Posted by: David Dittman
July 14, 2007
Issue #177

How To Use Wordpress

Welcome to another edition of Working IT Out!

I hope you had a great week and are ready for a fairly ambitious weekend project. Our goal is to go from no website to new full blown, bells and whistle, web 2.0 fully functional website! (The web 2.0 reference is to make Newtson happy)

So if you’re ready to actually get a website up and running in no time flat, strap yourself in because I’m not stopping until we have this thing going.

In this article:

• How to get a website up and running in as little as 15 minutes for less than $20 from scratch, with no HTML experience …

• Some essential plugins that you will need for WordPress …

• How to edit an existing WordPress theme to better suit you …

• Some great resources for designing a WordPress theme from scratch …

• And much, much more!

Now here is a checklist of what you’ll need and a ballpark estimate of the costs associated.

• A hosting account that has access to both a PHP server and a MySql server.
• A domain that uses this hosting account.
• A way to FTP files to your website.

Now if you have those three things you are ready to go. So go ahead and skip down to the subhead entitled “We’re Ready, let’s GO!”

If not, I’ve got a few quick recommendations for you that can get you up to speed and ready for the rest of the article in a relatively short period.

For the domain and hosting I would recommend GoDaddy.com. There are literally hundreds of different options out there and all of them will work for you but, I have had mostly success when dealing GoDaddy and it’s very inexpensive.

So head on over there or take some time to find a domain and hosting solution that will work for you. The only thing you will need is access to at least one MySQL database and a server that can process PHP.

In the case of GoDaddy, you can get the domain of your choice for around $8.95 and hosting for as little $3.99 a month with a minimum commitment of 2 months. So for $16.93 plus tax you can get all you need to complete this article and get a working site.

Now the last thing you’ll need is an FTP program to upload your files from your computer to your new site.

I would recommend downloading the free trial software of WS_FTP. Once again you have a lot of options but, I’ve had success with this program. Now, it’s only a trial edition so if you like it you’ll have to cough up the dough for the full blown edition.

We’re Ready let’s GO!

Now let’s head over to WordPress’s site and get the download going for their source code: http://wordpress.org/download/

In most cases, you’ll want to use the .zip file if you’re on Windows.

First you unzip the file to a folder that is easy to get to like “WordPress” on your desktop. You’ll need to upload this file later so take note of where you put it.

At this point we simply upload the entire unzipped contents of WordPress to your new site.

So it’s time to fire-up WS_FTP or an equivalent FTP program. It’s important to note that most hosting plans also have an option to use their built-in FTP program.

You will need three pieces of information before you can start the FTP process:

• The host name of your website.
• Your FTP username
• Your FTP password

This information is supplied by your web hosting company. So if you don’t have it just give them a call or follow the instructions on their support website.

Once you can connect to your site with an FTP program, it’s time to upload. Now since the uploading process is the longest process, we need to get it started so just upload the entire folder to the root directory of your website.

Now you will need to create a new MySQL database that will house all the information stored on your WordPress site.

This can be a little different depending on what company you use but, in GoDaddy you first go to the manage hosting section of your hosting accounts and choose the one you will be installing WordPress on and open the control panel, if you only have one hosting account only one will appear in the list.

Now from here it’s a simple matter of clicking on the databases link and then the MySQL link.

Now you will see something like this in GoDaddy:

Here is what you’ll need for your MySQL info.

• Hostname
• Username
• Password
• Database name

My data looks like this:

$hostname="p50mysql19.secureserver.net";
$username="responsecopy";
$password="your_password";
$dbname="responsecopy";

From here it’s simply a matter of following the instructions from WordPress. So now go to your WordPress folder that you uploaded and open the readme.html file.

I found their instructions very easy to follow but this might help if you get stuck on the installation file.

I’ve highlighted the four parts of the config file that you will need to change and you’ll notice they correspond with the MySQL information I asked you to gather already.

