WordPress Web Design For Dummies E-Book

Lisa Sabin-Wilson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 493

Beschreibung

Your full-color guide to creating dynamic websites with WordPress Are you familiar with the fundamentals of WordPress, but want to take your skills to the next level? From bestselling author and WordPress expert Lisa Sabin-Wilson, this new edition of WordPress Web Design For Dummies quickly gets you up to speed on the latest release of the software and shows you how to use it as a tool to create a customized, compelling, and cost-effective website--without losing your cool. WordPress can be used to create a custom design for your website using complimentary technologies such as graphic design, CSS, HTML coding, PHP programming, and MySQL administration. With the help of this hands-on, friendly guide, you'll discover how to create an effective navigation system, choose the right color palette and fonts, and select different layouts. Plus, you'll find out how to tweak existing website designs with available themes, both free and premium, and gain the confidence to translate your design skills into paid work. * Create dynamic, custom websites with the self-hosted version of WordPress * Use free themes and enhance them with CSS and HTML * Create a responsive design for mobile devices and tablet users * Get to grips with the newest release of WordPress Whether you want to use WordPress to spruce up your existing website or create a brand-new one from scratch, this do-it-yourself guide has you covered.

Leseprobe

WordPress® Web Design For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951790

ISBN 978-1-119-08864-6 (pbk); 9781119088462 (ebk); 9781119088608 (ebk)

WordPress® Web Design For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/wordpresswebdesign to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Cover

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Establishing a WordPress Foundation

