Customizing WordPress
Intro to Custom Post Types, Custom Taxonomies, Custom Fields & Custom Templates
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a Content Management System
( It's software for building websites )
WordPress is a lot of things...
It's a massive open source project.
Some people describe it as a blogging platform
(But it's much more than that)
How Does It Work?
WordPress makes creating publishing and organizing content extra easy.
Right out of the box, WordPress gives you the ability to:
Create and publish static pages and blog posts
Organize your blog posts using categories and tags
Jargon
Post Types
Posts and Pages
Pages
- For Static Content (Ex: About, Contact)
- Hierarchal (mysite.com/about/resume
Posts
- Non Hierarchal
- Archive content (News, Blog posts)
Jargon
Taxonomies
Categories and Tags
Categories
- Broad (Food, Travel, Technology)
- Hierarchal ( terms: technology->software,
technology->hardware)
Tags
- Non Hierarchal
- Specific ( terms: stirfry, indonesia, osx)
But Wait There's More
You can "register" your own "custom post types" and "custom taxonomies"
Keep first class content separate from your blog and pages
Display custom content differently
Add additonal metadata to custom content
How? Use WPGenerator and drop it in a plugin.
But Wait There's More
You can also register "custom fields"
(meta data for your content)
Don't dump all of your content in the text editor.
Present it nicely with custom templates
Make content more symantec
How? Advanced Custom Fields makes this easy and fun!
Obligitory
Part Of The Presentation When The Techy Guy Talks About How Easy All Of This Stuff Is.
Hopefully, the idea behind all of this custom stuff (ie. why we would use it) makes sense...
Although they are semi-hidden from the surface, to keep things simple, Custom Post Types, Custom Taxonomies, Custom Fields etc... are a major part of WordPress so, now that you know the vocab:
- If you're hiring someone, they will know about these things and be able to discuss them (If not - don't hire them)
- If you want to learn about this stuff yourself, there's tons of info online and tools (and plugins) to make it easier.
WordPress Documentation is Excellent
The WordPress API is great too
(laughs internally at WP_haters() )