Fast & Friendly WordPress

Slides Available at

https://slides.com/matiassilva/wp

https://slides.com/matiassilva/wp/live

Runs 27% of all websites

Software

  • Text Editor (notepad++)
  • FTP Client (Filezilla)
  • Internet Browser

What do We need?

Files

  • WordPress Core
  • WordPress Theme

Resources

  • Linux based webserver
  • MYSQL Database
  • Domain or Subdomain

WordPress Core

Text Editor

Used for quickly editing text files, viewing server logs.

 

Notepad++ is a lightweight, open source, text editor with many great features

  • Syntax Highlighting
  • Multiple taps
  • Plugins and Extensions

FTP Client

Used to efficiently files from your computer to the internet and vice versa

Web Browsers

Installing WordPress

Set Up The Database

  • Create a user <school_bonds>
  • Create a password user <school_bonds>
  • Create a database <school_bonds>
  • Grant <school_bonds> all permissions on <school_bonds>
  •  
  • Set database collation to utf8mb4_unicode_ci

This will save a lot of headache in the future

Unzip The Files

Do It

FTP the Contents of the WordPress directory to the root folder of the website

Visit the website using your web browser

Things to Keep in mind

  • Do not use the following usernames
    • Admin
    • Administrator
    • Root
  • Make the password secure
  • The admin account should not be anyone's primary user account

WordPress Essentials

How to log in

$BASE_URL + '/wp-login.php'

Toolbar

Dashboard

Posts vs Pages

Posts

  • Tied to a timeline.
  • As new posts are made, old posts are pushed to the back.
  • Meant to stay mostly the same once published, to provide an archive of what a situation was, at the time it was published.
  • Each post should be its own self-contained article.
  • Dynamically generated URL
    • bond.com/news/july-update

Pages

  • Meant for static information
    • About us, Contact, Policies etc.
  • Not tied to a timeline
  • Should be edited to reflect the current state of things.
  • Can be nested according to a hierarchy
    • About us
      • Our History
      • Locations
        • US
        • Canada
      • Contact us

Posts

Pages

User Roles

wp_roles();

  • Admin
  • Editor
  • Author
  • Contributor

Most Common

  • Super Admin
  • Subscriber

Also Exist

Contributor

  • Can write and edit their own posts
  • Posts to website must be approved by an editor before being published

Author

  • Can create posts and pages
  • Can edit their own posts and pages
  • Can publish posts and pages to the website without editor's approval

Editor

  • Can create and edit their own posts, and the posts of other users
  • Can publish and un-publish posts

Admin

  • Update WordPress
  • Manage Plugins
  • Manage Themes
  • Change website settings
  • Can run any arbitrary php
  • Can do everything an editor can do

Further Reading

Menus

Menu

  • Menus hold links to pages, posts, images etc.
  • Menus may contain links to external websites
  • Changing the name of a menu link does not affect the name of the post or page
  • Updating a page's location will not break a menu link

Menu Locations

  • Predefined 'slots' for user-defined menus to pop into
  • Must be implemented in the theme
  • The same menu can be assigned to multiple menu locations

Further Reading

Media Library

What the Media Library Does

  • Catalogs file uploads
  • Sorts files into folders based on upload month
  • Creates 3 thumbnails for all pictures
    • Small - 150x150
    • Medium - 300x300
    • Large - 1024x1024

Library Notes

  • Does not allow executable files to be uploaded
    • .exe .apk .zip etc
  • File size limit cannot be set higher than the php file size limit.
php.ini

upload_max_filesize = 32M
post_max_size = 32M

New Site Checklist

Change the Tagline

Set the timezone

Disable Registration

Set the link structure

Customization

Themes

Theme Repository

  • Any theme on the theme repository must be open source
    • Often "light" versions of commercial themes
  • Huge range of code quality
  • Themes are removed if they are known to contain security flaws*

*there is no one actively checking themes

Premium Themes

  • Usually Cost $50 - $100
  • Can vary wildly in code quality
  • Typically have their own versions of plugins

Picking a theme

Plugins

Plugins can do anything*

There are 47,273 Plugins in the WordPress Repo

If you have a problem, someone has probably made a plugin to fix it

Events Calendar

Ninja Forms

Shortcodes Ultimate

WP Migrate DB

All in one SEO

WordPress Security

You will only be as secure as the weakest link in the chain

Don't be the low hanging fruit

Stay on top of updates

Do not use a default name for the Admin Account

Never post as the admin account

Use secure passwords

Only allow logging in from certain IPs

Install
 WordFence

Don't put anything on the internet that you are not okay with EVERYONE seeing.

Extra Resources

Installation

WordPress

By Matias Silva

WordPress

An overview of Essential Wordpress Concepts

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