Chapter 1: Exploring Web Design with WordPress

Delving Into the Differences Between Blogs and Websites

Using WordPress as a Content Management System

Discovering the World of WordPress Themes

Checking Out Premium WordPress Themes and Frameworks

Getting Your Site Up and Running

Chapter 2: Understanding WordPress Requirements

Establishing Your Domain

Finding a Home for Your Website

Chapter 3: Installing WordPress on Your Web Server

Installing WordPress

Discovering WordPress Release Cycles

Keeping Track of WordPress Development

Chapter 4: Managing Content with WordPress

Archiving Content with WordPress

Customizing Permalinks

Syndicating Your Content with RSS Feeds

Part II: Choosing the Right Tools

Chapter 5: Exploring Editors, Browsers, and FTP

Choosing the Right Text Editor for You

Understanding and Choosing a Web Browser

Introducing File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account

Transferring Files with an FTP Client

Chapter 6: Choosing Graphics and Software Resources

Exploring Image Types and Formats

Exploring Graphic Design Software

Using Online Image-Optimization Tools

Finding Online Image Libraries

Chapter 7: Choosing Colors and Fonts

Understanding Color

Creating Color Schemes with Helpful Tools

Understanding Typography Essentials

Finding and Using Fonts for Graphic Design

Chapter 8: Planning Your Design Strategy

Choosing the Width of Your Website

Choosing the Number of Columns

Determining Website Navigation

Understanding Content Display Options

Testing Your Design in a Sandbox Environment

Part III: Working with WordPress Themes

Chapter 9: Finding and Installing a WordPress Theme

Finding and Installing a Theme from the Theme Directory

Deciding to Use a Premium Theme

Chapter 10: Working with the Default Theme: Twenty Fifteen

Exploring the Layout and Structure

Customizing the Header Image

Uploading Your Own Header Image

Including Custom Navigation Menus

Enhancing Your Website with Widgets

Chapter 11: Dissecting Themes and Templates

Understanding How PHP and MySQL Work Together

Exploring PHP Basics

Managing Your MySQL Database

Viewing the Template Files in a WordPress Theme

Examining the Templates That Make Up a WordPress Theme

Exploring Template Tags, Values, and Parameters

Customizing Your Blog Posts with Template Tags

Putting It All Together

Chapter 12: Displaying Content with Widgets and Template Tags

Exploring Common Template Tags

Adding New Widget Areas to Your Theme

Using Template Files

Adding Theme Support for Built-In Features

Chapter 13: Understanding Parent and Child Themes

Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes

Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes

Preparing a Parent Theme

Part IV: Building Your Custom Website

Chapter 14: Using Basic CSS and HTML to Customize Your Site Design

Styling with CSS: The Basics

Changing the Background Image or Color Used in Your Theme

Defining and Positioning Your Header Image with CSS

Changing Basic Elements to Create a Unique Look for Your Site

Understanding Basic HTML Techniques to Use on Your Site

Chapter 15: Designing for WordPress as a CMS

Creating the Front Page of Your Website

Adding a Blog to Your Website

Creating Custom Page Templates to Achieve Different Layouts and Styles

Creating Different Sidebar and Footer Templates for Your Pages

Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts

Chapter 16: Enhancing Your Website with Plugins

Installing WordPress Plugins via the Dashboard

Installing Plugins Manually

Exploring E-Commerce Plugins to Use on Your Site

Creating Photo Galleries or Portfolios

Creating Web Forms for Your Site with Plugins

Building a Social Community with BuddyPress

Using Plugins to Integrate Popular Social Networks with Your Blog

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Powerful Plugins for WordPress

WordPress SEO

BackupBuddy

WP-Print

AppPresser — Mobile App Framework

Jetpack

Sucuri Sitecheck Malware Scanner

Facebook

WooCommerce

WP Super Cache

Google XML Sitemaps

Chapter 18: Ten Well-Designed Sites That Use WordPress as a CMS

IconDock

Kate Rusby

Katy Perry

LIVESTRONG

Microsoft News Center

Discovery Communications

Time

WebDevStudios

WeGraphics

WordPress.org

Chapter 19: Ten Free WordPress Themes

Hybrid

designPile

Responsive

P2

Annotum Base

Blackbird

iTheme2

Esquire

WP-Creativix

Gridline

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the web. Users of the WordPress platform can easily publish their content on the Internet because of its intuitive user interface. A large segment of the WordPress user community wants to delve a bit deeper into the platform so that they can not only publish content, but also make their websites look fantastic by designing, customizing, and manipulating their WordPress themes. In fact, as a WordPress designer and consultant myself, two of the most frequent questions I hear from my clients are “How can I design my own theme for WordPress?” and “How can I design and build my entire website with WordPress?”

WordPress Web Design For Dummies, 3rd Edition, answers those questions and unlocks the mysteries of designing websites with the WordPress content management system. If you have ever tried to tweak an existing WordPress theme file, or even design your own WordPress theme from scratch, and have found it to be intimidating or too difficult to understand, this book breaks it down for you in a friendly and easy-to-understand manner.

About This Book

This book starts by walking you through the basics of understanding and setting up WordPress so that you can

Understand the fundamental difference between a blog and a website.

Define what a content management system (CMS) is.

Explore different ways that websites use WordPress.

Get to know WordPress basic requirements.

Explore web-hosting recommendations.

Install WordPress on your web server.

Discover ways to publish and manage your content.

In this book, you also discover the right tools to use for publishing and designing with WordPress, including tools that help you

Write and edit code.

Transfer files from your computer to your web server.

Create, edit, and design graphics.

Choose color schemes and fonts.

Plan your design strategy.

WordPress Web Design For Dummies, 3rd Edition, also addresses issues related to web design by walking you through some basic design skills, such as understanding and designing with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML). You also explore basic design concepts, such as color, typography, and layouts.

Finally, this book wouldn’t be complete without in-depth information on using the WordPress technology to create dynamic websites. I introduce templates and themes and explain how to use WordPress template tags to create great features. I show how to use WordPress to build all sorts of websites, such as small business sites, e-commerce sites, photo galleries and portfolios, real-estate sites, social communities and discussion forums, and more.

Foolish Assumptions

I made a few small assumptions, and one very large one, about you while I wrote this book. I want to get the large one out of the way immediately: You already know how to use WordPress.

Yes, that’s right — this book doesn’t show you how to use the WordPress software to publish posts, create categories, or use the Dashboard, for example. I assume you have that knowledge already and you’ve been working with WordPress for at least a few weeks. My other book, WordPress For Dummies (now in its seventh edition), is a fantastic companion to this one because it takes you, starting with step 1, through all the steps you need to know to use WordPress. If you feel you may need a review or a solid introduction to the WordPress software, pick up a copy of that book, too.

I also assume you use the self-hosted version of WordPress that you downloaded from the official WordPress website at https://wordpress.org. The other version of WordPress, the hosted service at https://wordpress.com, is not compatible with the extensive theme customizations and plugin usage and installations discussed in this book. In fact, the hosted service that WordPress offers at https://wordpress.com is not covered in this book.

