Lisa Sabin-Wilson WILEY. Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Transcription

1 by Lisa Sabin-Wilson WILEY Wiley Publishing, Inc.

2 Table of Contents Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Conventions Used in This Book 3 What You Are Not to Read 4 How This Book Is Organized 4 Part I: Establishing a WordPress Foundation 4 Part II: Choosing the Right Tools 4 Part III: Working with WordPress Themes 5 Part IV: Building Your Custom Web Site 5 Part V: The Part of Tens 6 Icons Used in This Book 6 Part 1: Establishing a WordPress Foundation 7 Chapter 1: Exploring Web Design with WordPress 9 Delving Into the Differences between Blogs and Web Sites 10 Using WordPress as a Content Management System 13 Discovering the World of WordPress Themes 15 Checking Out Premium WordPress Themes and Frameworks 17 Chapter 2: Understanding WordPress Requirements 19 Establishing Your Domain 19 Understanding domain name extensions 20 Considering the cost of a domain name 21 Registering your domain name 21 Finding a Home for Your Web Site 23 Examining what services Web hosts offer 23 Finding a host that provides WordPress features 25 Planning for future needs 26 Being cautious about offers of unlimited space and bandwidth...27 Chapter 3: Installing WordPress on Your Web Server 29 Installing WordPress 29 Setting up the MySQL database 31 Uploading the WordPress files 33 Running the install script 35

3 WordPress Web Design For Dummies Discovering WordPress Release Cycles 40 Understanding why you need to upgrade regularly 41 Examining release cycles 42 Keeping Track of WordPress Development 43 Chapter 4: Managing Content with WordPress 45 Archiving Content with WordPress 45 Building categories 48 Changing the name of a category 49 Creating new categories 51 Using static page parents and children 53 Customizing Permalinks 55 Making your post links pretty 55 Customizing your permalinks 57 Making sure that your permalinks work with your server 58 Syndicating Your Content with RSS Feeds 60 Introducing feed readers 60 Discovering the many WordPress RSS options 61 Using your RSS feeds with your social media accounts 63 Part 11: Choosing the Right Toots 65 Chapter 5: Exploring Editors, Browsers, and FTP 67 Choosing the Right Text Editor for You 68 Notepad (Windows) 68 Notepad++ (Windows) 69 TextMate (Mac) 70 Understanding and Choosing a Web Browser 71 Discovering browsers and tools 71 Understanding cross-browser compatibility 76 Introducing File Transfer Protocol (FTP) 77 Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account 79 Transferring Files with an FTP Client 82 Connecting to the Web server via FTP 82 Transferring files from point A to point B 85 Editing files by using FTP 86 Changing file permissions 87 Chapter 6: Choosing Graphics and Software Resources 89 Exploring Image Types and Formats 89 Comparing raster and vector images 90 Looking at image file formats 92

4 Table of Contents Xttt Exploring Graphic Design Software 94 Using raster-based software 95 Using vector-based software 99 Using Online Image Optimization Tools 102 Finding Online Image Libraries 103 Chapter 7: Choosing Colors and Fonts 105 Understanding Color 105 Checking out the color wheel 106 Examining the RGB and hex color models 107 Creating Color Schemes with Helpful Tools 108 Exploring different color combinations 108 Finding RGB and hex codes 110 Understanding Typography Essentials 112 Exploring font styles 112 Discovering Web-safe fonts for content 114 Finding and Using Fonts for Graphic Design 116 Finding the right fonts for your project 117 Installing fonts to your computer 117 Chapter 8: Planning Your Design Strategy 119 Choosing the Width of Your Web Site 120 Designing with a fixed width 121 Designing with a fluid width 124 Choosing the Number of Columns 128 Determining Web Site Navigation 130 Understanding Content Display Options 132 Testing Your Design in a Sandbox Environment 133 Creating a sandbox environment 134 Using a plugin to back up and transfer from your sandbox 136 Part 111: Working With WordPress Themes 139 Chapter 9: Finding and Installing a WordPress Theme 141 Finding and Installing a Theme from the Free Themes Directory 142 Deciding Whether to Use a Premium Theme 144 Introducing premium themes 144 Finding, evaluating, and installing premium themes 145 Chapter 10: Wordpress with the WordPress Twenty Ten Theme Exploring the Layout and Structure 148 Customizing the Header Image 150 Selecting one of the available header images 151 Uploading your own header image 152