<?php
// ** MySQL settings ** //
define(’DB_NAME’, ‘putyourdbnamehere‘);    // The name of the database
define(’DB_USER’, ‘usernamehere‘);     // Your MySQL username
define(’DB_PASSWORD’, ‘yourpasswordhere‘); // …and password
define(’DB_HOST’, ‘localhost‘);    // 99% chance you won’t need to change this value
define(’DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8′);
define(’DB_COLLATE’, ”);

// You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique prefix
$table_prefix  = ‘wp_’;   // Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!

// Change this to localize WordPress.  A corresponding MO file for the
// chosen language must be installed to wp-content/languages.
// For example, install de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to ‘de’
// to enable German language support.
define (’WPLANG’, ”);

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

define(’ABSPATH’, dirname(__FILE__).’/');
require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
?>

Now you simply save your changes and re-upload the new saved file and then continue with the installation instructions from the readme file.

You will need to install WordPress by going to the installation file on your site - the URL will be something like:

http://yourdomain/wp-admin/install.php

You should get to a page that looks similar to this:

Here are some more screenshots you can refer to that should confirm that you are heading in the right direction as you follow the installation.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

(Click on the image to enlarge)

** Make sure you print or write down your log info because it is very hard to get again with out completely re-installing WordPress.

If their claim holds true, you should be done in about 5 minutes.

Now let’s log into the administrative side to see how it looks!

Point your browser to http://yourdomain/wp-admin

It should look like this:

Once you’re all logged in you get a taste of the administrative side of your WordPress site, which WordPress calls your dashboard. Here is a sample of what it should look like.

Woo hoo, we did it! Now you should have a full blown working site!

Essential Plug-ins before you get going too far

WordPress might be great but, one thing they do that bothers me is they don’t pre-install some pretty necessary plug-ins.

For those of you that are unsure about what a plugin is, a plugin is an additional component that can be used in an application. In this case the application is WordPress.

Plug-ins are just a fancy way of saying this program is good but, it needs a little of something extra to make it more useful for how I’m trying to use it, so let’s write some software that will work with this existing software and now accomplish the task we want.

An example is, first we buy some software that keeps track of all our sales figures but, it doesn’t give us a nice report. So we get a programmer to write a plugin for us that will give us a nice report.

The way plug-ins work in word press is that you first have to download them from web (usually from WordPress’s website). Then you have to upload the files to your website and finally you have to go into your WordPress dashboard and activate it.

I’m sure they have some very good reasons why they didn’t include some of these plug-ins in their default installation but, I don’t know what those reasons are.

Knowing how user friendly WordPress is however, they’ve probably added some these to their latest version already… but in case they haven’t, I’m going to give you a quick rundown on some I’ve found to be a must. One of the resources that I have found extremely helpfull is a book called WordPress 2 by Maria Langer and Miraz Jordan. Several of the plug-ins below were from that book.

• The first Plugin is Akismet and luckily it comes preinstalled with WordPress so you won’t have to upload anything. Akismet is truly a must for your security if you plan to use the comments portion of your blog. What Akismet does is it attempts to identify and weed out spam that people put in the comments section of your posts.

• The next plugin that comes preinstalled is WordPress Database Backup. This is a great plugin because it allows you to backup your database at any time. Your database can include all the articles and comments that you’ve posted so far on your website as well as whatever static pages you’ve created so it is important to backup every so often.

• The WP-Sticky plugin allows you to make one of your posts sticky. What that means is that no matter what other posts you add to this site, the post that you made sticky will stay at the top of the home, archive or category page. What normally happens is that when you add new content, the new post is added on the top and the older posts move down. This is a nice feature if you want to make one of your posts an announcement that is always at the top. Download it here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-sticky/#post-380

• RSSImport is an RSS reader that will poll from an RSS feed and allow you to make the RSS feed a post on your site.   This can be a handy way to stream a bunch of relevant topics from other sites on your site and because it’s an RSS feed the author will always have full attribution and a link back. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rss-import/

• Exec-PHP is simply a plug-in that will allow you to use PHP within your posts or other static pages in your site.   Even if you don’t program in PHP this is still an essential plug-in because several other useful plug-ins use PHP and this plug-in will allow those plug-ins to work. www.soeren-weber.net/post/2005/08/18/50/

