated classes for body and post
      7. Other WordPress templates
      8. Creating and using a custom page template
    4. Making your theme widget-friendly
      1. Going back to our sidebar
      2. Working with the functions.php file
      3. Adding some widgets
      4. Additional widgetizing options
    5. Enabling a menu in your theme
    6. Making your theme editable in the WordPress Customizer
    7. Creating a child theme
      1. Creating the new theme folder
      2. Creating the style sheet
      3. Using your child theme
    8. Sharing your theme
    9. Summary
  10. Social Media Integration, Podcasting, and HTTPS
    1. Integrating social media
      1. Making your blog social media friendly
      2. Setting up social media share buttons
      3. Setting up social media APIs integration
      4. Setting up automatic content distribution to social media
        1. The Jetpack plugin
        2. The Revive Old Post plugin
      5. Setting up social media metrics tracking
    2. Podcasting
      1. Creating a podcast
        1. Recording yourself
        2. Making a post
      2. Podcasting plugins
      3. Using a service to host audio files for free
    3. HTTPS - what, why, and how
      1. What is HTTPS
      2. Why HTTPS is important for a modern WordPress site
      3. How to set up HTTPS
    4. Summary
  11. Developing Plugins, Widgets, and an Introduction to the REST API
    1. Plugins
      1. Building plugins from scratch
      2. Plugin code requirements
      3. Basic plugin - adding link icons
        1. Naming and organizing the plugin files
        2. Writing the plugin's core functions
        3. Adding hooks to the plugin
        4. Trying out the plugin
      4. Adding an admin page
        1. Adding management page functions
        2. Modifying the doctype_styles_new_regex() function
        3. Adding hooks
        4. Trying out the plugin
      5. Testing your plugins
      6. A plugin with database access - capturing searched words
        1. Getting the plugin to talk to the database
        2. Adding management page functions
        3. Trying out the plugin
      7. Learning more
    2. Widgets
      1. Custom tag cloud widget
        1. Naming our widget
        2. The widget structure
        3. The widget initiation function
        4. The widget form function
        5. The widget save function
        6. The widget print function
        7. Custom widget styles
        8. Initiating and hooking up the widget
        9. Trying out the widget
        10. Learning more
      2. Bundling a widget with an existing plugin
    3. Shortcodes
      1. Shortcodes and the way they work
      2. Types of shortcodes
      3. Creating a simple shortcode
    4. The WordPress REST API
      1. What REST API is
      2. Why use WordPress REST API?
      3. How to get started with REST API
        1. Creating a plugin that uses REST API
    5. Summary
  12. Community Blogging
    1. Concerns for a multi-author blog
    2. User roles and abilities
      1. Administrator
      2. Editor
      3. Author
      4. Contributor
      5. Subscriber
    3. Managing users
      1. Enabling users to self-register
    4. User management plugins
    5. Summary
  13. Creating a Non-Blog Website Part One - The Basics
    1. The must-do tasks
    2. Static websites
      1. The process
        1. Building your home page
        2. Creating easy-to-grasp menus
    3. Corporate or business websites
      1. Picking a clean theme
      2. Branding elements
      3. Good navigation
      4. Custom home page
      5. Slider (optional)
    4. One-page websites
      1. Picking a one-page theme
      2. Branding elements
      3. High-quality images
    5. Summary
  14. Creating a Non-Blog Website Part Two - E-Commerce Websites and Custom Content Elements
    1. E-commerce stores
      1. Is WordPress a good platform for an e-commerce store?
      2. Getting a good e-commerce plugin
        1. Plugin installation and initial setup
        2. Setting up the main store pages
        3. Your store location
        4. Shipping and payments
        5. Adjusting your store design
      3. Adding products
      4. Stats – orders, coupons, and reports
    2. Video blogs and photo blogs
      1. Exploring themes for video and photo sites
      2. Getting plugins for video and photo sites
    3. Social networks
      1. Installing a social network
      2. Designing your social network
      3. Extending the functionality
    4. Introducing custom post types
      1. Registering a new post type
        1. Adding labels
        2. Adding messages
        3. Creating book template files
      2. Registering and using a custom taxonomy
      3. Customizing the admin display
    5. Summary

Product information

  • Title: WordPress Complete - Sixth Edition
  • Author(s): Karol Król
  • Release date: August 2017
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781787285705