Learning Adventure
Learn WordPress
WordPress is a popular solution for creating blogs and other types of content driven websites. By the end of this Learning Adventure, we'll have our own blog built on the WordPress platform. First, we'll start out by creating a simple website using HTML and CSS, the basic building blocks of any website. Then, we'll learn how to install and setup WordPress, manage content and comments, and customize the design and functionality of a blog.
- Things You'll Learn
- HTML
- CSS
- WordPress
5 badges • 27 videos
-
Overview
How to Make a WordPress Blog
This project will show students how to make a blog using the popular software, WordPress. We will learn how to install and setup WordPress, manage content and comments, and customize the design and functionality of a blog. By the end of the series you should have everything you need to start making your own blog and blogs for other people.
-
Step 1
Getting Started with WordPress
Before we start building our blog, we are going to learn about the software we will be using to make our blog: WordPress. Two versions of WordPress exist, WordPress.com and Wordpress.org. We’ll learn the differences between the two and how to access which is better for a project. Finally we’ll walk through the process for installing WordPress online.
-
Step 2
Configuring WordPress
Once WordPress is installed there are a number of settings in the WordPress admin panel that are important to know about. We’ll talk about each of these as well as suggest default settings to use for a blog. WordPress comes with a built in upgrade feature that we will also discuss.
-
Step 3
Adding and Editing Content
Content is king on the web and knowing how to manage your content in WordPress is essential to running a good site. You’ll learn how to add and edit posts and pages as well as how to best manage categories and tags. We will also take an in depth look at working with media in WordPress.
-
Step 4
Managing Comments
Comments are an essential part of building a community around your blog. They allow readers to respond to your posts and allow you to get an idea of what people think of your content. We’ll look at how to configure and manage comments on your site as well as how to post comments as a visitor and as an admin.
-
Step 5
Customizing WordPress
WordPress offers a range of ways to customize the look and functionality of your blog. Plugins help to extend functionality and themes allow you to change the look of your site. In this series we will explore plugins and themes as well as widgets and how to customize your theme.
5 badges • 17 videos
-
Overview
Build a Simple Website
Smells Like Bakin' is a cupcake company in need of a website. This project will walk us through the basics of HTML and CSS from the very beginning. HTML and CSS are the structural and presentational building blocks of every website and will serve as the foundation for any web project.
-
Step 1
Website Basics
In this first stage, we'll learn about HTML and CSS, which are the building blocks of every website.
-
Step 2
Text Editors and HTML
One of the primary tools that web designers and developers use all the time is called a text editor. We'll use a text editor to write our HTML code, which will describe the structure of our content.
-
Step 3
Creating a Website Structure
HTML describes the structure of content on a web page, but it's also important to define visual structure. Using a CSS grid system, we'll rearrange page elements into an aesthetically pleasing layout.
-
Step 4
Styling Content
Grid CSS can help layout webpages visually, but to add more customizations like fonts and background colors, we will need to write our own CSS code. CSS also allows for borders, margin, padding, and much more.
-
Step 5
Launching the Website
Now that we're finished coding our website, it's time to deploy it live to the web. This involves several steps, including purchasing a domain and hosting. Then, we'll use the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to put our files onto our server.
7 badges • 42 videos
-
Overview
Build a Simple PHP Application
This project will show you how to build an e-commerce store in the PHP programming language. By the end, you'll be able to build an online t-shirt store that can display inventory items and take orders via PayPal.
-
Step 1
Getting Started with PHP
The browser can understand HTML and CSS all by itself, but we’ll need a little bit more sophisticated setup to handle PHP. We’ll get familiar with what PHP code looks like and where it can run, exploring the differences between a client-side language and a server-side language. We’ll walk step by step through installing everything you’ll need to run PHP code, and we’ll end with a simple but functioning PHP script.
-
Step 2
Creating the Menu and Footer
Our product catalog website will have a number of pages, but the pages share a few common elements like the top navigation menu and the footer. We’ll build these shared elements into a set of template files, using basic programming concepts like variables and conditionals to make it all work.
-
Step 3
Adding a Contact Form
PHP does more than just make a set of HTML files easier to maintain. It also adds advanced functionality to a site that HTML and CSS alone cannot achieve, like sending an email. We’ll create a contact form for our website, allowing users to enter a message into an HTML form and then using PHP to process the form submission.
-
Step 4
Listing Inventory Items
Our product catalog contains quite a bit of information, too much to fit in simple variables. A PHP array will be perfect for the task, and we’ll explore all the ins and outs of working with arrays to store sets of related data. We’ll also use the data from the array to populate our main Shirts page that shows a list of all the products in our catalog.
