Week One: WordPress Essential Training 1–5
How do you begin creating a WordPress site on your own server?
Download WordPress application from wordpress.org. Create a new MySQL database and database user on your server. Use an FTP client to connect to the database and upload WordPress onto the server. Connect the database to WordPress and look, you have a editable WordPress site connected to your domain name.
In your own words, what is the difference between posts and pages?
A post is a section of information, including but not limited to, text, images, hyperlinks, video and other information. Posts are time stamped and are organized by the date published, usually in reverse chronological order allowing for the latest post to show first. Posts will also provide the author of the information and can be organized by author. And ofcourse, posts can be commented upon by visitors to the site. A page also contains information, including but not limited to, text, images, hyperlinks, video and other information. Where a page differs is that it is not time stamped, there is no author and no commenting or sorting going on. A page is a static permanent spot on your site like a contact page or FAQ. In this way a page is most comparable to the html pages we created in Web Design class.
In your own words, what is the difference between categories and tags?
Categories are a broad grouping of similar items where the sheer number of items make them something that would require primary navigation. Think departments in a store. Tags, while also being a way to group similar items, focuses on the smaller details. In the store analogy, a tag for instance would be individual candy bars. They are an item that though part of the grocery department don’t deserve their own department and also can be found in multiple places around the store, not just in the grocery section. Like that a tag could group items that are in multiple categories.
a. Give an example of categories you may have on your site.
If I were to make all the book information as posts, I could do away with the secondary and tertiary navigation lists and instead organize the information into catagories.
b. Give an example of how you would use tags on your site if you feel you will need to.
One example would be if I were to make the “Other Books” summaries as posts, then I would include tags for the characters mentioned within the summaries.
What are “excerpts”?
A small sampling of the post that is often seen when on index pages or searches. By default the excerpts are certain number of characters from the beginning of the post. However, you can customize the excerpt to read whatever you want like a summary of the post. This excerpt is also what people will see if a link to your post has been posted on another site.
How do you add an image to a page on your site?
While in the page editor, click “add media” and then upload the image you want for the page. Once uploaded, you can add a title, caption and alt text for the image as well as specify alignment, size and what happens when the image is clicked.
What is the difference between a featured image and an image within the main text editor?
A featured image is ONE image that you want associated with the post you are writing. There can be only one featured image per post, while you can add as many regular images inside of a post as you want. The emphasis of the featured image is dependent on your theme, and clicking on the image will bring you to the full post. The featured image will also be the image displayed if someone posts a link to your post on social media sites.
How would you embed a video from YouTube onto your site?
Simply copy the url from the Youtube video you want and paste it into the editor. In the case of Youtube videos, the editor does all the work of getting the video and embedding it onto your site.
Explain the difference between the different page (published, draft, etc) statuses. Explain why you might use each state.
All pages and posts start out as “drafts” which are editable and unseen by the public. Once a page/post is ready to meet the public it is “published”. You can also switch a published page/post back to a draft and vice versa if you need to edit it or just don’t want it to be visible to the public for whatever reason. The “pending review” status is often set as the default for outside contributor’s posts so the admin can decide whether they should be seen by the public and publishes.
What is the “more” tag used for?
If you are referring to the “read more” feature, it is a way of shortening the amount of a post that is initially seen on an index page in order to save the reader from having to scroll through the entire length of the post to see the following posts. Pressing on the “read more” link will forward the reader to the full post.
Why is it important to use page templates?
Page templates are the visual look and feel of your site. The use of templates is important to maintain a consistent branding through your site.
What is page hierarchy?
The page hierarchy used in WordPress is a parent/child hierarchy. What that means is the a page could work almost as a folder containing other pages. In the context of my Web Design 1 site, a parent page would be the “characters” page while it’s children would be the pages for the individual characters. And the character page, even though it is a parent to the individual character pages, could be a child of the “book” page.