WordPress: The Missing Manual

613 Pages·2014·51.29 MB·English

WordPress
The book that should have been in the box®
Matthew MacDonald
Beijing | Cambridge | Farnham | Köln | Sebastopol | Tokyo
WordPress: The Missing Manual
by Matthew MacDonald
Copyright © 2014 Matthew MacDonald. All rights reserved.
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July 2014: First Edition.
Revision History for the First Edition:
2014-06-17 First release
See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449341909 for release details.
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ISBN-13: 978-1-449-34190-9
[QG]
Contents
The Missing Credits ....................................... vii
Introduction ............................................... ix
About This Book ....................................................x
About the Outline ..................................................xii
About the Online Resources ........................................ xiii
Using Code Examples ............................................. xiv
Safari® Books Online .............................................. xiv
Part One: Starting Out with WordPress
CHAPTER 1: The WordPress Landscape. ................................ 3
How WordPress Works ..............................................4
What You Can Build with WordPress ..................................7
WordPress Hosting ................................................ 17
CHAPTER 2: Signing Up with WordPress.com. ......................... 23
Choosing a Web Address ...........................................24
Creating Your WordPress.com Account ...............................26
Managing Your New Site ............................................34
Exploring the WordPress.com Community ............................38
Visiting the WordPress.com Store. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
CHAPTER 3: Installing WordPress on Your Web Host .................. 49
Preparing for WordPress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Installing WordPress with an Autoinstaller ............................55
Installing WordPress by Hand .......................................69
Keeping WordPress Up to Date ......................................79
Part Two: Building a WordPress Blog
CHAPTER 4: Creating Posts ............................................ 85
Introducing the Dashboard ..........................................85
Adding Your First Post .............................................94
Organizing Your Posts .............................................106
iii
How to Get High-Quality Web Addresses .............................115
Dashboard Tricks to Save Time and Effort ...........................123
CHAPTER 5: Choosing and Polishing Your Theme. ..................... 131
How Themes Work ................................................132
Choosing a New Theme ............................................136
Tweaking Your Theme .............................................144
Customizing Your Widgets .........................................154
Mobile Themes ...................................................168
CHAPTER 6: Jazzing Up Your Posts .................................... 171
Making Fancier Posts ...............................................171
Adding Pictures ..................................................180
Featured Images ..................................................190
Showing Part of a Post ............................................195
Post Formats .....................................................202
CHAPTER 7: Adding Pages and Menus ................................ 207
Creating Pages .................................................. 208
Viewing Pages .....................................................211
Custom Menus ....................................................218
Changing Your Home Page .........................................228
Page Templates ...................................................233
CHAPTER 8: Comments: Letting Your Readers Talk Back. ............. 239
Allowing or Forbidding Comments ................................. 240
The Life Cycle of a Comment .......................................242
The Ongoing Conversation .........................................253
Making Comments More Personal ...................................262
Stamping Out Comment Spam .....................................273
Part Three: Supercharging Your Blog
CHAPTER 9: Getting New Features with Plug-Ins ..................... 285
Managing Plug-Ins ................................................286
The Jetpack Plug-In ...............................................297
Adding Mobile Support ............................................307
Backing Up a WordPress Site ........................................311
Better Performance with Caching ...................................316
iv COnTenTs
CHAPTER 10: Adding Picture Galleries, Video, and Music .............. 323
Understanding Embeds and Shortcodes .............................323
Showing Groups of Pictures ....................................... 330
Embedding a Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Playing Audio Files ............................................... 360
CHAPTER 11: Collaborating with Multiple Authors. .................... 369
Adding People to Your Site ........................................369
Working with Authors .............................................378
Building a Private Community ..................................... 394
Creating a Network of Sites ........................................399
CHAPTER 12: Attracting a Crowd. ....................................... 411
Encouraging Your Readers to Share .................................412
Keeping Readers in the Loop .......................................423
Managing Your Site’s Feed .........................................433
Search Engine Optimization ........................................437
WordPress Site Statistics ......................................... 444
Part Four: From Blog to Website
CHAPTER 13: Editing Themes: The Key to Customizing Your Site....... 453
The Goal: More Flexible Blogs and Sites ............................ 454
Taking Control of Your Theme ......................................459
Protecting Yourself with a Child Theme ..............................462
Editing the Styles in Your Theme .................................. 468
Editing the Code in Your Theme ................................... 485
CHAPTER 14: Building an Advanced WordPress Site ................... 505
Planning Your Site ............................................... 505
Adding New Types of Posts ........................................510
Creating Custom Category Pages ...................................519
Building a Better Home Page .......................................527
Making a Smarter Product Page ....................................534
Adding eCommerce ...............................................542
Part Five: Appendixes
APPENDIX A: Migrating from WordPress.com. ......................... 553
Before You Begin .................................................554
Transferring Your Data ............................................554
Cleaning Up Your New Site ........................................ 560
COnTenTs v
APPENDIX B: Securing a Self-Hosted Site. ............................. 563
1. Crash-Proof Your Site with Backups .............................. 564
2. Change Your Posting Account ................................... 564
3. Be Cautious When Extending Your Site ............................565
4. Prevent Password-Guessing Attacks ............................ 566
5. Hide Passwords with SSL ........................................568
APPENDIX C: Useful Websites. ......................................... 571
Chapter Links. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
Index..................................................... 581
vi COnTenTs
The Missing Credits
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew MacDonald is a science and technology writer with well
over a dozen books to his name. Web novices can tiptoe out onto
the Internet with him in Creating a Website: The Missing Manual.