-
Step 5
Integrating with PayPal
Each shirt in our catalog has its own individual page, and we’ll build out a new template for all of those pages that integrates with Paypal. PayPal offers services that provide an easy way to handle a shopping cart and payments. We’ll walk through the steps of setting up a new PayPal account. We’ll cover how to customize the cart and checkout pages, and we’ll get the form code necessary to integrate the Add to Cart buttons into our store.
-
Step 6
Working With Functions
The home page of our website displays a small subset of the products, but the layout should be the same as the Shirts Listing page. We’ll work with PHP functions, blocks of code that can be called from other blocks of code, to make sure that products are displayed the same across all list pages. PHP comes with a large number of native functions, but it also provides a way to create our own.
-
Step 7
Wrapping Up The Project
We have a few items left to wrap up the project, tightening the integration with PayPal and sending the email from our contact form. We’ll discuss how to deploy the site, objects in PHP, and third-party libraries. At the end of this stage, we’ll have a fully-functional ecommerce website.
3 badges • 19 videos
-
Overview
How to Build a WordPress Theme
The WordPress content management system powers a significant percentage of popular web sites on the web. It can be used to create anything from simple blogs and brochure web sites, complex web sites like social networking sites or e-commerce web sites. In this project we will learn how to build a custom portfolio website starting from an HTML prototype. You will need to know basic HTML and CSS and some PHP is recommended. You should also know the content in the How to Build a WordPress Blog project.
-
Step 1
Content Strategy with WordPress
Content is at the core of any web site. Whether photos on a photography site, text on a blog or example projects on a portfolio site, we always want to build around our content. In this video we will cover how to audit and gather content, identify post types and custom fields, and setup the admin area for adding and editing content.
-
Step 2
WordPress Theme Templates
With WordPress theme templates, you can control how different parts of your site look. That can mean controlling templates for generic pages or identifying custom templates needed for development. In this stage I'll explain how WordPress templates work, which ones we need, and what we need to do to get our project theme installed and ready for development.
-
Step 3
WordPress Theme Functions
WordPress theme functions, tags, and variables are special PHP code used to build dynamic sites with WordPress. Many of these functions are used in conjunction with the WordPress loop, which displays the majority of a site's content. In this series we'll get started with the fundamentals of WordPress theme development by looking at the actual code used to build themes.
-
Stage Coming Soon
Preparing to Code WordPress Templates
In order to build a WordPress theme you must learn how to properly link to CSS, JavaScript and image files from within our theme templates. In this video we will give an overview of the HTML template, add some basic title tags and then go over in depth how to link to our assets. By the end of the video we will be ready to start doing the heavy coding of our main theme templates.
-
Stage Coming Soon
Converting Static HTML into WordPress Templates
The process of converting a static, HTML, CSS, and JS site into a working WordPress theme is the primary domain of a WordPress theme developer. The process involves setting up include files, linking up assets, and then converting static content into dynamic WordPress tags and functions. In this series we will walk through the process of converting our static site into a working WordPress theme. By the end of the stage you should have a solid understanding of how to convert a static prototype into a dynamic WordPress theme.
-
Stage Coming Soon
Extending WordPress Template Functionality
WordPress template functionality can go far beyond just displaying page and post content. In this series we will look at how to add custom content to custom locations on your site, create widgetable areas, and even add a jQuery slideshow to the homepage. By the end of the series you should have experience extending basic template functionality beyond the basic loop.
-
Stage Coming Soon
WordPress and Forms
Forms are essential for allowing for user interaction on your site. From contact and comment forms to more custom forms that allow for user submitted data, it’s important a WordPress developer knows how to create and manage forms on a site. In this series we will talk about WordPress’s default form capabilities and then explore other options for adding forms. By the end of the series you will be able to add custom forms to your WordPress site.
-
Stage Coming Soon
Launching A WordPress Site
Once the development process for a site is complete, the final step is to launch the site live online. Knowing how to launch a WordPress site or migrate a WordPress site from one place to another is an essential skill for a WordPress developer. In this series we will go over the process for successfully moving a site onto a live server and preparing it for the public. By the end of the video you should be able to successfully launch your WordPress site from your local server to one online.
The Finish Line!
If you've made it this far, congratulations! If you think you're up for it, why not check out the related bonus content or take on another Learning Adventure?
767 people have joined this Learning Adventure!
Recently Joined
-
fair isle
-
Scott Schulte
-
Jeff Chen
-
Tina Kim
-
Montensia Banks
-
Paulo Munera
-
Antonio Elena
-
Joshua Nicholson
-
Caleb Abraham
-
Tassilo Dietze
-
Waylon Brown
-
Erik Ortega
-
Timothy Rimnac
-
William Russell
-
Benjamin Karabay
-
Kaia Greene
-
Jake Davis
-
Jason Niebauer
-
Shannon Scanlan
-
Krista Brandon
-
Valerie Ennis
-
S A Steer-Courtenay
-
Carmina De la Pena
-
Jessica Sideways
-
Jared Verbeke
