Foreword xiii
Introduction 1
About This Book 2
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Introducing WordPress 5
Chapter 1: What WordPress Can Do for You 7
Discovering the Benefits of WordPress 7
Getting set up the fast and easy way 8
Extending WordPress's capabilities 9
Taking part in the community 10
Choosing a WordPress Platform 11
Choosing the hosted version from WordPress.com 13
Self-hosting with WordPress.org 14
Chapter 2: WordPress Basics 17
Shining the Spotlight on WordPress 17
Dipping Into WordPress Technologies 19
Archiving your publishing history 20
Interacting with your readers through comments 21
Feeding your readers 22
Tracking back 23
Dealing with comment and trackback spam 24
Using WordPress as a Content Management System 25
Exploring the differences between a website and a blog 25
Viewing examples of blogs and websites 26
Moving On to the Business of Publishing 27
Part 2: Setting Up WordPress 29
Chapter 3: Setting Up Blogging Base Camp 31
Establishing Your Domain 32
Understanding domain name extensions 32
Considering the cost of a domain name 33
Registering your domain name 33
Finding a Home for Your Website 34
Getting help with hosting WordPress 35
Dealing with disk space and bandwidth 36
Understanding Secure File Transfer Concepts 38
Setting up SFTP on your hosting account 39
Connecting to the web server via SFTP 42
Transferring files from point A to point B 45
Editing files via SFTP 46
Changing file permissions 48
Installing WordPress 50
Exploring Preinstalled WordPress 50
Installing WordPress manually 52
Setting up the MySQL database 53
Uploading the WordPress files 55
Last step: Running the installation script 57
Chapter 4: Understanding the WordPress.org Dashboard 63
Logging In to the Dashboard 64
Navigating the Dashboard 65
Welcome to WordPress! 66
At a Glance 67
Activity 68
Quick Draft 69
WordPress News 70
Arranging the Dashboard to Your Tastes 70
Finding Inline Documentation and Help 72
Setting Options in the Dashboard 75
Configuring the Settings 75
General 75
Writing 79
Reading 81
Discussion 82
Media 88
Permalinks 90
Creating Your Personal Profile 90
Setting Your Site's Format 93
Posts 93
Media 94
Pages 94
Comments 95
Appearance 95
Plugins 96
Users 97
Tools 97
Chapter 5: Establishing Your Publishing Routine 99
Staying on Topic with Categories 99
Changing the name of a category 100
Creating new categories and deleting others 103
Examining a Post's Address: Permalinks 105
Making your post links pretty 106
Customizing your permalinks 107
Making sure that your permalinks work with your server 109
Discovering the Many WordPress RSS Options 111
Writing Your First Entry 112
Composing your blog post 112
Dressing up your posts with images, video, and audio 116
Refining your post options 116
Publishing your post 119
Editing your post 121
Look Who's Talking on Your Site 122
Managing comments and trackbacks 122
Moderating comments and trackbacks 124
Tackling spam with Akismet 124
Part 3: Flexing and Extending WordPress 127
Chapter 6: Media Management: Images, Audio, and Video 129
Inserting Images into Your Content 130
Aligning your images 134
Inserting a photo gallery 135
Inserting Video Files into Your Posts 140
Inserting Audio Files into Your Posts 142
Keeping Media Files Organized 143
Chapter 7: Making the Most of WordPress Plugins 147
Finding Out What Plugins Are 148
Extending WordPress with plugins 149
Distinguishing between plugins and themes 149
Exploring the Plugins Page 151
Identifying Core Plugins 153
Incorporating Akismet 154
Saying Hello Dolly 157
Discovering the one-click plugin update 158
Using Plugins: Just the Basics 160
Installing Plugins Manually 162
Finding and downloading the files 162
Reading the instructions 165
Uploading and Activating Plugins 165
Uploading a new plugin 166
Activating a plugin 166
Setting Plugin Options 168
Uninstalling Plugins 169
Understanding the Open-Source Environment 170
Finding Plugins Outside the Plugins Page on the WordPress.org Website 171
Comparing Free and Commercial Plugins 173
Chapter 8: Finding and Installing WordPress Themes 175
Getting Started with Free Themes 175
Finding free themes 177
Avoiding unsafe themes 177
Previewing themes in the Theme Directory 180
Installing a Theme 181
Browsing the free themes 183
Previewing and activating a theme 184
Exploring Premium Theme Options 186
Examining the Default Theme: Twenty Seventeen 191
Exploring the layout and structure 191
Customizing the header media 194
Customizing the colors 197
Including custom navigation menus 198
Enhancing Your Theme with Widgets 199
Adding widgets to your sidebar 199
Using the Text widget 202
Using the RSS widget 203
Part 4: Customizing WordPress 207