HTML fans can learn about the cutting edge of web design in HTML5:
The Missing Manual. And human beings of all description can dis-
cover just how strange they really are in the quirky handbooks Your
Brain: The Missing Manual and Your Body: The Missing Manual.
ABOUT THE CREATivE TEAM
Peter McKie (editor) lives in New York City and, in his spare time, archives material
chronicling the history of his summer community. Email: [email protected].
Melanie Yarbrough (production editor) lives and works in Cambridge, MA, where
she writes and bakes whatever she can dream up. Email: [email protected].
Ron Strauss (indexer) specializes in the indexing of information technology publica-
tions of all kinds. Ron is also an accomplished classical violist and lives in Northern
California with his wife and fellow indexer, Annie, and his miniature pinscher, Kanga.
Email: [email protected].
Julie Van Keuren (proofreader) quit her newspaper job in 2006 to move to Montana
and live the freelancing dream. She and her husband (who is living the novel-writing
dream) have two hungry teenage sons. Email: [email protected].
Sallie Goetsch (technical reviewer) (rhymes with “sketch”) hand-coded her first
website in HTML in 1995, but hasn’t looked back since discovering WordPress in
2005. She works as an independent consultant and organizes the East Bay WordPress
Meetup in Oakland, California. You can reach her at www.wpfangirl.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
No author could complete a book without a small army of helpful individuals. I’m
deeply indebted to the whole Missing Manual team, including expert tech reviewer
Sallie Goetsch, my editor Peter McKie, and numerous others who’ve toiled behind
the scenes indexing pages, drawing figures, and proofreading the final copy.
Finally, for the parts of my life that exist outside this book, I’d like to thank all my
family members. They include my parents, Nora and Paul; my extended parents, Razia
and Hamid; my wife, Faria; and my daughters, Maya and Brenna. Thanks, everyone!
THe MIssInG CReDITs vii
THE MiSSiNG MANUAL SERiES
Missing Manuals are witty, superbly written guides to computer products that don’t
come with printed manuals (which is just about all of them). Each book features a
handcrafted index.
Recent and upcoming titles include:
WordPress: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Matthew MacDonald
iPhoto: The Missing Manual by David Pogue and Lesa Snider
iWork: The Missing Manual by Jessica Thornsby and Josh Clark
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mavericks Edition by David Pogue
OS X Mavericks: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
HTML5: The Missing Manual, Second Edition by Matthew MacDonald
Dreamweaver CC: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland and Chris Grover
Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual by David Pogue
iPad: the Missing Manual, Sixth Edition by J.D. Biersdorfer
Quickbooks 2014: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
iPhone: the Missing Manual, Seventh Edition by David Pogue
Photoshop Elements 12: The Missing Manual by Barbara Brundage
Galaxy S4: The Missing Manual by Preston Gralla
Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual by Lesa Snider
Office 2013: The Missing Manual by Nancy Connor and Matthew MacDonald
Excel 2013: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
Microsoft Project 2013: The Missing Manual by Bonnie Biafore
Access 2013: The Missing Manual by Matthew MacDonald
For a full list of all Missing Manuals in print, go to www.missingmanuals.com/
library.html.
viii THe MIssInG CReDITs