WordPress 101

Weekend Workshop, for Columbus Web Group

@ericnkatz

About Me

Doing WordPress since ~ 2005

Full Stack Developer

Consultants

Agenda

• Why WordPress?
• WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
• WordPress UI Overview
• PHP Introduction
• WordPress Folder Structure
• Hook System
• Plugin Layer
• Theme Layer
• Local Set up
• Theme Manipulation

A History of WordPress

• Started in 2003
• Steady Growth in Popularity
• Avoids changing their internal APIs
• Focuses on the end user
• Great software should work with little configuration and setup. 

Why WordPress?

• Longevity
• Philosophy
  • Decisions, not options
  • Design for the Majority
  • Striving for Simplicity
  • Open Source

WordPress Bill of Rights

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
• The freedom to redistribute.
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

WordPress Bill of Rights

WordPress.org

VS

WordPress.com

WordPress Admin UI

PHP

WordPress Structure

Hook System

API / Actions

Plugins

Themes

Template Hierarchy

The Loop

Functions.php

Local Set Up

Wamp / Mamp

PART DEUX

Agenda

• Intro to PHP
• Theming from Scratch (almost)
• Plugins from Scratch
• Plugin Favorites
• Deployment
• JSON API