Chapter 9: Understanding Themes and Templates 209
Using WordPress Themes: The Basics 210
Understanding theme structure 210
Connecting templates 212
Contemplating the Structure of a WordPress Website 213
Examining the Anatomy of a Template Tag 215
Getting Familiar with the Four Main Templates 216
The Header template 216
The Main Index template 221
The Sidebar template 225
The Footer template 226
Other templates 226
Putting a Theme Together 227
Connecting the templates 228
Using additional stylesheets 237
Customizing Your Posts with Template Tags 238
Using Tags with Parameters for Sidebars 238
The calendar 240
List pages 240
Post archives 242
Categories 244
Getting widgetized 245
Chapter 10: Tweaking WordPress Themes 249
Styling with CSS: The Basics 250
CSS selectors 250
Classes and IDs 251
CSS properties and values 253
Changing the Background Graphics with CSS 253
Uploading an image for background use 255
Positioning, repeating, and attaching images 256
Using Your Own Header Image 258
Customizing Colors in Twenty Seventeen 260
Creating Custom Navigation Menus 261
Adding the Custom Menu feature to your theme 262
Building custom navigation menus 263
Displaying custom menus with widgets 268
Changing Font Family, Color, and Size 269
Changing font color 270
Changing font size 270
Adding borders 271
Understanding Basic HTML Techniques 272
Inserting images 273
Inserting hyperlinks 274
Inserting lists 274
Chapter 11: Understanding Parent and Child Themes 277
Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes 278
Loading a parent theme's style 280
Customizing the parent theme's styling 282
Using images in child theme designs 283
Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes 287
Overriding parent template files 287
Adding new template files 288
Removing template files 289
Modifying the functions.php file 289
Preparing a Parent Theme 291
Chapter 12: WordPress As a Content Management System 293
Creating Different Page Views Using WordPress Templates 294
Uploading the template 295
Assigning the template to a static page 296
Creating a Template for Each Post Category 298
Using Sidebar Templates 301
Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts 302
Working with Custom Post Types 304
Adding Support for Post Formats 312
Adding post formats to a theme 313
Using template tags for post formats 314
Adding Support for Post Thumbnails 318
Adding the post thumbnails to a theme 319
Adding custom image sizes for post thumbnails 320
Exploring the Custom Fields Interface 321
Adding Custom Fields to your template file 323
Entering the code in the template file 324
Getting WordPress to check for your Custom Field 326
Exploring different uses for Custom Fields 327
Optimizing Your WordPress Site 328
Planting keywords on your website 329
Optimizing your post titles for search engine success 330
Writing content with readers in mind 330
Creating categories that attract search engines 331
Using the tag for images 332
Chapter 13: Hosting Multiple Sites with WordPress 333
Deciding When to Use the Multisite Feature 334
Understanding the Difference between Sites and Blogs 335
Considering Web-Hosting Services 336
Enabling the WordPress Network Feature 338
DNS 339
Apache mod_rewrite 340
Virtual host 340
PHP 341
Installing the Network on Your Site 341
Exploring the Network Admin Dashboard Menu 343
Managing Your Network 345
Settings 346
Sites 351
Users 355
Themes 357
Plugins 358
Updates 359
Stopping Spam Signups and Splogs 359
Diverting sploggers with settings and code 359
Preventing spam with plugins 360
Chapter 14: Upgrading, Backing Up, and Migrating 361
Getting Notified of an Available Upgrade 362
Backing Up Your Database 364
Upgrading WordPress Automatically 365
Upgrading WordPress Manually 366
Migrating Your Existing Site to WordPress 369
Movin' on up 369
Preparing for the big move 370
Converting templates 371
Moving your website to WordPress 372
Importing from Blogger 373
Importing from LiveJournal 375
Importing from Movable Type and TypePad 376
Importing from Tumblr 378
Importing from WordPress 380
Importing from an RSS feed 380
Finding other import resources 381
Moving Your Website to a Different Host 382
Creating a backup and moving manually 383
Using a plugin to back up and move to a new host 384
Part 5: The Part of Tens 385
Chapter 15: Ten Popular WordPress Plugins 387
AppPresser 387
Jetpack 388
Subscribe to Comments 389
Facebook 390
All in One SEO Pack 391
BackupBuddy 391
WP Super Cache 392
WooCommerce 392
Google XML Sitemaps 393
Sucuri Security 394
Chapter 16: Ten Free WordPress Themes 395
Hybrid Core 396
Hestia 396
Responsive 398
P2 398
Annotum Base 399
Blackbird 399
iTheme2 400
Esquire 401
Nisarg 401
Optics 402
Index 403
