Dynamic Web 2 Week # 4

Update 3 Due

On your production WordPress application:

1. Create a post and add 5 media files to the post. There should be at least 1 image, 1 audio file, and 1 video. Be sure that the media content all has the relevant information added to it (caption, alt text, etc).

2. Add 3 pages to your site. Be sure that one of the pages is a parent page, while the other 2 pages are children of that parent page.

3. Add a custom theme to your site and create 5 different customizations to it. This can include adding a menu with items (1 customization), changing the colors, etc. Be sure to list what customizations you've made. 

WordPress Essential Training

Please open up "Wordpress Essential Training" on Lynda.com

Let's watch these together and then discuss what we learned. 

WordPress Notes

Extending WordPress with Plugins

  • Plugins are extensions that give you functionality. These plugins can be added, removed, activated, and deactivated at your leisure.
  • Tons of plugins and many do the same thing in different ways
  • Plugins have reviews, logos, and names when searching for them. 
  • Once installed, you can activate it and see the plugin in the plugin menu on the left-hand side. From this plugins panel, you can also deactivate and delete the plugin. 
  • Updating plugins can be done by using either bulk update or by clicking on the plugin's update link in the plugin panel.
  • Add security and backup plugins, generally. 
  • No such thing as a must-have plugin. It all depends on what your needs are.

Discussion

Please explain, in turns, the concepts we have learned in "Extending WordPress with Plugins"

  1. Add 3 different plugins to your application
  2. Use at least one of the plugins

15 minues

WordPress Notes

Users and User Profiles

  • Not logged into the site, you see your site as any other user. If logged in, you see the site as an admin user.
  • Access your profile by selecting "edit profile" or clicking on "Users"
  • Options:
    • disable the visual editor so that you can write only in HTML.
    • Changing the color scheme
    • enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation
    • hide toolbar (good for limiting certain users)
    • name, contact information, and autobiography can be changed. Display name (name that appears when publishing posts) can be changed as well.

WordPress Notes

Users and User Profiles

  • Gravatar is a third-party service that sets up your avatar in your profile
  • User roles in WordPress: Subscriber, Author, Contributor, Editor, and Administrator
  • You can add and remove users, giving them different roles if you have administrator access.

Discussion

Please explain, in turns, the concepts we have learned in "Users and User Profiles". Be sure to identify where the location of different elements that were discussed are on your WordPress application.

  1. Create a Gravatar for yourself
  2. Create 4 more users, giving them each a Subscriber, Author, Contributor, and Editor role

10 minutes

WordPress Notes

Configuring Settings

  • General, Writing, Reading, Discussion, Media, and Permalinks
  • General
    • If you are using automatic membership, be sure that default is set to subscriber
    • Be sure to set the Timezone to your current timezone. This is important for posts being timed.
    • Site Language: You can change the text to any of the languages in the list. Language support on the front-end is dependent on the theme you're using. 
  • Writing
    • You can convert emoticons to emojis
    • Post via email allows you to post from your email
    • Default Categories: Create a category and then add it to the default category field

WordPress Notes

Configuring Settings

  • Reading
    • Show what page to display on the front page
    • Show how many posts show on a page
    • For each article, show either just the summary or the full article
    • Search Engine visibility. Check this once your changes have started becoming finalized.
  • Media
    • Change the default size of media content
  • Permalink
    • How links are going to be set. This should only be changed once.

Discussion

Please explain, in turns, the concepts we have learned in "Configuring Settings". Be sure to identify where the location of different elements that were discussed are on your WordPress application.

5 Minutes

WordPress Notes

Comments and Discussion

  • Discussion (under Settings)
    • Settings for commenting and feedback
    • Variety of different checkboxes that determine discussion capabilities
    • You can enable sub comments and you can limit how many comments show at first. 
    • Another fun feature is the ability to limit what users can write, such as profanity. 
    • Managing Comments and Spam
  • Comments
    • Spam commenters will generally reply with a real-looking comment first so that it can get through your spam filters. you can tell it's fake if the comment is too vague and if their username/link doesn't make sense. 
    • You can reply to comments directly
  • ​Social Sharing: Generally done through plugins

Discussion

Please explain, in turns, the concepts we have learned in "Comments and Discussion". Be sure to identify where the location of different elements that were discussed are on your WordPress application.

  • Install a Social Media Sharing Plugin
  • If you have Spam, remove the spam and mark the spam as such
  • Write out some words that are prohibited from being written in your comments

10 Minutes

WordPress Notes

Behind the Curtain

  • Most files can be replaced, except for wp-config.php and anything in wp-content
  • wp-config.php
    • Generally, the only things you want to change in this file are the database credentials and setting WP_DEBUG to true if you're debugging.
  • wp-content is where our content for our site is stored

WordPress Notes

Security

  • Wordpress is actually very secure, because the code is open source. 
  • Improving Security
    • There are still vulnerabilities that can be exploited.
    • Be sure to update to the latest version. Having the latest version of WordPress is automatically done, but only on point versions.
    • You can manually update by going to the updates tab
    • Plugins can be updated in bulk by going to the dashboard, selecting all the plugins that you want to update, and then updating the plugins. Check to make sure plugins haven't been deactivated when updated.

WordPress Notes

Security

  • Improving Security
    • Cloudflare is a service with a free option that can help your site faster and also help prevent DDOS attacks
    • VaultPress: Secures and backups up your site
    • Akismet: Scans and removes 98-99% of spam. Can be free if you have a personal blog. 
    • Jetpack: Everything bundled into one solution
  • Debugging
    • If you get "white screen of death", just go back to your themes inside your wordpress directory and rename the theme to anything else. 
    • Buggy plugins won't actually work anyway, so no need to worry about that. 

WordPress Notes

Exporting and Importing

  • WordPress allows you to export your application from live site to site site and from live site to local site. However, copying content from local to live can be a bit tricky and requires what we went over in our first class.

WordPress Project Submission


Link to guidelines: https://goo.gl/XtGIpH


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