Other assumptions I make about you include these:

You’re interested in finding out how to tweak and/or build a WordPress theme. This includes aspects of graphic design, CSS, and HTML.

You have a domain name and a hosting account, or you will set them up very soon, as described in

Chapter 2

. (You can’t use the hosted WordPress.com service to accomplish everything I present in this book.)

You’re a savvy Internet user, and you can use the Internet to search for information, download files, and browse websites and blogs.

You have a basic understanding of what blogs are and how people use them to communicate their thoughts and content on the web.

Icons Used in This Book

Icons are those little pictures in the margins of this book that emphasize information that I think you may find helpful, that may be a danger to be aware of, that’s aimed for techies, or that’s a point to remember. Those points are illustrated as follows:

Tips are little bits of information that you may find useful — procedures that aren't necessarily obvious to the casual user or beginner.

When your mother warned you, “Don’t touch that pan — it’s hot!” but you touched it anyway, you discovered the meaning of the word “Ouch!” I use this icon for situations like that.

You don’t need to possess a PhD in computer programming to understand how to build websites using WordPress; however, occasionally the information presented in this book can inch a little more into the geeky side. That’s when I use this icon.

This icon is self-explanatory — I use it next to information I want you to remember and possibly come back to later.

Beyond the Book

To supplement the content in this book, you can find extra content online. Go online to find the following items:

Cheat Sheet:

At

www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/wordpresswebdesign

, you’ll discover WordPress tools and resources, how to use HTML and CSS to customize your theme, how to select image-editing programs for your web design projects, and how to find several resources for WordPress themes.

Dummies.com online articles:

At

www.dummies.com/extras/wordpresswebdesign

, you’ll learn how to find a web host for your WordPress website, explore image types and formats, find out how to use the WP_Query Class to display content on your WordPress site, and enjoy an additional Part of Tens article.

Updates:

Occasionally, Wiley’s technology books are updated. If this book has technical updates, they’ll be posted at

www.dummies.com/extras/wordpresswebdesign

.

Where to Go from Here

This book is a veritable smorgasbord of information, ideas, concepts, tools, resources, and instruction about WordPress web design. Some of it will apply directly to what you want to do with your WordPress blog. Other parts deal with topics that you’re only mildly curious about, so you may want to skim those pages.

I don’t intend for you to read this book from cover to cover (unless you’re my mother — then I won’t forgive you if you don’t). Rather, scan the Table of Contents and the Index of this book to find the information you need.

If you already have WordPress installed on your web server, you can skip Chapter 3. If you have a good understanding of text editors and FTP, you can skip Chapter 5. If don’t want to find out how to apply CSS or HTML to enhance your design, you can skip Chapter 14.

Long story short: Take what you need and leave the rest.

Part I

Establishing a WordPress Foundation

Visit www.dummies.com for more great For Dummies content online.

In this part …

Get an overview of the concepts of WordPress web design, including the basic requirements needed to design with WordPress.

Discover how to install WordPress on your web server.

Explore the different types of content that can be published with WordPress.

Build a solid starting point for designing your website with WordPress.

Chapter 1

Exploring Web Design with WordPress

In This Chapter

Comparing blogs and websites

Introducing WordPress as a content management system (CMS)

Understanding ways to publish content with WordPress

Discovering WordPress free and premium theme options

When you discover that you can build and design more than just a blog with WordPress, you begin to realize the potential of the software and how you can apply it to your website-building efforts. For me, the lightbulb went off in 2005 when my clients came to me wanting more than a blog on their sites. Many of them ran small businesses and needed to add other features to their websites, aside from the chronological display of the blog posts they’d been publishing.

This chapter introduces you to the concept of using WordPress as a content management system (CMS). You find out what CMS really means and see how you can apply it to your own website-designing efforts. You also discover what types of content you can publish with WordPress software and how you can leverage that content to build dynamic websites.

Additionally, this chapter introduces you to the world of WordPress themes — what’s currently available for you to use right away, what you can tweak to your own liking, and what you can research and dig through to discover more about WordPress design and theme building. You find out which themes are free for the taking and which themes cost you money to use. ( The free ones are the best ones to practice with because there’s no cost to you!)