WordPress University

Stephanie Leary
Website Administrator, Texas A&M University

October 7

CMS Capabilities

  • posts and pages
  • scheduled publishing
  • basic workflow
  • easy media embedding
  • excellent seo
  • ubiquitous feeds

Killer Feature is the User Interface. (made by happycog)

Post vs. Page

Posts have…

  • included in feeds
  • categories
  • tags
  • excerpts
  • comments and trackbacks
  • custom fields

Pages have…

  • not included in feeds
  • page parent (not categories)
  • template
  • menu order
  • comments and trackbacks
  • custom fields

Pages can…with plugins

  • included in feeds
  • categories
  • tags

The dirty little secret because pages are posts and posts are pages.

Things that are posts

  • blogs
  • news archives
  • press releases
  • podcasts
  • newsletters
  • magazines
  • journals
  • …

Things that are posts

  • anything you want in a feed
  • anything organized by date

Things that are pages

  • anything that does not change often
  • anything that is not organized by date

Other things

  • media uploads
  • users
  • links

Demo

  • installation
  • file import
  • basic options
  • reading settings
  • permalinks

Less blog, more CMS

  • magazine-style home pages
  • great url structure
  • no category or archives
  • contextual navigation
  • breadcrumbs
  • subpage listings

Magazine Layout

  • multiple content areas
  • category sections
  • list of subpages
  • widgets

Required theme files

  • index.php
  • style.css

Other recommendations

  • functions.php – this is where you define widgets
  • screenshot.png

More files

category.php = global category theme

category-6.php = category theme for catid=6

How a theme file works

  • get_header
  • The Loop
  • get_sidebar
  • get_footer

sandbox, hybrid, thematic themes to start looking at

Inside The Loop

  • title
  • content/excerpt
  • date
  • categories
  • tags
  • author
  • custom fields

Complicating matters

  • custom loops
  • multiple loops

Modify the query (query_posts)

  • limit
  • offset
  • parent
  • categories & tags (include/exclude)
  • sort order
  • type
  • author
  • status

Sidebars

one included by default – get_sidebar()

can use more than one with php file include syntax

Widgets

theme/plugin hybrid

can be defined in functions.php or installed as part of a plugin

Built-in Widgets

  • archives
  • categories
  • calendar
  • links
  • RSS
  • pages
  • meta (log in/out, feed)
  • recent posts
  • tag cloud
  • text

Plugins

6735 plugins and growing

Plugins can…

  • add widgets
  • create template tags
  • modify loops
  • create shortcodes
  • alter user roles
  • provide custom fields
  • alter write screens
  • add JS libraries

Putting it all together

We want…

  • pages
  • a blog
  • subscribe to comments
  • a podcast
  • a contact form w/spam guard
  • a private area
  • users to be redirected on login

Sidbar login plugin

Peter’s login redirect

Problems with private

visibility: menus

granularity: groups

privileges: roles

Plugin to fix this – Role manager (for now)

[PressThis podcast talks about world press]

Hiding the admin area

  • sidebar login
  • front-end editor
  • P2
  • posthaste

Moving servers

  • changing domains
  • edit database fields
  • use config file constants
  • changing directories
  • maintaining permalinks

Caching Plugins

  • WP Cache
  • Super Cache
  • W3 Total Cache

What’s New in 2.9

  • image editor
  • trash (posts, pages, comments)
  • new excerpt filters
  • easy changes to contact profile fields
  • included handbook (printable)
  • category-slug.php

What’s different in MU

  • each user gets a blog
  • each blog gets a set of db tables
  • users can’t upload themes or plugins
  • site-wide plugins installed for all
  • site admin screen (and role)

Calendar plugin: AMR ICAL Event