• Jerome’s Keywords Plug-in allows you to associate particular keywords with a particular blog.   This is nice because when a blog visitor clicks on a keyword that you define for that post they will also see other posts that you have assigned a particular keyword to. www.vapourtrails.ca/wp-keywords

• Customizable Post Listings plug-in allows you to create special listings in your sidebar that allow you to group posts together. For example, let’s say you have a five-part article series that you want to showcase.   You can use this plug-in to create a menu in the sidebar that groups your articles together. www.coffee2code.com/archives/2004/08/27/plugin-customizable-post-listings

• All in One SEO Pack plug-in is a one stop shop for generating META tags for your pages and blog posts. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

• Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress is a plugin that creates a site map that is correctly formatted to submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN Search. Not much explanation needed here, this plugin will allow your site to be submitted to the 3 heaviest hitters in the search engine game. http://www.arnebrachhold.de/2005/06/05/google-sitemaps-generator-v2-final

You’ll find that as you peruse the different plug-ins out there you’ll find a bunch that look great and sound incredibly useful. A kind of word of warning though, make sure you either have a specific need you are attempting to find a plugin for or a lot of time on your hands because once you get surfing through the plug-ins it’s hard to stop. If you had trouble with any of the above links here is another resource to find similar pluggins: http://wp-plugins.net/ or the WordPress’s site: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.

Alright now we’ve got all we need to get blogging but, we may not be happy with the themes that we’ve found out there.

Taking Your WordPress Site
and Customizing it to Fit You!

Now comes the fun part! Customizing it …

Alright there are really two ways to create a theme for your website. One way is relatively easy and mostly fun, the other is quite difficult and caused my baldness. Both ways require a working knowledge of HTML and a little CSS is helpful.

The first way:

Go to WordPress’s website and find a theme that is very close to what you want and then go back and customize it with your specifics.

The second way:

Create a WordPress theme from scratch. (This is pretty challenging and it requires a good background with HTML, PHP and CSS).

Now I’m not going to go into the second way but I will provide some links for resources at the bottom of the article.

Now the first step is find a theme you like and download it. Go here to peruse the different themes: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Once you download it, you will need to unzip the file it to the theme folder of your site. The themes folder is located in a folder named wp-content.

Now before we upload it, let’s make a backup copy.

So now you just need to change the file name to something you can distinguish it by, something like, “mytheme”.

At this point you should have four themes in the themes folder:

• Classic
• Default
• The theme you downloaded
• A copy of the theme you downloaded using a different name for the folder.

Now let’s go ahead and make sure all four themes uploaded. This could take some time but if you have a high speed connection like DSL or cable, it should only take a few minutes.

Now, it’s time to open up your web browser and go to the administrative portion of your WordPress site.

It’s usually something like: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin

Once in the dashboard, click on the presentations tab.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

At this point you should see all four of your templates and two of them should look identical.

Alright, now we need to make it clear which of the two themes we are editing and which one we keeping as our backup.

To do this we will edit the file named: style.css on one of the copies of the theme we downloaded.

To accomplish this open the themes folder again and then the theme we will edit. Now open the file named style.css in your favorite editor, if you don’t have a favorite editor you can just open it with Notepad.

The file should look something like this, although longer:

/* 
Theme Name: WordPress Default
Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/
Description: The default WordPress theme based on the famous <a href="http://binarybonsai.com/kubrick/">Kubrick</a>.
Version: 1.6
Author: Michael Heilemann
Author URI: http://binarybonsai.com/

            Kubrick v1.5
             http://binarybonsai.com/kubrick/

            This theme was designed and built by Michael Heilemann,
            whose blog you will find at http://binarybonsai.com/

            The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL:
            http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

*/

/* Begin Typography & Colors */
body {
            font-size: 62.5%; /* Resets 1em to 10px */
            font-family: ‘Lucida Grande’, Verdana, Arial, Sans-Serif;
            background: #d5d6d7 url(’images/kubrickbgcolor.jpg’);
            color: #333;
            text-align: center;
            }

#page {
            background-color: white;
            border: 1px solid #959596;
            text-align: left;
            }

Notice the first few lines that I highlighted above. Once we change these we will be able to easily distinguish our backup template from this template that we will edit to suit our needs.