5 WordPress Web Design For Dummies Customizing the Background 153 Including Custom Navigation Menus 155 Enhancing Your Web Site with Widgets 157 Understanding how widgets work 157 Adding widgets to your Using the Text widget 161 Adding the RSS widget 163 sidebar or footer 159 Chapter 11: Dissecting Themes and Templates 165 Understanding How PHP and MySQL Work Together 166 Exploring PHP Basics 166 Examining the makeup of a template tag 167 Trying out a little PHP 168 Managing Your MySQL Database 170 Viewing the Template Files in a WordPress Theme 173 Examining the Templates That Make Up a WordPress Theme 175 The stylesheet 177 The Main Index and The Loop 178 The Header template 180 The Sidebar template 185 The Footer template 186 Other template files 186 and Parameters 187 Exploring Template Tags, Values, Customizing Your Blog Posts with Template Tags 190 Putting It All Together 191 Connecting the templates 191 Using additional stylesheets 198 Chapter 12: Displaying Content with Widgets and Template Tags 199 Exploring Common Template Tags 200 Calendar 200 List pages 201 Links (bookmarks) 203 Post archives 206 Categories 207 Content types (query_posts tag) 209 Miscellaneous but useful template tags 211 Adding New Widget Areas to Your Theme 213 Registering your widget areas 213 Adding widget areas to your template files 215 Using Template Files 215 Creating named templates 216 Creating and using template parts 216 Exploring content-specific standard templates 219 Using Page templates 221

6 Table of Contents Adding Theme Support for Built-in Features 223 Adding support for custom navigation menus 223 Adding support for custom post types 231 Adding support for post formats 238 Adding support for post thumbnails 245 Chapter 13: Understanding Parent and Child Themes 249 Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes 249 Creating a child theme 250 Loading a parent theme's style 252 Customizing the parent theme's styling 253 Using images in child theme designs 255 Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes 259 Overriding parent template files 260 Adding new template files 260 Removing template files 262 Modifying the theme functions file 264 Preparing a Parent Theme 265 Part IV: Building 1/our Custom Web Site 267 Chapter 14: Using Basic CSS and HTML to Customize Your Site Design 269 Styling with CSS: The Basics 270 Introducing CSS 270 CSS selectors 271 Classes and IDs 272 CSS properties and values 273 Changing the Background Image or Color Used in Your Theme 275 Adding the custom background feature to a theme 275 Changing the background using CSS 276 Defining and Positioning Your Header Image with CSS 278 Defining a background image to use as a header 278 Positioning, repeating, or scrolling your background image 278 Changing Basic Elements to Create a Unique Look for Your Site 280 Adding background colors and image effects 280 Choosing a font family, color, and size 281 Using borders in your design 283 Understanding Basic HTML Techniques to Use on Your Site 284 Inserting images 285 Inserting hyperlinks 286 Inserting lists 286

7 WordPress Web Design For Dummies Chapter 15: Designing for WordPress as a CMS 289 Creating the Front Page of Your Web Site 290 Creating a static page 292 Assigning a static page as the front page 293 Tweaking the page to look like a Web site rather than a blog 294 Adding a Blog to Your Web Site 296 Creating a blank page for the blog 296 Assigning the new page as a blog 297 Creating Custom Page Templates to Achieve Different Layouts and Styles 298 Viewing the default Page template (page.php) 298 Creating a new category Page template 300 Comparing two Page templates 301 Creating Different Sidebar and Footer Templates for Your Pages 303 Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts 304 Optimizing Your WordPress Site for Search Engines 306 Planting keywords in your Web site 307 Optimizing your post and page titles for search engine success 307 Writing content with readers in mind 308 Creating categories that attract search engines 309 Using the <ALT> tag for images 309 Chapter 16: Enhancing Your Web Site with Plugins 311 Installing WordPress Plugins via the Dashboard 312 Finding free plugins 312 Installing and activating a plugin 314 Manually Installing Plugins 316 Exploring E-Commerce Plugins to Use on Your Site 317 Understanding what you can do with e-commerce plugins 317 Examining some recommended plugins 317 Creating Photo Galleries or Portfolios 321 Inserting images into your page or post 321 Adding image styles to your stylesheet 327 Inserting a photo gallery 328 Creating Web Forms for Your Site with Plugins 333 Exploring different types of forms you can use on your site 334 Helpful plugins to create forms 334 Building a Social Community with BuddyPress 337 Using Plugins to Integrate Popular Social Networks with Your Site 340 Integrating Twitter with Twitter Tools 340 Integrating Facebook with Wordbooker 342

8 Table of Contents Part V: The Part of Tens 343 Chapter 17: Ten Powerful Plugins for WordPress 345 All in One SEO Pack 345 WP-Print 346 PluginBuddy Mobile 346 Subscribe to Comments 347 ShareThis 347 WP Super Cache 348 WP Security Scan 348 Backup Buddy 349 WordPress.com Stats 349 WPMU Premium 350 Chapter 18: Ten Well-Designed Sites That Use WordPress as a CMS 351 Nourish Network 351 Time Healthland 353 IconDock 354 WeGraphics 355 WebDevStudios 356 Mozilla Labs 357 KateRusby 358 LIVESTRONG 359 Katy Perry 361 E.Webscapes Design Studio 362 Index 363