Step one is to edit the theme name and change it to something different like “working theme”.

Now save the style.css file and re-upload it. Now when you open your WordPress dashboard and go to presentations you will see the new name of your theme.

So now it completely depends on your needs and what you want to change but, now that we have two copies you can change away and if everything breaks itself, no worries just click on the backup theme until you can fix what you broke.

At this point it’s really just a matter of changing the images from the original theme to the images you want to use in your theme. Or whatever other elements that you feel need changing.

I don’t want to reinvent the wheel on creating a step-by-step guide but here is good one I used to get started:  http://www.cre8d-design.com/blog/2007/01/02/wordpress-theme-
creating-a-layout-step-1/. Let me know if you know of better guides.

Now if you want to design a theme from scratch the best source is WordPress themselves but, beware, it requires a good background in CSS and web site design.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s article and you now have your own site to start promoting so get writing!

Thanks and have a great weekend!

Editor, Working IT Out
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9 Comments »

1. Comment by Cathy — July 14, 2007 @ 7:11 am

   Unfortunately there are some key steps that you left out while explaining WordPress. I have clients who tried to do their own install and gave up in frustration. Perhaps more complete information would be more useful to newbies.

2. Comment by David Dittman — July 14, 2007 @ 7:42 am

   Oops, we published an earlier version of this article by mistake, and I’m sorry for the typos we had in it.

   As far as missed steps are concerned, I’m not sure what they are because I was setting up a WordPress site while writing this article but, if you need more detail, don’t give up just look for more resources. The WordPress website is a great place to start for help on specific troubleshooting needs.

   Thanks for your comment.

3. Comment by Michelle P. — July 14, 2007 @ 10:28 am

   I find it interesting that the only two comments are ones pointing out something \”missing\” or \”wrong\”…

   What about acknowledging the excruciating level of detail required to write about this topic in a way that isn\’t as boring as \”watching paint dry\”? Or the great plug-ins recommended that I\’d missed in all my forays into the Wordpress plug-in directory ;-).

   And people that point out typos fascinate me. Is it to let people know how smart THEY are? What a waste of valuable time and failure to grasp the real value of the content vs. focusing on what\’s missing or wrong.

   Thanks, David for taking the time to put this together. I know how to install it and I learned something.

4. Comment by John — July 16, 2007 @ 10:59 am

   Hi, David.

   My webmaster is encouraging me to go with the new Typepad Pro over Wordpress for the simple reason that he knows the former and is not familiar with Wordpress. Do you know if Typepad is an effective tool in relation to Wordpress?

   Thanks,
   John

5. Comment by David Dittman — July 17, 2007 @ 1:50 pm

   I’m not too familiar with TypePad Pro but, it appears to be pretty robust. I’m a bit partial to WordPress simply because there are so many different support forums out there and the amount of plugins that exist to further the use of the software. WordPress has a never ending supply of plugins and people developing new plugins as new technology comes into play. I’m not sure the support levels offered by TypePad Pro but, that is another key issue to take into account. Let us know which one you go with!

6. Comment by George — September 4, 2007 @ 11:10 am

   David,

   You advocate downloading the wordpress zip file from the Net. But most hosting plans come wordpress-equipped. Why do you favor downloading the wp zip and then uploading it to your site?

7. Comment by imyphgbn — January 28, 2008 @ 11:39 pm

   vsdhlhfk [URL=http://oaqnrggc.com]kukrzuvm[/URL] goahqnwt http://mfwgwuaj.com lisvpzqb guenabaa

8. Comment by Kent — April 9, 2008 @ 11:16 am

   Hi what i Really need help with, Is to allow others to create their own blogs. and have the options automated. Can you explain to me how this is done?

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